The quest for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie

Join our quest!

We have decided that one of our summer projects will be the quest for the world's best chocolate chip cookie. Each week will bring a new recipe to try and rate. I randomly chose the first one from an online recipe website after we decided that the toll house recipe can only go so far. Everyone always wants chocolate chip cookies, but the same thing gets boring week after week, this quest is sure to spice things up! A new recipe will follow each week, feel free to post your favorite for us to try.

Feel free to join in, make cookies and post your opinions. We are keeping a simple chart with a 5 star system on the fridge. Ellie of course is keeping her own 7 stage chart because 5 was just not quite good enough!

Here is this week's recipe:

2 c all purpose flour
2 tbs all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 tbs unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
1 c packed brown sugar (light or dark, we used light)
1/2 c sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 c chocolate chips
1 c chopped walnuts (I added pecans)

preheat oven to 325
mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and set aside
mix butter and sugars with a mixer until blended and smooth, add egg, yolk and vanilla
mix until incorporated.
add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
stir in chips and nuts if you choose
divide into 18 equal balls (I just used my small pampered chef scoop and made a few dozen)
evenly space on cookie sheet
bake for 12-18 minutes, rotating from top to bottom after 8 minutes
cool on sheets to maintain chewy texture

Good luck and enjoy!

I have been following a great blog called biblical womanhood. Lucky for me, she is starting a wonderful challenge to become more organized throughout the coming weeks. I am anxious to take this on as I find myself to be a much more patient wife and mother when I feel that my environment is in some kind of order. Heaven knows I do not need perfection, but I also do not care to spend my days searching through piles of papers to find my checkbook, searching through baskets of socks to find a pair, and searching through piles of toys to find my children who have been swallowed up by the mess!

We are working on starting new habits in the new year as a family. My children have been dilegently following our 4 new rules in the house and we have been rewarding them with marbles in a jar to help support their progress. The goal is that through treating each other more kindly and with more respect and by being more responsible family members our family will grow stronger. And how else are the kids going to get a trip to the dreaded Chuck E. Cheese?!? I do think getting organized can help to support these goals as well and it is important for the kids to see that I am working toward something too.

This week, throwing out trash, and starting the give, sell, maybe boxes. I have always wanted to do that! The trick to making this stick is to count the basement as a part of the house and not ignore it or use it as the dumping ground. Here's hoping!