I have a new love

...and her name is Betty Crocker.

I've had the worst luck with cookies lately. I couldn't figure out why - I'm not a completely inept individual, I can follow a recipe. I used to be able to make good cookies. But for months now, every time I bake them, they spread way out into flat little cookie-flavoured pancakes. It's really no wonder we usually just eat the dough raw (yummm).

I wanted real cookies last night, so brilliant me figured it was probably time to find another recipe, since the one I was using was clearly not working for me. Fortunately, my MIL had bought me a cookbook for Christmas last year (no, I wasn't insulted - but my husband tells me she was worried I would be!). It's a wonderful Betty Crocker cookbook. It has so many useful things, like the basic way to cook vegetables, how to identify all sorts of different veggies and spices and whatnot, what to substitute if you don't have a particular ingredient on hand, and what the problem may have been if your baking didn't turn out quite right. So useful.


So I flipped to the chocolate chip cookie recipe, noticed that it had quite a bit more flour and one less egg than the recipe I was using (gee, you think that might have been my problem?), whipped up a batch of cookies, waited anxiously for them to finish baking...and ended up with this:


Deliciously plump chocolate chip cookies.

I won't tell you how many of them I ate.


Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 egg
2 1/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (optional)
1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)


1. Heat oven to 375ºF.

2. Mix sugars, butter and egg in large bowl. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips.

3. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet.

4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown (centers will be soft). Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.