Home Made Chocolate Cookies

I think the reason why I started making home made cookies is a rather interesting one. Okay, just to give you some background info on me, I am man, maybe even closer to cave-man, and not particularly of the domestic type. Imagine cave-man wearing apron--that should paint the picture just right in your mind.

Well, I spent my childhood in America--America, such a splended country when it comes to sweets. I basted in its glory and ate everything great under the sun. I, like most kids growing up in America, was spoiled with the decedant desserts that Americans have concocted or adopted from other countries and then made their own. That being said, I know what a real cookie should taste like.

Fast foward the time reel to my young adult life and I'm living in a country of people who complain about their trips overseas to America in regards to the food: "It's too big, too much, and the desserts are so sugary and overly sweet". Hmmm, I think I can agree on one of those points perhaps. Some Americans could afford to cut down on their meal portions. But now, if I'm living in a county that says American sweets are too sugary and overly sweet, what does that leave me with? Well, I'm here in Japan, and I can tell you that when it comes to western style sweets here in Japan, it is a big disappointment. Their cakes and cookies are bland. Chocolate cost a fortune over here so it's used as stingely and sparingly as possible. The main problem is that they have no standard when it comes to making sweets, so the bar has been set very, very low. On a side note, Japanese sweets are completely different from western sweets--many of them made with rice--and in their own right Japanese are very good and making Japanese style sweets.

I started making cookies at home because I literally had no other option if I wanted to eat a down home good old America style home made cooky. Now, you'd think the next step would be easy. Just find a recipe, prepare and pop it in the oven! No way. Not that easy at all my friends. Most people don't have ovens here. Houses and apartments are never equiped with ovens. You can go to a home supply store and buy an oven, but it will cost you a fortune. So, what I ended up doing was buying an old oven from a cooking school that was replacing its old ovens with new ovens. And just in case you are wondering how old this oven was--it was only 2 years old, which, when it comes to appliances and anything electronic, is ancient in Japan.

But for me the 2 year old used oven was good enough. And so now I could finally attempt to make a cooky that would please me.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

I picked up this recipe at allrecipes.com

Well, first off I want to say that I didn't buy the chocolate chip cookies because at $5/3.5 ounces I would have had to take out a loan to have been able to buy enough for this recipe. As I mentioned above I got this recipe from from allrecipes.com. On this site, I read through some of the members comments and noted some points about how to make this recipe better.

Here are the alternations I made to this recipe:

- I added an extra cup of flour for a total of 3 cups
- I added crumbled walnuts in place of chocolate chips
- I sprinkled powdered sugar on top of the cookie before putting them in the oven

First I mixed the butter and the sugar together. The butter was a little hard so I put it in the microwave for a little bit to soften it up. I then stirred in the eggs and the vanilla. This made a creamy kind of paste. Next I added the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Now I had a sticky, gooey mixture. I swabbed up chunks of the mixture on a spoon and dappled my baking sheets with them. Each dapple was about the size of if you put your them and in pointer finger together to make a circle. With the amount of ingredients I used I was able to make about 36 cookies.

The oven time stated that the cookies should be cooked for 8 to 9 minutes at 350 degrees.

After a short amount of time spent in the oven I took my cookies out and they were puffed up and hot to the touch. I let them cool off a little and carefully removed them from the tray. One little glitch was that the cookies were so soft that they would easily break if I was not careful when taking them off the baking tray. I let the cookies cool for a bit before trying one. The rest, folks, is history. This was my first attempt ever to make cookies. First attempts at cooking anything usually go bad for me, the caveman. But in this case it was the complete opposite. These are some of the best dang cookies I have ever tasted! I have been so excited about just how good these cookies are that I had to write about it. If you have the time, I highly recommend you try to make these cookies instead of settling for store-bought cookies. I'd like to know what you think about these cookies as well, so please leave me a comment if you can spare some time.

These are just a couple of afterthoughts I have about how I could improve this great recipe. My first batch of cookies were extremely soft, closer to the consistency of brownies. This is not necessarily a bad thing--they were great. For my second batch I baked the cookies at 355 F (180 C) for 11 minutes. The cookies turned out a tad more firm and yielded the ideal consistency. They were still very stoft, gooey and delicious!

Another thing--and I didn't do it this time but will experiment next time-- is about the amount of sugar I used. The orginal recipe calls for 2 cups of white sugar. And when you pour that two cups of sugar in your mixture you're going to be surprised about how much sugar you are putting in there. I kind of had a conscience problem putting that much sugar in there, but that was soon forgotten when I tasted how good these cookies were. Next time, though, I may try adding less sugar to see if it detracts from the quality of these cookies. I'll post back about future cookie batches.

Well, my first batch ever turned out so good I wanted to try to make the cookies again with some variations. The ingredients are similar to the original recipe, but some quantities have been changed so be careful about that. I also added a secret ingredient.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups butter, softened
1 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons of broken up walnuts
6 tablespoons of peanut butter
1/4 cup corn starch


Start by melting the butter a bit to soften it up and then add the sugar. Stir to make a light cream. Next add in the eggs and stir some more. Add in the rest of the ingredients one by one and stil until you get consistency. The final dough mix should be somewhat dry and easy to handle. Swab small chunks onto a baking sheet. Have oven preheated to 355 degrees (180 C) and bake for 11 minutes.

Cookie Description
These cookies are quite different from the first recipe. First off the dough was dry and very easy to handle. The cookies turned out drier and fluffier and are still very soft. The corn starch is the secret ingredient. The peanut butter taste is not overbearing nor is it subtle; depending on your preference you can adjust accordingly. In short, these cookies are awesome and I love them just as much as the first recipe!

Thanks to www.mistupid.com for this joke

Italian Cookies

An elderly Italian man lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite Italian anisette sprinkle cookies wafting up the stairs. Gathering his remaining strength, he lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands, he crawled downstairs.

With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Where if not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, spread out upon waxed paper on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite anisette sprinkled cookies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted Italian wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself towards the table, landing on his knees in a crumpled posture. His parched lips parted, the wondrous taste of the cookie was already in his mouth, seemingly bringing him back to life.

The aged and withered hand trembled on its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when it was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife....."Back off!" she said, they're for the funeral."

Guys, I made this chocolate cookie last night and oh my god they are good. You gotta try these. Basically they are an alteration of the orginal chocolate cookie recipe altered to make this cookie even better. Please note the differences in the ingredients and quantities used.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons of peanut butter
4 tablespoons corn starch
note: no walnuts or chocolate chips added to this recipe


Start by melting the butter a bit to soften it up and then add the sugar. Stir to make a light cream. Next add in the eggs and stir some more. Add in the rest of the ingredients one by one and stil until you get consistency. The final dough mix should be somewhat dry and easy to handle. Swab small chunks onto a baking sheet. Have oven preheated to 355 degrees (180 C) and bake for 12 minutes. This batch makes 46 smaller sized cookies

Cookie Description
A nice simple, pure chocolate cookie with no frills yet a purely heavenly chocolate taste. Texture is soft. This cookie is addictive, proceed with caution!

I'd really love to post your recipes on here, so feel free to send me your best cookie recipe or best chocolate cookie recipe. In exchange I will put a link up pointing to your site. Just hit the contact me button in my profile and paste your recipe, how to prepare the recipe, and as much additional information as you can give me along with the link you would like me to point readers to.