How the French Make Chocolate Chip Cookies

How to at cookie dough and not feel guilty about it.

White chocolate chip cookie dough

Oh the joy of chocolate chip cookies- oops I mean white chocolate chip cookies.

Chelsea often makes chocolate chips cookies, well that is when we have chocolate chips to make them. Buying a chocolate bar and cutting it up in bite size pieces works, but the chocolate chip (or I should say chunks) cookies do not taste the same. Good, real good in fact, but not the same. 

Chocolate white chocolate chip cookies

The chocolate chips cookies that Chelsea makes are about caressing the memories of home in the States. When Sacha came back from California he remembered to bring chocolate chips. Thanks to him we have a healthy year’s supply of Toll House chocolate chips in our kitchen armoire. 

This year he also brought back white chocolate chips. What the heck? That is a new twist to tradition. Sacha is like that full of twist and turns and yet right on track.

Chelsea got right down to task. The recipe is on the Toll House package. Dark cocoa powder is used to make the dough chocolate-y. 

Wow were they good, the dough was delicious! Yes I eat cookie dough.

how to scoop chocolate chip dough

Chelsea is a very practical baker. She follows recipes, she measures the ingredients, she uses two spoons (since we do not have a small scooper) to scoop out the cookie dough. Chelsea would never use her finger to scoop out the dough, nor roll it gently into little balls unless it said so. No she is not a touchy-feely person, even as a child she would not finger painting. She is mathematical, she bakes like a scientist, and the chocolate chip cookies she makes are deliciously perfect. I could be exaggerating, on purpose about my lovely thoughtful daughter. Except, she makes flawless cookies.

Not at all like mine, which are hit and miss, and often mistaken for rocks. I cook instead of bake, it is much more forgiving.

You see I am more of a flaky person who cannot make a flaky pie crust. 

Rich thick chocolate fudge like dough. God was it good. I scooped one finger full after another and ate it when Chelsea wasn’t looking. Sacha sneaks snatches too, but he is not as clever as me and gets caught in the act.

I tell you what I have a thing for Cookie Dough. I rarely make cookies because I eat the dough…. gee…OH… a light bulb just went on in my head… Eating cookie dough is like reading the last page of a book, or the last paragraph of a letter, before you reach the end… I am a-jump-in-and-do-it-kind-a-person, please do not say I am into instant gratification. Maybe we could call it, “living the moment” and leave it at that.

Oh no.

Chelsea is a lot like her father. He never liked to finger paint either and he certainly would never eat raw cookie dough. 

They are organized which stabilizes my chaos. 

I never have to worry about where they are, or what they are doing, they are straight arrows that aim for the mark. 

IMG_8263

And Sacha? Well… let’s just say we dance to the same drum, and often dance when there isn’t a drum. 

I will never stop licking the spoons and my fingers too, unless Sacha beats me to it. (Don’t freak out we don’t reuse the spoon!)

Please tell me that I am not that much different from you?

Do you follow recipes or not?
Do you lick the bowl?
Did you like finger painting?

Repost 2019

Thanks, to my mother who taught us the joy of being in the kitchen. Chelsea is like my mother in that she follows instructions and is straightforward with a loving heart.

The photo above was taken years ago yet if that little butcher block could talk it wouldn’t stop telling you the history of baking with my mom it would tell you about the laughter, the messes, and the moments of pure joy spent together, as we measured, mixed, and baked with love in every bite.



Comments

11 responses to “How the French Make Chocolate Chip Cookies”

  1. There are many flavored “chocolate” chips now too – pumpkin, butterscotch, peppermint (usually around Christmastime), cherry, and even Bailey’s Irish Cream. Oh and espresso flavored. You never know where they’ll show up, so you gotta be on the watch out from Target to the grocery store.

  2. I’m a mathematical person like Chelsea, although I also enjoyed finger-painting as a child (especially abstract designs).

    Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips are good with macadamia nuts as well as chips!

  3. Leonie Buchanan

    To me there’s nothing like eating butter & the sugar when it is creamed.! When I was doing cooking at high school some of us ‘naughty ‘ girls would cut pieces of butter & dip it in sugar. The sugar was kept in the store room in big barrels. We had to be quick so the teacher wouldn’t see us. My friend and I often have a laugh 60 odd years later..
    🤣🇦🇺🤣🇦🇺

  4. I love Sandra Boynton’s famous chocolate chip cookie recipe:
    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=808419733978792&id=100044323181792&set=a.285159819638122

    After giving directions for mixing the batter, Boynton writes: “It is customary at this point to sample the batter. Drop the remaining batter from a teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake THE COOKIE about 10 minutes” (MY EMPHASIS!).

  5. Jennifer Phillipps

    I appear to be a mix of both kinds of baker…I love to lick the bowl, I occasionally sample the uncooked mix to see if it tastes good and I certainly like to stick to the recipe when it comes to baking, as I know it is science and when you divert from the recipe it is at your peril! My mother was a throw anything in baker and more often than not things did not work out…for any other sort of cooking I ‘create’ my meals and just use recipes for inspiration and as a guide….so a bit of both personalities! Those cookies do look good! Jennie, NZ

  6. Yummm! I also like the peanut butter chips with chocolate cookie dough. I probably am more like Chelsea, but I have recently thought maybe I should loosen up a bit and try the raw cookie dough.

  7. “she bakes like a scientist”

    My late partner, Mark used to tell me that cooking was an art. Baking was science.

    1. I agree with that. ❤️

  8. Judy Busch

    Baking is chemistry.

  9. Betts Vidal

    Since my kitchen mindset is more artistic than scientific…I follow recipes adding my little touches to make the cooking or baking mine. Yes, I taste the dough, and yes, licking the spoon is for good luck. My sugar cookie dough (basic recipe) is rolled into balls, rolled in fine sugar, then placed on cookie sheet. I press the sugar balls with the bottom of a glass tumbler making them thin, and uniform before baking. They’re crispy…look tempting and perfect for dunking in coffee…especially when they’re way too crispy. OK…I was looking for a pretty serving plate and forgot all about the time.

  10. Betts Vidal

    Chelsea’s recipe will be an addition to our Christmas Cookie Baking tradition. Who doesn’t love a new version of a chocolate chip cookie? Several days before Christmas, my daughters and I bake for family, friends and neighbors. Often that amounts to several dozen gifts. The girls are traditional…and accomplished bakers. My contributions are a few batches of basic cookie recipes…then, artfully assembling trays and wrapping with cellophane, ribbon, velvet holly, sprigs of cedar and a silvery jingle bells. I love our tradition…thank you for a new recipe.

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