I’m not much of a baker. I prefer cooking. My mom on the other hand, is a baker and a cook. Growing up with my family, processed foods and eating out in restaurants or fast food was NEVER an option. We never bought bread from the store. Every morning I would wake up and have 2 slices of home made bread, I’d have 2 cookies with my lunch baked by my mom, and come home to dinner made by the whole family. I know I was lucky. I also know it saved them a heck of a lot of money.

My parents are kind of crazy. They really like eating out of the garden, and they hate spending money on anything expensive. Especially when it comes to food. My mom even grinds her own flour weekly for her baking. I’m not sure I’ll ever get to that stage, but I sure have been getting into baking lately. The difference between my mom and I is that her baking is no-frills, whole goodness that is healthy for you. It tasted delicious, and she made sure her kids were healthy. My goal, on the other hand, in baking is to make everything with good quality ingredients, and make it so moist and delicious it will give you a heart attack. Haha.

Allan’s been asking me to bake cookies for a long time, but since we moved into our new apartment and sold off all our old stuff, we haven’t had any of the supplies we needed to bake. So now that we have them again, hopefully I’ll be baking a lot more in the future.

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So, here’s a recipe for the best chocolate chip cookie, in my opinion. It’s adapted from the New York Times, you can read more about their search for the best chocolate chip cookie here. I made mine a little less sweet, a little smaller, and a little more vanilla-y. The recipe for mine is below. I can honestly say this is the best cookie recipe I have found (in my limited experience), and so far everyone who has tried them agrees But you be the judge! Let me know what you think…

THE BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE, adapted from the New York Times

Note: I doubled the recipe below, so that we could have fresh baked cookies every night for a week. The single recipe below here makes about 20 small cookies or 16 large cookies. Another trick: Use thick-bottomed baking sheets so your cookies are crispy on the top but chewy and not burnt on the bottom

Ingredients:

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour (I used Italian Tipo ’00′ Cake Flour)
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract (I like Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract)
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet (dark) Belgium chocolate disks

How to Do It:

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them.

3. (Optional) Mix together different batches of cookies (but make sure you keep a batch of the chocolate chips ones in this recipe). Split up your dough into as many batches as you want, and knead in various ingredients.

I can’t speak highly enough about using chocolate disks. SO much better than chocolate chips. A dark Belgium chocolate is soooo good. I wanted to buy the Valrhona chocolate fèves but they were $21 a bag. Yes, seriously. How ridiculous. So I settled for some good Belgium ones instead… I don’t regret my decision

As per Allan’s request, I used butterscotch chips and rice crispies in this one.

I also tried ones by mixing in frozen homegrown raspberries and blueberries. SO GOOD. I highly recommend this if you don’t mind seeds in your cookies. I also made oatmeal raisin ones for Allan. I made Callebaut chocolate chips ones for me

4. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

6. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. I varied my baking time depending on the cookie… I like crispy cookies (see picture below) so I used 22 minutes for those. For soft chewy ones I baked them for 19 minutes (see first picture in this post). Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

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Let me know what you think of the recipe if you try it! What’s your favourite cookie recipe?

Tomorrow, I’m off to Tofino for some more surfing. SO exciting. I’m going to use my new flexible underwater housing and see if it is better than the other one I have. I’ll post a pic of the housing tomorrow! Can’t wait! Rain and surfing… it’s a beautiful combination out here on the West Wet Coast

So we have a potluck at the office today, and I chose to bring dessert. I didn’t have much time last night, what with the awesome 100th episode of LOST on, so I decided on my trusty secret recipe of chocolate-covered strawberries.

For those of you who went to university with me, I’m sure you will remember my many batches of famous chocolate-covered strawberries A lot of people in school asked me for this recipe, so I might as well re-post it here in case anyone from uni reads this.

Allie’s Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Step 1: Start with the freshest, juiciest organic strawberries you can find. Local is better but I know that’s not always possible. It’s even better when you pick your own from your garden…

Step 2: Start with a pot of water and bring it to a gentle boil, you will then want to cover it with another pan or a heat-safe bowl. This is a water bath. In this case I used a bowl on top. Use high-quality organic chocolate. My secret is to use chocolate hazelnut. I like the texture and chunkiness that the hazelnuts add to the strawberries and it goes well with the chocolate. Lastly, I crack a TINY bit of sea salt into the chocolate to bring out the taste of the chocolate. It sounds strange, but it works wonders.

Step 3: Coat the strawberries with the chocolate. Make sure your strawberries are VERY dry when you do this, otherwise you will mess up the chocolate consistency. I like to air dry them if I have time, but a blowdryer or fan on cool works if you’re in a rush. Once coated, place them tip up in a tray.

Step 4: Melt some white chocolate with the same sort of water bath. Again, high quality white chocolate. I add a tiny bit of vanilla to this for flavour and colour.

Step 5: Drizzle the white chocolate over the strawberries.

Step 6: Let cool for 15 minutes or so, and then place into the fridge. Don’t cover.

Step 7: EAT! And enjoy

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In other news, I am SOOO excited for the Canucks game tonight against the Blackhawks. It’s been way too long. I’ve still been wearing my jersey every day, even when snowboarding. Puck drop is early at 6:00 pm, so don’t miss it.

Lastly, I’ll be visiting a secret new Twilight set today. Can’t wait!