Celebrate with Chocolate!!

Today was an exciting day! I found out the other day that my blog was accepted to the Foodie BlogRoll!! It’s exciting for me because I can connect with other food bloggers around the world. It was also pretty exciting to be featured on the Foodie BlogRoll Widget today as 1 of the most recent 5 blogs! I had a lot of traffic and so far today, I have received 8 comments! WooHoo! Some of you may think I’m being a little silly, but my fellow food bloggers may understand how exciting this is! Since I started blogging a few weeks ago, I have felt like I was talking to myself and maybe a couple of stray visitors that happened to land upon my blog. Today I actually felt like people might be interested in my blog, so I am now motivated to post more often!

After baking tons of cookies, several cakes, seven pumpkin rolls, and cooking lots of food over the last week for Christmas (which I will post more on later), I wanted to take a break from baking for a few days. Ok, my break didn’t last long, because I had a craving for some Chocolate Chip Cookies and so did my husband. The kids were delighted that we had this craving, too! Tonight I decided to try a different recipe, which you can find here. After I started dumping in the ingredients, I realized I didn’t have enough butter, so I substituted 6 tablespoons of spreadable margarine, and they still turned out great! In the reviews, some people recommended chilling the dough in the refrigerator first, but I had wonderful results without taking that extra step. I must say, these were probably the most beautiful chocolate chip cookies that I’ve ever made! I took over a dozen pictures and it was difficult to choose just a few to share with you! By the way, they were absolutely delicious, too!!! My family loved them.  The kids already asked me if they could eat them for breakfast in the morning!

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper. (I sprayed the cookie sheets with Bakers’ Joy).
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart. (I saved some chocolate chips to add them to the top of the dough after dropping onto the cookie sheet.  This makes for a better presentation since the chips are visible on top instead of just baked within the cookie).
4. Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. (I baked for 15 minutes. They were still light on top, but the bottoms of the cookies were light golden brown...PERFECT!!).