chocolate chip cookies

[Marlene]

I find that anything made with Bisquick has that distinctive Bisquick flavor. This may not be a bad thing for some people, a good one for others.

Rachel, I was quite leary of using Bisquick to make cookies when I first saw this recipe, since I'm not a big Bisquick fan. However, these do not, absolutely do not have that Bisquick taste. You can also use Pioneer baking mix which I believe is sold in the states, but not here in Canada, hence the Bisquick substitution.

[Saffy]

Ah. I guess in New Zealand you've never heard of Toll House Cookies.

Indeed we have, and I make that recipe from time to time. I prefer the recipe that is the fake " neiman marcus choc chip cookie recipe though.

[Saffy]

The pudding cookies are soft on the inside and crisp on the outside.  Then again, maybe they don't sell Jello pudding in New Zealand either!

Yep they do sell it here, different brand though

[claire797]

The pudding cookies are soft on the inside and crisp on the outside.  Then again, maybe they don't sell Jello pudding in New Zealand either!

Yep they do sell it here, different brand though

Give the pudding cookies a try. I think you'll like them.

BTW. I didn't have any pudding mix in the house so I made the recipe from the back of the Nestle Tollhouse bag. Yum.

[cottontop]

You might check out a recipe for Mexican wedding cookies -- a shortbread cookie with chocolate chips and nuts.

[Marlene]

Just for the record, I am in the middle of making the vanilla pudding cookies as posted. The first batch just came out of the oven, and I can attest that these may be the moistest cookies I've ever made. Very very nice.

I'm having to leave them a couple minutes extra. My oven temp must be off. Otherwise they look way too "pale"

[claire797]

Marlene,

I am so glad you tried the pudding cookies. I'll admit -- when I first saw the recipe I was skeptical. To me, the best recipe has always been the recipe on the back of the Tollhouse bag. However, after trying the pudding cookie version, I was a convert.

If you're feeling adventurous, you should try a batch with butterscotch pudding and butterscotch chips.

[snowangel]

So Diana and I, over the past couple of months, have plowed through every recipe on this particular thread. We got a mongo bag of chocolate chips at Costco, and made batch after batch (not all at once!).

They are all winners, but we did prefer the non-Hershey/Nestle bag recipes to the others.

The winner for raw dough eating are the ones made with the pudding. That one only baked up to 1 dozen cookies as a result.

[snowangel]

News flash:

I got a coupon for a free bag of the Skor "English Toffee Bits" (available in the baking aisle with the chocolate chips). Added 1/2 a bag of these to a batch of the regular toll house cookies.

Bingo! Absolutely wonderful. The toffee/almost burnt sugar lent yet another flavor layer to the cookies. While the pieces are hard when the dough is raw, they sort of melt when baked. These will become a pantry staple.

The first dozen lasted exactly 4-1/4 minutes.

[Ling]

The pudding cookie recipe is the one I'll try next. My current favorite is Anna Olson's recipe found on www.foodtv.ca

There's brown sugar in the recipe. I could eat the dough by the mixing-bowl full!

[claire797]

Here's another good one. Guess I should get my act together and get it in the archive.

This version is very thick, tender and not overly sweet

Giant, Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 1/3 cups butter (room temp)

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. soda

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped pecans -- toast them with some melted butter first

Preheat oven to 350 F. Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in eggs until well mixed, but don't beat in too much air. Add vanilla. Mix dry ingredients together. Add them to sugar mixture and stir. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans. Drop by generous 1/3 cups onto baking sheet (I use Silpat) and bake at 350 for 12-16 minutes depending on your oven.

[corinnesweeney]

Would someone post the Cook's Illustrated"Thin and Crispy Choc Chip Cookie"? I am a subscriber to CI but it still does not allow you to access their web site without paying..... thanks

[singsgood]

Whatever you do, avoid Martha Stewart's daughter's recipe "Alexis's Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies" LIKE THE PLAGUE. For some crazy reason I decided to depart from my quick, gorgeous, tried and true recipe (from "Desserts in Half the Time" with a few tweaks) and try this other one. I should have known - one pound butter, 3 cups brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, 4 eggs....

I did a "test" batch first, exactly as per recipe (which I found on at least three separate sites, all measurements the same), baked at 375 as specified, and came out with flat, burned cookies whose centers remained uncooked; in fact, the chips all migrated to the center of each one...they looked like flying saucers with lumpy middles. Inedible, sickly-sweet (and I love my sugar), greasy cookies...that, and the rest of the batter (which I could not doctor enough to make it work) went into the disposal.

They weren't just too rich, they were, as I said, inedible. I have that slightly ill feeling you get when you have wasted precious time and ingredients (I used giant gourmet chips, best unsalted butter).

Oh well, I've gritted my teeth. cleaned the mixing bowl, and tried again with my usual recipe. Kids coming to visit, you know....and I just took the results out of the oven : perfect.

If anyone has had any luck with Alexis's recipe, please post! I followed it to the letter and it was unacceptable.

[claire797]

Whatever you do, avoid Martha Stewart's daughter's recipe "Alexis's Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Cookies" LIKE THE PLAGUE.  For some crazy reason I decided to depart from my quick, gorgeous, tried and true recipe (from "Desserts in Half the Time" with a few tweaks) and try this other one.  I should have known - one pound butter, 3 cups brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, 4 eggs....

I did a "test" batch first, exactly as per recipe (which I found on at least three separate sites, all measurements the same), baked at 375 as specified, and came out with flat, burned cookies whose centers remained uncooked; in fact, the chips all migrated to the center of each one...they looked like flying saucers with lumpy middles.  Inedible, sickly-sweet (and I love my sugar), greasy cookies...that, and the rest of the batter (which I could not doctor enough to make it work) went into the disposal.

They weren't just too rich, they were, as I said, inedible. I have that slightly ill feeling you get when you have wasted precious time and ingredients (I used giant gourmet chips, best unsalted butter).

Oh well, I've gritted my teeth. cleaned the mixing bowl, and tried again with my usual recipe.  Kids coming to visit, you know....and I just took the results out of the oven : perfect.

If anyone has had any luck with Alexis's recipe, please post!  I followed it to the letter and it was unacceptable.

Amen! Those are the worst cookies ever. I rated a bunch of cookie recipes and the Alexis cookies were awful.

http://www.ginsberg.com/anna/blogchart.htm

[snowangel]

These were so awful, I made them not once, but twice, figuring that I had screwed things up the first time around. I kept the recipe card with a big fat red circle with diagonal line through it in case I loose my memory and forget just how bad they were.

[singsgood]

Thank goodness, now I know I am not nuts! (At least not about those horrible cookies!) I re-checked the recipe three times, experimented with the oven settings, parchment paper, etc...

Wouldn't you think Martha would rather not be associated with such a stinky recipe?

[Toliver]

I was trying to dissect Martha's recipe, just by looking at it, to figure out why it went so wrong.

Her sugar-to-flour ratio is completely off, which is why it's so sweet. Using the original Tollhouse recipe as a yardstick, where the ratio of sugar to flour is 2:3 (1 & 1/2 cups of sugar to 2 & 1/4 cups of flour), Martha's is skewed the wrong way....4 cups of sugar to only 3 & 1/2 cups of flour (which I believe is 2:1.75). Needless to say, I would reduce the sugar.

Plus, she is using a lot of brown sugar which is supposed to make the cookies chewier (according to Alton Brown) than if she used a larger amount of white sugar. I think it's her amount of butter that's the culprit.

the chips all migrated to the center of each one...they looked like flying saucers with lumpy middles.

It actually sounds like the dough spread out leaving the chips behind. The "clump" in the middle was probably the original circumference of the cookie dough when you put it in the oven.

The main reason why the cookies are thin (and greasy) is because of all that butter. If you have a high fat-to-flour ratio, then you'll get thinnner cookies (again, see Alton Brown...this is also why Irish Lace cookies are so thin). The Tollhouse ratio is about 1:2 and Martha's is about 2:3.

And I can't see how she can justify four eggs. From her ingredient ratios, it looks like 3 would be more appropriate.

My recommendation is don't try to figure out how to fix this horrible recipe. You did nothing wrong. She's evil I tell ya!

Do exactly what you've done and trash the recipe. I'm sorry you wasted such a large amount of good ingredients. Yet another reason to put her behind bars...

There are far better cookie recipes out there, especially in the couple of "chocolate chip cookie" threads making the rounds on the board.

[singsgood]

Like I said, I shoulda known...all that butter...and brown sugar. Blech.

[curlywurlyfi]

am absolutely hypnotized by this thread (all that CHOCOLATE!) but have a question before I make the pudding cookies. is 'pudding' the powdery stuff to which you add cold milk + let set 15 mins or so till you have deliciously spoonable custardy type stuff (UK equiv would be Angel Delight)? anyone? (very sorry if this is rank amateur question.)

[claire797]

am absolutely hypnotized by this thread (all that CHOCOLATE!) but have a question before I make the pudding cookies.  is 'pudding' the powdery stuff to which you add cold milk + let set 15 mins or so till you have deliciously spoonable custardy type stuff (UK equiv would be Angel Delight)?  anyone?  (very sorry if this is rank amateur question.)

Hi! I don't know much about Angel Delight, but what we're using here in America is Jello Brand Instant pudding.

Here's some info:

Jello Pudding.

Good luck with using Angel Delight. I have a feeling if you use 3.4 ounces -- the equivalent to one box of Jello Brand, you'll be fine :).

BTW. Toliver, I completely agree with what you have to say about Martha's cookies. It's just a bad recipe. Period.