This last weekend, the husband and I went to my hometown to see my parents. Over the course of our trip, Keegan played tech guru and set up my parents Blu-ray. We introduced them to Pandora and subsequently, Adele and the Dougie. If you’ve met my mom, you know we’re a lot alike. We both love Aretha, consider ourselves to be good dancers and share the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever.

Now, I’ve tried other recipes, and while they are all quite good, our recipe is so simple it’s foolproof. In fact, there are two big secrets to making these cookies a success. One is making sure they are just barely browned before removing them from the oven. The other secret is a bit more embarassing. We use butter flavored Crisco. No, we don’t use butter, but rather the highly processed, kind of scary fat that comes in a tub.

People, it works. Don’t judge us. Instead, make these tonight and then, you tell me who’s crazy.

Barb’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 36

Ingredients:

2 1/4 c. unsifted flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 c. butter flavored Crisco

3/4 granulated sugar

3/4 packed brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 tsp. water

2 eggs

12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Then, in a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Combine Crisco, granulated sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and water. Mix until creamy.

Next, beat in the eggs. I like to crack each egg into a separate bowl first, adding them one at a time. This keeps me from getting shells in the cookies.  

Now, add the flour mixture in batches.  After each batch (I typically do 2-3), scrape down the sides of your bowl with a spatula.

Next, stir in chocolate chips. Do this at a slow speed, and be careful not to break the chips into small pieces.

Then, drop tablespoons of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet. I like to use two spoons.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Look for a few brown spots on the top of the cookies. Then, let them cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before sliding them onto a cooling rack.

I had every intention to include a beauty shot of these on a pretty plate, but instead, they were shoved into a plastic bag and taken to my friend Julee’s place to watch the KU game. No one seemed to mind.