How are you doing, sweety?
I’ve missed you so much since you left.
I hope the farming life is everything you hoped for.
Love, Mom.
P.S. I sent your favorite cookies
Every baker needs a classic chocolate chip cookie recipe in their repertoire. And thanks to my boyfriend who got me a Switch last Christmas, and my sister who bought me the Switch version of Stardew Valley, AND the new 1.4 content patch, I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley. So why not make the best chocolate chip cookies – Mom’s?
In Stardew Valley, you receive letters from your Mom if you’re playing as a male character, or from your Dad if you’re playing as a female character. Because the original Harvest Moon games did not allow you to be female, I got rather accustomed to playing a male character in these farming games. Receiving cookies from Mom was a very cute bonus! And then when my game bugged and I received the same letter with cookies a second time, I knew it was a sign.
I used to make chocolate chip cookies from a pre-made mix, and while sometimes I made them from scratch, they were always just okay. I also think my taste in cookies have slowly changed – I used to love tall, fat, soft cookies. Now I love thin, crispy edge, chewy center cookies. After making way too many cookies over several months, this is my go-to chocolate chip cookie.
The only description of the cookies we have is “Very chewy.” So these cookies are flat, with a crispy edge and chewy center. The keys are the melted butter, brown sugar, not over-measuring the flour, not over-baking them, and letting them cool on the baking sheet rather than moving to a rack immediately.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups (240g) flour
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt (reduce to 1/4 tsp if using salted butter)
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional: I love this, but many do not)
- 3/4 cup butter, melted
- 1 1/2 cups (300g) light brown sugar, packed (or 300g white sugar + 1Tbsp molasses)
- 1 egg
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups chocolate chips
Instructions:
- Preheat your over to 325 degrees F. Line your baking sheet with parchment paper if desired.
- Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir to combine.
- In a different bowl, cream together your melted butter and brown sugar. I like to really whip the daylights out of it at this stage. I’m not sure why, but I like the texture of the cookies when I do this. They become very flat and chewy! You should see the color of the mixture become very light.
- Add your egg, egg yolk, and vanilla to the butter sugar mixture. Do not over-mix! Once there is egg, over-beating can ruin your cookie texture. Stop as soon as things look combined and you can no longer see any traces of yellow yolk.
- Add your combined dry ingredients to your wet ingredients. Again, do not over-mix! Stop as soon as you don’t see any more white flour. I like to stop a little bit early when I still see the occasional trace of white flour, because you will finish mixing when you add the chocolate chips.
- Add your chocolate chips and stir by hand. An electric mixer might damage your chips in a cosmetic way, and it’s too easy with an electric mixer to over-mix at this stage.
- Drop cookie dough in rounded tablespoons onto your baking sheet. I use a 1.5 tablespoon cookie scoop. I used not like cookie scoops because I thought it made cookies look too uniform and soul-less. But for chocolate chip cookies, the chips themselves create that homey uniform look naturally. If you do not own a cookie scoop, I highly recommend it!
- Bake for 11 minutes, or until the edges just begin to look brown. Every oven is different, so looking for the edge color is key.
- Remove from oven and allow to cool on the tray for at least 5 minutes. The cookies will look tall and fluffy when you first remove them, but over these 5 minutes you will watch them fall into a chewy, irresistible cookie. I know, it’s long. But trust me, I used to not do this for similar lazy reasons. After trying it, I can confirm it makes the best cookie!
They taste great warm, but do not achieve maximum chewiness until completely cool. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week. You can certainly keep them longer than this, but they will become crunchy and less tasty.
