Chocolate Chip Cookies

As a home baker, I tend to have many reservations that I am not so proud of. I have a hard hand at icing cakes or making layered gateaux that look fancy and presentable. I would love to make some, but then, that's a kind of patience I applaud. I have never dared to whip egg whites till date, so I am not close there yet! And oh my cookies, I bake them not so often as I should do!

I have a major problem when I am baking cookies. The one that threats me never to bake them again. Atleast for a long time till I crave some. Sometimes I wonder if I have a sort of leniency towards over-baking. But unlike cakes, where a nice crust is admirable, you cannot mess around with the baking time when it comes to cookies. It has to be perfect, where every hot blow of air from oven matters, every minute counts, probably seconds too. This I learnt the hard way over few failed, overbaked cookies.

Overbaked cookies taste terrible. They can taste like cardboard, tough and crisp to an extent of being inedible. Moreover it's a shame to offer them. They don't make themselves good for tart crusts sadly. The only thing you can probably do is to brittle and mask them with good dose of roasted nuts to embellish ice creams. For some of those failed attempts that I stay put, here are a batch of some super delicious batch of cookies I baked last week. What matters most is a good cookie recipe, which I assume may not be too hard to find one, along with the perfect baking time and the right temperature, which I assume undoubtedly gets me testing.

Here's a recipe I have tried and tested multiple times. So you can be rest assured these won't fail. They were perfectly baked with a golden bottom, or just baked as I call. Any further may have ruined them. You can bring variations to this recipe. Add in coffee and make them Coffee Chocolate Chip cookies. Or add in some orange extract along with fresh striped orange zests that beautifully pairs with bites of dark chocolate, you'll have some sinful Orange Chocolate Chip cookies. They are addictive, I caution you.

Chocolate Chip Cookies - Eggless and Vegan

INGREDIENTS

1 cup non-dairy margarine (can be replaced with vegetable oil)
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (dairy-free for vegan)

DIRECTIONS

Beat the margarine along with both the sugars (brown and white) till it's light and fluffy. Next, add in the vanilla extract. Add the flour and salt, mix well. Dissolve baking soda in warm water and add to mixture immediately. Stir with a wooden spoon and bring the entire mixture to form a lightly wet dough. Next add in the chocolate chips and stir them in. Drop by tablespoonful on to an un-greased cookie tray. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 minutes. Don't over bake!

Notes:

* The baking time for these cookies depends on the size and temperature of your oven. Hence test batch the cookies, if possible for the exact time. Large number of cookies of bigger sizes may take a minute longer. For this recipe, I used a tablespoonful of measure per cookie.

* I have replaced the quarter cup of warm water with orange juice and it works absolutely fine with the same results. You'll get similar results by replacing with any vegan milk or buttermilk too.

* 1 1/2 cups of sugar (3/4th cup of each sugar) is on the lower side and just about right for this recipe. The rest of the sugar is rendered by semisweet chocolate chips. However if you like your cookies sweeter, you may have to increase the amount of sugar by 1/4 cup.

* This yields a large batch of cookies, approximately 3 dozens. So reduce appropriately.