Did you know that a chocolate chip cookie could change your life?
Jane asked me to make Chocolate Chip Cookies for a PTA meeting she was attending this week, so why not kill two birds with one stone and use them for the blog as well. By chance, I began watching the documentary "I AM", by Tom Shadyac on Netflix while the cookies were baking. In brief, it asks questions about what makes us happy, how we are wired and how it could affect the way we CHOOSE to live.
Through interviews with scientists, philosophers, psychologists, poets and spiritualists it conveys the message that we are making enormous mistakes. Mistakes made because we are being misdirected to the understanding of what is important in life. By understanding and realizing how much we are interconnected with everything and everyone around us, it suggests that we have the power to fundamentally change the world the way it is to the way it was DESIGNED to be. So what does this have to do with a chocolate chip cookie you ask?
Well, although just a simple sweet, a chocolate chip cookie has earned its place of honor in the culinary world. Who doesn't like a chocolate chip cookie? It brings joy and a smile to our face every time we bite into one. Smiles are infectious and can spread from one person to another. So may I suggest the following:
Make some time to watch the movie.
Think about what you just saw and let it sink in.
Bake a batch of cookies and share them with your friends. More importantly, share them with the meanest, grumpiest, most unlikely to be your best friend person you know and begin to change the world by one simple gesture. Who knows where it might lead? Maybe, just maybe, a simple chocolate chip cookie can re-boot the child in us and allow us to see the world through a child's point of view unhindered by what we've learned and make right what has been wronged.
“Remember, the sea is really only drops of water that have come together.”
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Quantity: about 2 dozen depending on their size
Oven Temperature: 350ºF
Cooking Time: 16 to 18 minutes
Equipment
Mixer fitted with paddle
Measuring spoons and cups
Bowls
Spatula
½-size sheet pans or cookie sheets
Parchment paper
Ingredients
AP Flour 2 1/2 cups
Salt 1 1/4 tsp.
Baking Soda 3/4 tsp.
Butter 7 oz
Sugar 3/4 cup
Brown Sugar 1/2 cup
Eggs 2
Vanilla Extract 2 tsp.
Chocolate Chips 1 3/4 cups
Procedure
In a bowl combine the flour, baking soda and chocolate chips. Set aside.
Cream the butter, sugar and salt.
Combine the eggs and vanilla. Add the mixture to the butter in 3 additions scraping down the sides of the bowl in between each addition. Mix until incorporated.
With mixer set on low speed, add the dry ingredients and chips. Mix until it all comes together.
I use a #30 ice cream scoop or 1 ¾ diameter scoop to scale out the cookies. That’s roughly a ball that is 1 ½-inches in diameter. Place them on a parchment lined sheet pan and bake them in a 350° F oven for about 16 to 18 minutes. Bake the cookies until the center are beginning to brown. (I also like to double up the sheet pans or use Air Bake cookies sheets to keep the bottoms from getting to dark.)
Cool on them on a wire rack.
They are ready to eat. Yea!!!
