Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

• 2¼ cups all-purpose flour (add an additional ½ cup for a fluffier cookie or for altitude)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter unsalted butter, room temperature
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a baking mat.
2. In a medium bowl, mix dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
3. In a stand alone mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (can use hand held too), cream together butter and granulated sugar and brown sugar. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time and mix, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary. Mixture may look clumpy.
4. With the mixer on low-speed, slowly add the bowl of dry ingredients and mix just until dough comes together, it may be a little crumbly which is totally fine! You do not want to over mix the dough, otherwise the cookies can flatten when baked.
5. Lastly mix in chocolate chips. Place dough in refrigerator for 1 hour to firm up. Dough will be pretty firm already, but I find that cooled dough bakes better. If the dough is too warm or sticky, the cookies may flatten out.
6. Drop heaping spoonfuls of batter onto the baking sheet. Mine were about 3-4 tablespoons each.
7. Bake for 9-12 minutes (baking time will depend on oven) until edges are golden. Let cool on baking sheet for a few minutes than transfer to cooling rack.

Notes

It's common for chocolate chip cookies to turn out flat. Here are few helpful tips. Do not over mix the dough, just mix enough for it to come together and stir the chocolate chips in by hand. Chill cookie dough so that's it's very cold - you can even put it in the freezer to chill even further - if the dough is room temperature or warm, it will spread faster when baked. You may have under measured the flour a bit - add a few tablespoons more if needed. Lastly, do not put cookie dough on a warm cookie sheet - make sure that the cookie sheet has cooled or use a new one for the second batch. With all this said, the flavor of the cookies will not change even if the cookies spread! I make these all the time and they don't flatten out on me, but I follow all the tips above to prevent flat cookies.

Easy Pound Cake

• 2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup milk
• 1 tsp vanilla, almond, or lemon extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Blend in milk and extract. Sift dry ingredients together and add. Beat till smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Pour into a well greased and floured loaf pan. (Mine is about 9x5".) Bake at 300° for about 90 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Cool completely.