Chocolate Chip Cookie Perfection

Warning! This blog post contains gluten. My apologies.

I've made a lot of cookies over the years.

I mean a lot, a lot.

From after school snacks for the kiddos to fundraising cookie sales.

Did I mention I've made a LOT of cookies??

For a few years I even ran a small business selling my cookies.

Yep, a LOT of cookies!

I've often been asked if I would be willing to share my secret chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Well, there is no secret chocolate chip cookie recipe. I have always honestly shared that I use Nestle Tollhouse morsels, and I have always used the Nestle Toll House recipe. 

It has always surprised me when I receive a look of shock at this news and hear, "Mine don't turn out that way!"

So my friends, I'm going to share with you my tips for making the perfect Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookies.*

Nestle Toll House recipe

21/4 cup Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs (I always, ALWAYS, use jumbo size eggs!)
2 cups Toll House semi sweet morsels (I always, ALWAYS! Use 2 cups of chocolate chips! I never, NEVER, use just the 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips! I always use 2 heaping cups of chocolate chips!)
1 large portion of love! (my girls like this part the best!)

The recipe calls for softened butter. Do not allow the butter to get too soft.

When the butter gives slightly, it is soft. In moderate temps, it only takes about 20 minutes for butter to be softened once removed from the fridge. If the temps are high, and humidity is high you want to watch that the butter does not get too soft. If the butter happens to get too soft, say because you get distracted by your children or The Ellen show (could happen), set the butter in the fridge to firm up slightly. 

Cut the butter into chunks and place in mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl combine flour, salt, and baking soda.

I have found that my cookies will turn out with less than desirable results if I use any flour other than Pillsbury flour. I will always, ALWAYS, use Pillsbury flour to make cookies! I highly recommend you do the same.

Pack the flour into the measuring cup. Yes, that's right, I pack my flour.

You're thinking...WHAT??

Do it.

I'm just saying'.

Scoop the measuring cups to overflowing, gently press the flour into the measuring cup, and scrape flat.

When placed into the bowl the flour will hold the shape of the measuring cup.

Trust me! This is especially important when the weather is humid!

Add to the flour the salt and baking soda.

Stir to combine.

In the mixing bowl, add to the butter the granulated and brown sugars.

Mix until combined.

It will look like this.

Add in vanilla and jumbo eggs. Mix well.

Once eggs and vanilla are mixed in, slowly add in the flour mixture one large spoonful at a time, scraping sides of the bowl as needed.

Once all of the flour has been added the dough will look like this.

The dough will be stiff. You will likely need to stir in the last of the flour by hand.

Once the flour is completely incorporated, add in the chocolate chips, 1 heaping cup at a time.

I use my mixer.

OH YEAH!!

Drop dough in spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet.

I highly recommend using dark, nonstick, jellyroll pans for baking your cookies. Mine are Target, CHEFS brand. My baking pans are getting old, but they still make the best cookies. Trust me! The kind of pan you use can alter the way your cookies bake.

If you find that the cookie dough is a little too soft, and sticky, place the pan of unbaked cookie dough drops into the fridge to chill for a few minutes.

Place the pans of cookie dough drops into a preheated 375˚ oven. Bake for 81/2 minutes. Yes, only 81/2 minutes! Check the cookies after 81/2 minutes. If they have slightly golden tops they are done! If the tops are not yet golden, bake for 30 seconds longer.

Immediately, and very gently remove cookies from baking pan. Allow to cool on a cooling rack.

Perfect!!

And there my friends is the love!

It doesn't get any better than that!

Unless you add ice cream!

Perfection kicked up a notch!! 

I think you just drooled a little. No worries! I completely understand!!

Christine

 * The views and opinions expressed in this blog post as to what is the perfect chocolate chip cookie are the views and opinions of the blogger only and may not be the views and opinions of anyone else.

A Note of Thanks

I'm doing a happy dance!!

My domain name, unexpecteddaisies.com, has been restored! Hurray!!

It could not have happened without the help of Mauro from Google's customer service.

Mauro walked me through accessing a Google admin account that I didn't know I had, and once I learned I had the account, I couldn't access on my own. Eh hem. Not super tech savvy on my part. Yep, I'm very thankful that the Husband provides my tech support!! Love him!!

He made note of the emails back and forth between me and Google as the husband and I struggled to sort out renewing the unexpecteddaisies.com domain name, prior to the domain's expiration date and after Google made changes to handling domain names. Again couldn't access the necessary account. Bah!

Mauro noted that we were making an effort to renew the domain, but repeatedly received instructions from Google support that didn't work to allow access to previously unknown about account. Double bah!

He then gave my case priority status to get things resolved and restore the domain name. He also kindly mentioned that I wasn't the only one who was struggling with this issue. Yep, my domain name wasn't the only one that was locked up. My lack of techability, (that's right, I'm making up my own word here) my lack of techabilty wasn't completely to blame. Whew!!

I would say that it was my lucky day when Mauro was put on this case!!

Thank you, thank you Mauro!! You're the best!!

And I shall now blog happily ever after!

Christine

Could it be?

Today the rain is falling.

The snow is slowly, oh so slowly, melting.

Great puddles are forming.

I may have done a little splashing.

Is it possible?

Could it be??

Spring, is that you??

Christine

The Glitch

So there are some changes Google has made,

now my blog is difficult to get to I'm afraid.

Unexpecteddaisies.com won't link to my site,

I'm just going to say, "That's not right!"

The Husband has been trying frantically to get it sorted out, 

but getting little better than the runaround has made me want to shout!

Never fear,

for the time being you can keep up with the current posts here...unexpecteddaisies.blogspot.com. 

My hope is that all will be set right anon.

Until then, I will take a few deep breaths and try to...

Christine

Chicken Keeping During a Polar Vortex

Who knew that the year we decided to become urban chicken farmers we would experience a Polar Vortex Winter. 

A Polar Vortex Winter that brought 3 miserable stretches of cold as well as a significant amount of snow accumulation. Both of which caused a total of 6 days of school cancellations! -What What??- 

It's been a 10 layers of clothing wearing, ton of snow shoveling, I'd rather be hibernating, crazy long winter!

Never in all my days!

I do enjoy saying Polar Vortex Winter though. I say it like a badge of honor, "That's right, I survived the Polar Vortex Winter! Oh yeah, I'm bad! Mm Hmmm!" 

And much to our great relief, the chickens survived too! Whoop Whoop!! Oh did we had our concerns.

We did a lot of research and the consensus seemed to be that heating the chicken coop was not a good idea. Most of what we found indicated that it's best to purchase winter hardy birds and allow them to acclimate to the cold weather. 

The idea that the chickens would be able to acclimate to winter temps made us nervous, but the Husband and I decided it was best to listen to the experts. 

We were nervous about normal winter temps, the Polar Vortex temps had us completely stressed out!

We expected to find chicken popcycles on more than one occasion throughout this winter, but the girls came through it like troopers. They spent most of the winter with feathers fluffed up, snuggled together on a perch. Much to my surprise, they continued, though sporadically, to lay eggs all through the winter. 
-Woohoo-

The easiest part of chicken keeping through the winter was coop cleaning! Everything freezes solid in winter, including chicken poop. Makes for very easy clean up! It only takes about 15 minutes a day to clean out the coop. While this wasn't a chore anyone relished doing when it was 40 below it was definitely a chore we were glad to be able to complete quickly!

The most difficult part of chicken keeping in the winter, egg collecting! Because there is less sunlight throughout the winter days, and we did not choose to supplement light in the coop, the chickens laid less frequently, and less consistently, meaning several trips to check for eggs throughout the day. -BRRR- And if eggs are not collected in a timely manner in winter they freeze. A frozen egg is a cracked egg. A cracked egg is one less egg to enjoy or give to a friend. -bummer-

The most difficult part of winter for the chickens, being cooped up. Ha ha, but really. They are getting desperate to run and play in the garden! It's been difficult to find ways to  keep them entertained in the confined space of the coop run. Chickens who get bored have a tendency to pick on their coop mates, and pluck at their feathers.

This is our offender. We know she is our offender because she is the only one who has all of her feathers intact! 
-naughty!-

In an effort to keep the girls entertained I've strung up veggies for them to eat and I've added some logs to the coop run for them to perch on or scratch at. I've even filled an empty Planters nut container with scratch grains, punching holes in the sides so the girls can work the grains out of the container to keep busy.

Mostly all of these efforts just made them scared. They hid in the coop house. So much for that!

What they really need is for the snow in the garden to melt away so they can get outside to play. Not to mention the snow on the coop roof.

It has been slowly sliding its way off the roof toward the garden.

CRAZY!

There is no way we will be letting the chickens into the garden to play until this snow wave has crashed!

These girls did not make it through the Polar Vortex Winter just to get crushed under all of this snow!!

Christine

An Eclectic Collection of Photos

As I scrolled through my iPhone photos the other day, I discovered I have a very eclectic collection. Hmmm weird!

Lets see...

There are the goofy photos.

Who doesn't need a curly fry mustache?

Doesn't everyone make this face when they drink their Starbucks??

Buried in the sand? Oh yeah!!

In a bucket? Of course!

You know there are photos of our chickens and their eggs. 

I can tell you for certain, the chicken photos came first.

Then the eggs!

There are the disgruntled it's-still-a-Polar-Vortex-Winter photos.

So ding dang cold!!

Oh yay, more snow. -snort-

At least there's lots of "car poop" to kick off the wheel wells. My favorite winter sport!!

I'm melting...melting... It's about time!

And there are more goofy photos!

There are just no words, only laughter!! 

And oh are there photos of food!!! Yu-um!!

BEST salad EVER!!! Highly addictive.

Cupcakes!!

Oh yeah, maple bacon cornbread. Are you drooling yet?

cookies!

breakfast!

Picnic.

I even have a photo of one of my favorite places to shop. Is that odd?

When I say this I giggle. Okay, this is odd.

Everyone needs a minion of their own.

I have no idea why I took this photo. But it's Dunkin' Donuts! Who wouldn't take this photo?? Right?

And of course there are selfies. Or would they be called groupies since it's not just me in the photo? Hmmm

There you have it. No perfect photos here. Just a little glimpse into some of my everyday. Weirdness and all.

Carry on! 

Christine

Wholloped

More snow. Through the night, 9.5 inches of fresh snow fell.

It's really quite beautiful.

Grrrr!

Snort!

BAH!!

Wimper.

I really just want my flip flops. 

Big ol' sigh.

Christine