Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a lot of favorite cookie recipes: favorite peanut butter cookies, favorite meringue cookies, and favorite butterscotch chip cookies, to name a few. The one elusive recipe was for chocolate chip cookies. I'd tried a lot of recipes and sampled even more, but none of them were perfect. Then I met my husband. His chocolate chip cookies are truly amazing! I don't know WHY they're so good, but they are. They aren't much to look at- flatter than normal and kind of dingy looking from the molasses, but they're perfect. Soft on the inside with chocolate chips that somehow remain melty, and a tiny bit crunchy/chewy on the edges. What's more, they actually stay soft and delicious for a while, unlike some cookies that go stale after a day or two. I implore you to make them, even if you already have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe!

Here is what my husband has to say about his cookies: "I’ve been making chocolate chip cookies with my family as long as I can remember – standing on a chair in order to reach the mixer is a happy memory for me. I merrily made the same recipe until all the way to college where I learned that you can make your own brown sugar – one cup white sugar and one tablespoon molasses. This shocked me, because I hate storing brown sugar and having it turn all granitelike and hard to work with. I immediately made a batch, and they didn’t turn out at all. The molasses/white sugar substitute is quite a bit wetter than bagged brown sugar. After some tweaking, I finally balanced the recipe again."

Update:  These are also amazing made with about 2 cups of roughly chopped Andes Mints instead of the chocolate chips!

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 C butter
1/2 C shortening
2 C sugar
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
2 eggs
2 t vanilla extract
1 T molasses
2 1/2 C flour
2 C semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place butter, shortening, and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat until fluffy. Mix in salt and baking soda, then eggs, vanilla, and molasses until thoroughly combined. Mix in flour until a dough has formed, then mix in chocolate chips. Roll dough into golf ball sized balls (or use an ice cream scoop) and arrange on prepared cookie sheets with approximately 3 inches between cookies. Bake until barely golden and just set in the middle, about 10-15 minutes. Cool on the sheets for about 10 minute until you can transfer them to cooling racks. After they've cooled completely, store the cookies in an airtight container.

Yield: about 2 dozen large cookies