Christmas: Chocolate Chip Cookies (+tips on shipping!)
Hi there!
Quick post today before I run off to a planning session for Brain Awareness Week :) Watch me be a creepy graduate trying to fit in with the young, college student crowd teaching kids about the brain.
We are 15 days away from Christmas, people. It's more of a cultural holiday than a religious observation for me, but yes I do say Happy Holidays instead of Christmas because for others, there's a difference. As a child Christmas was about singing in shopping centres (and briefly, in a cathedral) with the school choir. As a college student it was about coming home - thank goodness - after weeks of finals and hosting a party to see many missed faces. In terms of traditions we don't have many, other than putting up a tree and hanging antique ornaments. But for as long as I can remember, I've always baked something for the occasion.
This year's going to be different, because I'll be heading to Japan with my fam. No baking, and I couldn't even if I tried because our oven is a serious safety hazard. So my pre-emptive attack comes in the form of these chocolate chip cookies, courtesy of Seven Spoons. I was looking for something that packed a punch without requiring the extra oomph of nuts, considering allergies whilst feeding a crowd.
I like my cookies crumbly and slightly soft, but still crunchy. As in, I tend towards the crunchy rather than soft. I guess the word I'm looking for is chewy, but these cookies are so much more than that. Make them and you'll get what I mean.
I couldn't find the recipe on Tara's site, and I'm wary of infringing on copyright or whatever, so just head on over to Apt 2B Baking Co's post here which is where I found it.
The only modification I made was to use the following sugars and measurements instead of those specified: 1.25 cups of dark brown sugar and 0.25 granulated white sugar. I think this yields a deeper and more enticing colour, and the reduced sweetness lets the chocolate really shine through. Speaking of which, the recipe says to use 12 ounces (~340g) but as much as I love chocolate, this was a little too much for me. I must have ended up with about 280 -300g. Feel free to use the original amount.
I also used a tablespoon and roughly, lazily measured out a very heaped scoop for each cookie. I think it came out to be 2 tbsp altogether. Then I refrigerated them for ~24 hours and baked them straight from the fridge for 14 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through.
Overbaked cookies are a shame, and if you're ever in doubt under-bake. That's what I did, and boy did these come out beautifully. The chocolate melts but will harden after cooling, forming pools of deliciousness in each bite.
First-off, not all cookies are built for the trials of air-travel. Cake-ier 'cookies' like macarons and Madeleines are best left at home, because they tend to fall apart or dry out en route. I wouldn't like to mess up iced cookies with travel either because they're dainty and while they probably will still taste good the whole point of them, it seems, is how they look. Macaroons and biscotti, on the other hand, are sturdy and travel well. Another idea is to mail brownies or bars which tend to fit well in containers.
Depending on how many you're sending off and to where, the USPS does a pretty good job. UPS and FedEx are also good choices, but sometimes the extra dough is unnecessary. For example, I'm shipping within the US and with Priority Mail it costs less than $15 and will arrive in 3 days.
Always pack snugly. Imagine your precious cookies getting banged up with a bunch of other holiday gifts. You do not want some kid's American Girl doll to be the reason for your cookies' demise. So use packing pellets or scrunched up paper to fill in the gaps between your cookie containers. Bubble wrap doesn't really protect much better than the above, and has failed me in the past.
Ditch the fancy tins for airtight containers. Functionality over fashion here, because no one wants dry or - worse - moldy cookies.
We save all of these things in general
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