As much as I love baking, till about an year and half ago, my son would not eat anything that I baked. But then he started eating a few things, his favorite being the orange cake . A few months back he started eating chocolate chip cookies bought from the store and I cringed everytime he ate those knowing that what I could make for him was much better! And I made a few attempts which were not as good as I expected them to be. Recently I found this recipe on Allrecipes and the kids and I tried this on a rainy Sunday morning. Each batch of cookies disappeared from the baking tray before the next one could come out! Such a delight to see the kids enjoy what you make for them.

I have tried several recipes for chocolate chip cookies and my favorite recipe is one by Pam Anderson. If made as per instruction, these cookies are soft on the inside, crispy on the outside, with amazing texture and soft chocolate chips inside. That is clearly the best cookie I have ever made or eaten. But there are a couple of things which are not in the recipe's favor - firstly, the cookies made from the recipe are huge in size and hence not kid friendly in portion size. Secondly, it is a time intensive recipe which requires the shaping and freezing of dough balls and cooking them at 2 different temperatures. My current oven is extremely temperamental and trying to bake those cookies at 2 different temperatures has produced disastrous results. So I had to try my hand at something new which tasted just as good.

When I looked at this recipe, the two things that made me feel assured that this is the right recipe for me were the large number of positive reviews for this one and the fact that this was fairly easy to make - did not require refrigeration or freezing. You could make the cookies as soon as the dough was mixed.

The kids loved this and so did I. And if you have little ones or big ones in your home who like to eat chocolate chip cookies, then you must make this for them. I made a half batch (24 cookies) last time but will make a full batch the next time to make sure they last a couple of days atleast :). These are even great for making ice cream sandwiches or serve a cookie with vanilla ice cream topped with hot fudge sauce. I made some changes to the original recipe - I added another teaspoon of vanilla extract and instead of the nuts, I used mini chocolate chips. I loved the combination of big and small chocolate chips. The smaller chips get a bit crunchy and the big chips just melt as you bite into them. Sheer chocolate pleasure in every bite!

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon hot water

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Cream together the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg, then stir in the vanilla. Dissolve baking soda in hot water. Add to batter along with salt. Stir in flour and both types of chocolate chips.

3. Use a small ice cream scoop to scoop rounds of cookie dough onto a baking tray layered with parchment.

4. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely browned. Let cool on a wire rack to cool.