Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

I really shouldn't call this a chocolate chip recipe. This is a "got a lot of stuff in it" cookie recipe. I've been working on this recipe for a couple of years, and I'm pretty happy with where it is now. As those of you who follow my business and marketing blog and site, I am also a part of Teri Mason Photography (Google it and see how fantastic she is). While I focus on marketing and biz ops, I find any and every opportunity to utilize my chef skills in some form or fashion. We have, for quiet a number of years now, provide a nice platter of cookies and custom designed water bottles for those clients of Teri's who come in for sales sessions. We've had quite a positive response over the years. Fantastic portraits projected over the big screen, and scrumptious cookies to munch on while watching your loved ones in the slide presentation. Oh yeah, and for the big spenders, we somehow seem to find a nice bottle of wine or two, appetizers, and various sweets.

OK ... on to the Recipe and method:

• 8 oz of real, unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar
• 3/4 cup of organic white sugar
• 1/4 cup of organic molasses
• 3 free range eggs
• 1 tsp of good quality vanilla
• 3 cups of organic white flour (great deal on this at Costco)
• 1 cup of rolled oats
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp kosher or sea salt (using iodized salt gives a chemical taste)
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (use a good quality)
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp of ground ginger
• 2 cups of dark chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup dark raisins
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (or pecans, I like both)

Preheat your carefully calibrated oven to 375 degrees.

Sift the dry ingredients of flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. After sifting, add the flaxseed meal and rolled oats, then set all the dry stuff aside.

In a mixer, such as a Kitchenaide or Cuisinart, cream the brown sugar, white sugar and butter. Now this is not quite as straight forward as some people think. Start off slowly with the mixer on the lower couple of speeds, and then gradually build up the speed to one of the higher speeds. Stop occasional to scrape the bottom with a spatula. If you have one of those scraping paddles like they make for the Kitchenaide, it is a very big help. When your sugar and butter is ready, it will be a creamy light color with almost no granularity at all. Add one egg, then mix it in thoroughly. Add another, mix. Finally add the third and mix, slowly building up the speed to cream the mixture again. Add the vanilla and molasses and mix, slowly at first, then building up the speed to almost high to get a really good creamy mixture. It is very important that the mixture have the correct consistency before adding the dry ingredients. Now add the dry ingredients about 1/3 at a time, mixing thoroughly before adding the next 1/3. Mix slowly until well combined. Take the bowl off of the mixer and scrape the paddle of all the little goodies that get stuck to it. Add the chocolate chips, raisins, and nuts. Mix well with your spatula. Each scoop should have a bit of everything in it when placed on the baking sheet.

Now using your large cookie sheet covered with a sheet of parchment paper (always, always use parchment paper, which is NOT wax paper), scoop out equal portions, four rows of three scoops, about an 1/8 cup or more per cookie. Bake at 375 for 13-15 minutes or until just getting brown around the edges. Remove from oven and place the entire cookie sheet on the cookie rack to cool. When it has cooled enough and you can hold the cookie sheet with your bare hands, then you can slide the parchment paper with all of the cookies still on it onto the cooling rack.

You should be able to get between 4 or 5 dozen cookies with this recipe, depending on how large your cookies are. The dough will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, but I'd make sure I used it all up in that amount of time, or toss it. Just doesn’t seem as fresh after a few days, so I usually will make fresh rather than use something that’s been around for too long.

Feel free to add things you like to this recipe, or remove things you don't. However, give them a try as it is written before you make any adjustments. They are pretty darn good as they are.

Enjoy!