Baking

I am not a baker. I find it time consuming, difficult, and I dread the clean up. Therefore, I am very impressed by people who do bake and who do so frequently. My friend VL is an amazing baker and never ceases to amaze me with her cookies. Not only does everything taste delicious, but she is very flexible and sensitive in her baking and tailors her creations to her friends' tastes. She always remembers who doesn't like white chocolate or who prefers nuts or who likes which types of cookies. She even remembers which cookies my mother likes! It's no wonder I wait with bated breath for Christmas to come because she always brings me a tin of her famous holiday cookies. Only another 3 months!

So the reason I attempt to bake today is that I saw VL the other day and she gave me this cookie recipe brought to you by Michael Mina. I am always so inspired by VL and have been promising myself (and her) for years to bake more often. Also I feel that if I love entertaining, baking is an integral part of all that. I invite you all to follow along on my journey to learn how to bake, mishaps and all. Trust me, there will be mishaps!


It is time I become self sufficient so I can eat cookies whenever I want! VL, who is so modest, says that baking is easy and all you have to do is follow the recipe. For some reason that is very difficult for me. Maybe because I'm always cutting corners and trying to make things low-fat. So I vowed to follow the recipe.

I pulled out my beautiful Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer, which was another wedding gift that had not been removed from the box. Actually VL and my other good friends pitched in for this gift. Maybe she was trying to do that whole "teach a man to fish" thing.

Everything went very smoothly until I attempted to "finely chop" my chocolate. I bought Ghirardelli's 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, which were actually bigger discs. I knew that I could use them as they were, but not being a huge chocolate person, I thought it might be better to chop the discs just a bit smaller and therefore use less. I threw a bunch in my Veggie Chop and somehow lost control of it and the whole thing went flying across the kitchen scattering chocolate chips everywhere and cracking my Veggie Chop! My assistant, my Husband, ran out to buy more chocolates while I cleaned up the mess. After he returned, he decided that he had better do the chocolate chopping. I was happy to hand the Chop over to him and sure enough the Chop went flying a second time, this time all over the dining room. We both wanted to cry at that point. We had to be really delicate with cleaning too since the chocolate was melting by the second. I told you baking was hard!!

We eventually got everything cleaned up and we were back on track...

The cookies turned out delicious!!

Thank you VL for inspiring and encouraging me. This doesn't mean that I don't need your cookies still!

Michael Mina's Warm Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp, cut into chunks

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 pound good quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1/2 pound toasted pecans or walnuts, finely chopped

Directions: 

1. Combine butter and sugars in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment

2. Beat on medium speed for about 5 minutes

3. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well to incorporate

4. Add vanilla and continue to mix until combined, then turn off mixer

5. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt

6. Turn the mixer to low speed and slowly add half of the dry ingredients at first to the creamed mixture, then add the remaining dry ingredients to just combine. Do not overmix.

7. Turn off mixer and fold in the chopped chocolate and nuts, stirring until all the bits are incorporated.

8. Preheat the oven to 350F

9. Roll the dough into 2 inch balls. Place on nonstick cookie sheet 2 inches apart.

10. Bake until cookies are just set on the edges, but fairly soft in the center, 14 to 20 minutes.

11. Cool for 5 minutes in the pan. Then serve warm.

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