Good Old Chocolate Chip Cookie!

Yesterday I spent a ridiculous amount of hours baking Christmas cookies. I made my doughs the night before and transported everything over to a friend's house where we baked and baked and baked batch after batch, then iced a million sugar cookies with toxically sweet frosting (but needless to say delicious), and then put together mixed cookie plates to give to our friends/family as gifts.

Together, we made hundreds of cookies, 7 different varieties, plus fillings and icing! I decided that I would make a double batch of my now 'famous' chocolate chip cookies because my friend's husband, Jack loves them and since he was going to have to tolerate our whole day of baking in his house and I figured he deserved a treat for that.

Throughout the day as we baked one recipe after the other, I watched the most interesting phenomenon. The cookies that were "sampled" the most during the day by Jack and my husband, Matt were the plain old every day chocolate chip cookies! We made snickerdoodles, Linzer cookies filled with jelly, Russian tea cakes, Red Velvet (which turned out purple, but that's another story) sandwiches filled with fresh cream cheese frosting, gingerbread, chocolate chip and frosted sugar cookies. We had to force the guys to try the fancier cookies, some attempts failing. Every time Matt would take a batch of chocolate chips out of the oven for me, he had to perform quality control and eat one warm out of the oven. Needless to say I was glad I made a double batch, and Matt ended up with a stomach ache for his valiant efforts to make sure the cookies were good enough to send out. I am not even sure how many Jack squirreled away from the cooling racks, but I am sure it rivaled Matt's count.

So...for all the fancy cookie recipes out there...beware....taste tests prove that men still prefer the "Maryann" over the dressed up "Ginger" of cookies!

Here is my own chocolate chip cookie recipe that I hope you will share with your men!

Helen's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER

1 package of butter flavored crisco

3/4 cup of brown sugar

3/4 cup of white sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/4 cups of flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Milk and Semi-Sweet chocolate chips to taste

Preheat oven to 325 degrees

In a medium bowl, cream together the crisco with the sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, until fully incorporated. Add vanilla and mix well.

In another bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking soda.

Mix dry ingredients into sugar mix, a little at a time, mixing well in between.

Fold in chocolate chips.

Make 2 inch balls of dough and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-15 minutes - depending on your oven or altitude. The cookies should be light golden on the edges (not brown!!) and still soft looking in the center when you remove from the oven. Let the centers set before removing from the cookie sheet and moving to the cooling rack.

ENJOY!!