Cookie Success

I did it!
I finally made good cookies!
Aesthetically they still aren't quite there yet, but flavor and texture wise they have been mastered.

I was craving cookies to go with my homemade cranberry-infused water (for my kidneys and stuff), but was afraid to embark on another cookie journey due to my numerous failures before. I also didn't have the right ingredients for Alton Brown's recipe for a perfectly chewy choc-chip cookie. He says that to make it chewy, you have to use high-protein flour, which is bread flour. I only had all-purpose flour, and a minuscule amount at that. I also ran out of brown sugar last time I was baking.

But my cravings won this battle and I decided to mix a couple of recipes together and hope for the best. And, as it turned out, brown sugar is easy to make yourself--just mix granulated sugar and molasses, as explained in this pictorial by Joy the Baker.


AB's recipe calls for:
2 sticks of butter, melted
1/4 cup of white sugar
1 1/4 cups of brown sugar
2.5 cups of bread flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 tablespoon of milk
1 whole egg and 1 yolk
1 cup of chocolate chips

I only had 1 stick of butter, so I substituted the other one with vegetable shortening. Melted it and let it cool. Then went in the sugars, which were thoroughly mixed. Then I added the milk, vanilla extract and eggs, one at a time. After that was mixed into a uniform mass, I began adding the dry ingredients, which I mixed together previously. Again, I didn't have bread flour, so I used all-purpose.
Once the batter began looking like a nice, dense dough, I threw in the chocolate and mixed it on low until everything was incorporated.
Now, AB says to chill the dough for at least 2 hours before baking. I was too impatient and only chilled it for an hour, as evident from my cookies' shape. Then I spooned little balls of dough on the cookie sheet and placed it in an oven that was pre-heated to 350F. For me it took about 12 minutes of baking per sheet. I took them out when they were golden-brown. Then on the cooling rack and into my mouth. Soft and chewy.