Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh, have I got a funny story about these cookies...but the recipe first:
Preheat your oven to 375F
Please have all your ingredients at room temp. Believe me this makes a difference, but even if you don't you still get pretty decent cookies.

5 oz butter (or half butter half shortening)
4 oz sugar
4oz brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
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3 oz eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
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10 oz cake/pastry flour (all purpose will be fine too)
1/2 tsp. baking soda
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10 oz chocolate chips
4 oz walnuts, chopped

Alright. Now relax. I know this recipe is by weight. The thing about baking is it has to be precise. It is a delicate balancing act here, and you need to be careful. A food scale is a huge help and it doesn't have to be fancy. If you don't have one and want to make cookies NOW! any recipe will do, just follow these directions:

Now if you have a mixer, put the butter and the sugars in the bowl and beat those suckers together until light and fluffy (its called creaming). Then add the eggs and vanilla until the eggs are fully incorporated.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking soda together, or you can sift it together if you want. Gradually add the flour/baking soda mix into the wet ingredients. Try not to over stir this, just thrown in about half of the flour, mix until it's absorbed. then thrown in the other half and mix until combined.

You don't have to add walnuts if you don't want, and I don't so because they make me itchy. Anywho, toss in the chocolate chips and nuts, and stir in for about 30 seconds.

Now, if you have a cookie scoop yay! If not, no worries use a regular spoon!  When you drop the cookies onto your cookie sheet, flatten out the cookie with your fingers (dipping them in water is very helpful). If they are all roughly the same shape and thickness you won't burn anything so much. Give these guys space as well. I've found that not doing even rows helps them brown much more consistently. So for instance, you can fit 4 cookies on your first row, only put three in the next. Bake for about 8-10 minutes, and let them cool a bit before you move them to a cookie rack or plate. Enjoy.

My funny story: Of everything I've ever done in culinary school the biggest failure I ever had was with chocolate chip cookies. Yes, little ol' chocolate chip cookies. I failed my practical final so profoundly that the chef I had told his other classes about me. That bad.

That was a while ago and I have made many successful batches before and since then so have trust that I know what I'm doing. I'm sharing this with you so know that I screw things up. A LOT and OFTEN. And so can you! It's called learning!