WOW! I say this every year, but December has flown by. It’s already time for the kids to be out for Christmas break, which means…. Teacher Gifts! I always like to do something a little personal for my kids teachers because they do so much for us. This year I decided to give a few of our Austin favorites as gifts like Cuppa Austin Coffee and Austin Gourmet Popcorn as well as some very easy, but very tasty made from scratch chocolate chip cookies.
This recipe is very easy to follow and makes enough cookies for my kids seven teachers with extras to spare for the little hands that helped with the baking. Below is the recipe with a few tips and tricks at the end.
Ingredients
1 cup softened butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix together butter, white sugar and brown sugar on medium speed until smooth.
Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla.
Dissolve baking soda in hot water, add to batter with salt.
Mix in flour 1 cup at a time until well mixed.
Add chocolate chips.
Use scoop to place cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges are a light golden brown.
Remove cookies from pan and place on cooling rack.
When cooled, we packed our cookies into Christmas treat bags to give to our teachers along with the other goodies.
Tips and Tricks and Don’ts that I did
Don’t over bake your cookies. It’s really easy to do. Remember cookies continue to cook when you take them out of the oven. As long as your edges are lightly golden you will have a perfect cookie.
Freeze any extra cookie dough you have. If you only want to make 20 cookies, portion the remaining cookie dough into plastic bags, throw it in your freezer and use when you like. To bake the frozen cookie dough set oven to 350 degrees and bake for 20 minutes. The cookies will bake just like you made them the first time. We’re using our leftover cookie dough for Santa cookies next week!
Invest in a cookie (ice cream) scoop. This is a GAME CHANGER. You’ll get a perfect cookie every time. Below is the scoop I bought from Amazon. We make cookies all the time and I can’t imagine not having my scoop. https://www.amazon.com/Disher-Scoop-Cream-Portion-Control/dp/B06XY9RDSQ/
These cookies are really easy, but also really fun. They might be the only bake I’ve done that have kept my kids attention the entire time. They loved helping me and being able to say to their teachers “Hey, I helped bake that!”
I’ll end with this. Val, a contestant, from The Great British Baking Show once said “When you bake, you always bake for a reason. You’re giving it to people, so you make it the best you can. You make it with love. And whenever I make anything, I stir love into it. I knead love into it, so when I present it, its special.”
I love this so much because it’s so true. In the short time I’ve been baking I’ve learned that baking is so much more than ingredients and oven temperatures. Bakers put something special into each bake. We LOVE our teachers and it makes me so happy to bake something out of love with my kids for them even if it’s something small but tasty like Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I’m looking forward to sharing many more bakes next year, the good ones and bad ones and especially the scrummy ones! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Mae Bakes!!
Mae Bakes 