Curse-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

With Halloween upon us, Curse-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies are truly the ideal type of cookie. After all, you can never be too careful when eating cookies around Halloween. These cookies are free of all garden variety curses. You won't be transformed into an animal after eating one nor will you be transported to a new location. You don't have to worry about becoming a tree or growing warts. I can absolutely guarantee curse-free results (results may vary).

Oh, and most importantly, this recipe will keep you from adding to your swear jar.

So continue, Friends...(at your own risk).

There is no better cookie than a Chocolate Chip Cookie.

That is a bold statement, I know, but it's pretty much true. All other cookies wish they were chocolate chip cookies. It's just a fact of life.

Here is my go-to, never fail, always scrumptious, Curse-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe.

(Cue dramatic music!)

Now, as someone who has made a LOT of chocolate chip cookies, I am going to write these instructions in a way that will keep you from cursing my name and all that I stand for when you're needing to use the 1 cup measuring cup for flour, but you already used it for Crisco, and now you have the arduous task of cleaning said cup before you can dip it into your flour bag. Don't worry, I will not let that happen to you. I've got your back.

Follow these steps, Young Padawan, for Curse-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Curse-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

3/4 cup butter-flavored Crisco

2 tablespoon milk

1 tablespoon vanilla (if you get a little heavy-handed here, it's not the end of the world...wink, wink.)

1 egg

1 cup dark chocolate chips (You don't have to use dark chocolate chips, of course. You can use anything. Peanut butter chips and M&Ms are good, or if you're a super weirdo, you can use milk chocolate chips.)

Directions:

Step 1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make sure to use the "Bake" setting and not "Convection Bake," otherwise, your cookies will be better used as frisbees than for eating.

Step 2) In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking soda. (If you're super fancy, you can sift these ingredients. If you're lazy, like me, and don't want to dirty a sifter that you will have to wash by hand later, skip the sifting step and just mix them together with a whisk or something...preferably a silicone one that you can put in the dishwasher.)

Step 3) In a separate mixing bowl, combine brown sugar, Crisco, milk, and vanilla. Beat at medium speed until well-blended.

Step 4) Beat in the egg. (Curse-free advice: Break your egg on your countertop on top of a paper towel. An egg breaks cleaner on a flat surface as opposed to the rim of a bowl. Otherwise, you'll be more likely to get eggshell bits into your bowl, which sucks. The paper towel is just there for keeping the egg's liquid off of your countertop, which shouldn't happen unless you totally Hulk it...I'm not gonna lie, I've totally Hulked it before.)

Step 5) Add the flour mixture from step 2 into your mixing bowl, and mix until just blended. Make sure to do this SLOWLY and in small increments or you'll end up looking like an 18th century male aristocrat when the flour poofs up in your face.

Step 6) Stir in chocolate chips or whatever add-in you like. I also like peanut butter chips mixed in sometimes, and my daughter loves M&Ms. I've even made these with cinnamon chips and mini marshmallows. Although, you can't beat just plain ol' dark chocolate chips or morsels. (Or even a combination of mini dark chocolate chips and large morsels! Go crazy. It's Halloween!)

Step 7) Drop teaspoonfuls 3 inches apart on a cookie sheet. (If you would like the super fun task of trying to separate cookie blobs with your spatula when they're done baking, you can space them closer together.)

Step 8) Bake in your fully preheated oven. (No cheating or rushing dough into the oven before it's fully preheated. Otherwise, you'll be like my mom who can't figure out why nothing is ever done when she pulls it out of the oven. Sorry, Mom. Love you!) Bake for 8-10 minutes for chewy cookies, 11-13 minutes for crispy cookies. If you make large cookies, they'll need to cook longer and vice versa. My sweet spot for the size of cookie that I make is usually 10 minutes. (Although, I made some whoppers the other day that took 13-14 minutes.) I like to pull them out of the oven when the edges are golden brown and the tops are still light.

Step 9) Do the dishes. Although, maybe eat a cookie first so you aren't so crabby about it.

Some notes:

Gluten Free: Unfortunately, I have Celiac so I have to make everything gluten free. I've made these cookies with a slew of gluten free flours, and they always turn out yummy. The last batch I made, I did so with Damata Gluten Free Flour. They were great, but any cup-for-cup, all-purpose gluten free flour will work.

Flour: Make sure to never pack flour down in your measuring cup, otherwise you'll unknowingly use too much flour. I always fluff the flour in the bag a little before lightly scooping. Then I just shake the measuring cup to level the flour in the cup. I've seen a lot of people use a butter knife to remove the mounded flour from the top of the measuring cup, but then they have one more utensil to clean. Hard pass.

Brown Sugar: I've used a number of different brown sugars for this recipe. Sometimes it's fun to experiment with different ones. Usually, I use a light brown sugar or a golden brown sugar (which I'm pretty sure are the same thing...maybe? I could google it, but I'm just going to move on). Dark brown sugar is good too!

Milk: I use whole milk, but I'm sure it would be good with any type of milk.

Crisco: Really, the only thing I would not substitute in this recipe is the butter-flavored Crisco. I'm sure normal Crisco would work fine, but I've never tried these cookies without butter-flavored Crisco. I would be hesitant to try it with the normal kind...because, you know, butter, and anything that tastes like it, is awesome.

Humidity: Remember that humidity plays a BIG part in how flat or round your cookies turn out. I use this recipe all year round. In the summer, my cookies look like pancakes, and in the winter, they're beautiful round domes of happiness. So, just remember, if your cookies end up looking like someone sat on them, it probably has more to do with how much humidity is in your area than anything you did wrong.

Number of cookies this recipe makes: I have no idea. I usually eat too much batter to find out. If you're someone with self-control, let me know.

The Big Take-Away:

No matter what ingredients you have in your kitchen, give these a try! I make variations of this recipe all of the time. I think that's what makes cooking fun. How boring would it be if everything you made turned out awesome and exactly how you intended? Haha, just kidding. That would be totally freaking awesome. But it's still fun to deviate from recipes. It makes me feel like a rebel.

So I invite you to add a little spice to your life and deviate from my recipe. (Even if you're a super weirdo who likes milk chocolate chips.)

...And most importantly, eat some of the batter. Life is too short not to.

Happy Cooking,

Sam