Bon Appétit and a Book: A delicious recipe to enjoy alongside the book.

My characters rarely get to eat anything other than fast food. I thought I’d share my chocolate chip cookie recipe…since warm cookies definitely go with any story.

2/3 cup Butter Flavored Crisco, softened--not melted
2/3 cup margarine, softened--not melted
1 cup granulated sugar
1 3/4 to 2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
4 teaspoons vanilla (if you use REAL vanilla, back it down to 2 teaspoons)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
chocolate chips to your liking
nuts if you must

NOTES: You’ll definitely want a good mixer. Invest in baking stones. The perfect cookie isn’t achieved on a metal baking sheet. The cookies bake in the oven for 8 to 10 minutes and they’ll be sooo gooey you can’t remove them. You’ll be tempted to put them back in the oven. If you know how a baking stone works, it retains heat and will continue to cook the gooey cookie while it cools. THAT’s THE SECRET! Fortunately, I have more than one stone and can cook a batch while one is cooling.

If your cookies are a bit too soft, back off the brown sugar a tad. Honestly, I discovered Baker’s Chef brown sugar and have noticed a difference in the taste of the cookies when I didn’t use this brand.

Heat oven to 375 degrees.

Thoroughly blend softened margarine and Crisco. It needs to be one blended mixture. Add eggs, blend again. Add vanilla, blend again. *I do things differently, I add the baking soda, baking powder and salt here (realizing that most people add them with the dry ingredients, but I want to make certain they blend well--and after the flour goes in, it gets harder to mix). Add granulated sugar, blend. Add brown sugar, blend. Add 1 cup of flour at a time until all is blended. Add chocolate chips, but the recipe is great without them too.

Drop cookie dough onto baking stones. Another secret to a soft cookie is to make them larger. I had a bus driver accuse me of making mini-pizzas. Band kids always wanted second cookies, but the band director said they could only have one. HAHA…so I made larger single-serving cookies. But this rebellion helped me develop a very soft cookie.

Don’t squish the dough, just spoon it and let it sit tall, give it plenty of room to spread out when it cooks.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes (at least in Texas).
Cool at least 8 minutes on the baking stone