COOKIES

shirit

ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar, preferably dark brown
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt (1/2 tsp if using salted butter)
2 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 350g package Chipits semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 300g package Chipits milk chocolate chips

directions

1
CREAM together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla.
2
MIX dry ingredients together, add to creamed mixture and mix just until blended (overmixing makes tough cookies).
3
ADD chocolate chips, stir until evenly incorporated into batter.
4
SCOOP dough in balls about the size of a ping pong ball (a small ice cream scoop helps -- keep dipping it in flour to avoid sticking). Roll each ball smooth in your hand (dipping hands in flour helps), place on ungreased baking sheet and flatten slightly. Each unbaked cookie will be about 1-1/2 inches in diameter.
5
OR divide dough into four pieces. Roll each piece into a log, about 1-1/2 inch in diameter, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate logs for about an hour, slice each log into 12 pieces, shape each cookie into a flattened disc as above, and bake as directed.
6
OR MY FAVORITE METHOD NOW – MAKES PERFECTLY UNIFORM COOKIES: Roughly flatten dough between two pieces of parchment or waxed paper, about an inch thick. Refrigerate about an hour – you can refrigerate longer, but you may have to leave dough out for a while to make it easier to handle. You want it firm but not rock solid! Remove dough from fridge, roll out or pat to about 3/4 inch thickness. Cut with 1-1/2 inch round cookie cutter, dipping in flour after every one or two cookies. Reroll scraps and continue shaping cookies until all dough is finished.
7
FREEZE shaped cookies on ungreased cookie sheets until rock solid (several hours or overnight), then place in sealed bags and refreeze until ready to bake fresh.
8
IF you want to bake them right away, freeze the dough for at least 30 minutes after shaping cookies -- they keep a more uniform shape that way.
9
TO BAKE: Preheat oven to 350F. Place cookies 2 inches apart on heavy baking sheet lined with parchment (or two sheets, stacked, if your pans are thin), and bake only one sheet at a time (unless you are using a convection oven) just below centre of oven. Bake for 10 minutes at 350F, then reduce heat to 300F for another 5 minutes. Check cookies at this stage -- if they’re still pale, return them to the oven for another 2-3 minutes. Finished cookies should be medium brown -- if they get dark brown, the bottoms will be burned.
10
VARIATION – WHITE CHOCOLATE MACADAMIA NUT COOKIES: Replace chocolate chips with 1 package white chocolate chips and 1 to 2 cups chopped or halved macadamia nuts.
11
VARIATION – OATMEAL SKOR COOKIES (aka CEREAL KILLER COOKIES): Replace chocolate chips with three packages Chipits Skor Toffee bits. These cookies spread like crazy, so make sure they are at least two inches apart on the cookie sheet, and start watching them after about two minutes of the 300F baking stage – the Skor bits are high in fat and sugar, so the cookies can go from perfect to burned very quickly. You can use two packages of Skor bits and they won’t spread so much, but you won’t get that incredible creamy, toffee wallop.