A little about me

If you’re new here, welcome! I’m Brenda. I’ve been cooking in this same kitchen for going on thirty years, and writing this little blog for about nine of them, mostly so my grandkids would stop calling me to ask how much butter goes in things. (The answer is always more than you think.) I live with my husband Harold, a cat named Doris who tolerates us, and, as you’ll see, a donkey.

I’m not a trained chef. I’m a person who has burned a lot of things and learned from most of them. Everything on this blog has been tested in a real kitchen with a temperamental oven and a husband who hovers. If it made it here, it survived both.

Grandma’s kitchen

My grandmother’s kitchen was the size of a closet and the color of butterscotch. She had one good pan, one bad pan, and a drawer that was entirely string. She never measured anything, which is a problem when you’re trying to write a recipe down, so the first time I watched her make these I followed her around with a notepad and a measuring cup, catching flour as it fell.

She wrote the final version out for me on an index card when I got married. It has a grease stain in the shape of Ohio on the back and, in the corner, in pencil, the words don’t overbake, Brenda, underlined twice. I have overbaked them many times since. She was right every single time.

That card lived in my apron pocket the whole autumn I’m about to tell you about, which is partly why it looks the way it does.

These are hands down the best chocolate chip cookies you’ll ever make. I’ve been baking them for almost forty years, and I’ve never once had a single cookie left over. Not one. Harold will tell you otherwise, but Harold also thinks the moon landing happened on a Tuesday.

Before we get to the cookies, let me tell you about the autumn of 1987.

It was the kind of autumn you only get once or twice in a life. The maples on our street turned all at once, like somebody had flipped a switch, and the whole neighborhood smelled like woodsmoke and apples. I had just turned thirty-four. I had a new pair of shoes I was very proud of, and a husband I was mostly proud of, and a recipe card in my apron pocket that I had not yet tried.

The station wagon

Harold and I drove our brown station wagon clear to Tennessee. Not the green one. The green one was later, and that’s a whole other post.

The brown one had wood paneling on the sides that wasn’t really wood, and a radio that only got two stations, both of them playing the same song. Harold sang along to it the whole way, mostly the wrong words, and I loved him for it. I still do. He’s in the garage right now. I don’t know what he’s doing out there, and at this point I think it’s better for the marriage if I don’t ask.

We were going to see my cousin Darlene, who had just bought a house with a porch that went all the way around. Darlene was the first person in our family to have a porch that went all the way around, and she made sure we all knew it. She sent a Christmas card that year that was just a photograph of the porch. No people. Just the porch.

A little detour

Outside Memphis it broke down, and the only man who’d help us wanted a trade.

He had kind eyes and a very small barn and a hat that said FEED on it in letters that had mostly worn off. He looked at the station wagon for a long time. He looked at Harold for a longer time. Then he said he could have us back on the road by supper, but he didn’t take money, he took trades.

Harold said, Brenda, we are not trading the car. And I want to be clear, for the record, that we did not trade the car.

What we traded was a cooler, a folding chair, Harold’s good watch, and, I’m a little ashamed to say, the last dozen of these very cookies, which I had baked the night before for Darlene. The man ate three of them standing right there in the gravel. He closed his eyes. He said, Ma’am, I have something out back you’re going to want.

The rest of the drive

Once we were back on the road, the drive got quieter. Harold had stopped singing, partly because the radio had finally given up and partly, I think, because there was a donkey breathing on the back of his neck. Biscuit had opinions about Harold’s driving. He expressed them by leaning.

We stopped at a filling station somewhere near Jackson, and a little boy came over and asked if Biscuit was a dog. Harold said yes. I said no. Biscuit said nothing, which I thought showed real class. The boy’s mother bought us a bag of ice for the cooler we no longer had, and we didn’t have the heart to tell her.

What Darlene said

Darlene was standing on the porch when we pulled in, in her good blouse, holding a pitcher of tea she’d been saving for the occasion. She looked at the station wagon. She looked at Harold. She looked at me. Then she looked at the back window, where Biscuit was looking back at her.

She said, Brenda, what on earth. And I said, Darlene, I’ll explain, but first I need to borrow your oven, because I traded away your cookies. To her credit, she let me. To Biscuit’s credit, he stayed off the good furniture. Mostly.

The long way home

We drove home two days later the long way, through the mountains, because Harold said Biscuit should see some scenery. I don’t know how much scenery a donkey takes in, but he seemed to enjoy the curves. We made it back with a full tank, no watch, and a whole new member of the family, and if you’d told me that morning in our driveway that’s how it would go, I’d have told you to go lie down.

Why you’ll love these cookies

And that, of course, is how I came to own a miniature donkey. His name is Biscuit, and he is with us still.

Biscuit rode the rest of the way to Tennessee in the back of the station wagon with the seats folded down, looking out the window like a little gray senator. Darlene was not happy. Biscuit stood on her porch, the one that went all the way around, and he went all the way around it, more than once. I think about that porch and that donkey every time I make these, and now, I hope, so will you.

Biscuit does not care for cookies. Biscuit cares for Harold, which is more than I can say for some people. They have an understanding, the two of them. Some evenings I look out the kitchen window and they’re just standing in the yard together, not doing anything, and I think, well, that’s a marriage too.

A few notes on ingredients

• Butter: soft, but not melted. You should be able to press a thumb into it. Harold once melted it in the microwave and we do not speak of that batch.
• Brown sugar: packed down tight, the way Grandma did it, with the back of a spoon and a little prayer.
• Chocolate chips: semisweet. I have tried the fancy ones. I went back.
• Salt: don’t skip it. A cookie without salt is like a story without a donkey.

Tips for success

• Pull them out when the middles still look a touch underdone. They keep baking on the sheet.
• Chill the dough for half an hour if your kitchen is warm. Mine always is. Harold says that’s because I never close the back door, and he’s right, but the donkey likes to look in.
• Bake one sheet at a time if you can. Two sheets means one of them is always in the wrong spot.

Can I freeze the dough?

You can. Scoop it into balls, freeze them on a sheet, then keep them in a bag for up to three months. Bake straight from frozen and add a minute or two. I keep a bag in the freezer at all times, for emergencies, and for Biscuit’s birthday, which he does not care about either.

What makes these cookies chewy?

Three things. The brown sugar, which holds on to moisture. Soft butter, beaten with the sugar until it’s pale but not fluffy, so the cookies don’t puff up and dry out. And pulling them from the oven a minute before you think you should. That last one is the hardest. Grandma’s pencil note is there for a reason.

Equipment

• Two baking sheets, so one can cool while the other bakes.
• Parchment paper. I resisted it for years. I was wrong.
• A cookie scoop, if you have one. A tablespoon works fine if you don’t.
• A wire rack, or in a pinch, the top of the stove with the burners off, which is how Grandma did it.

Substitutions

• No brown sugar? Use all white sugar plus a tablespoon of molasses. Or go to the store. Tell them Brenda sent you.
• Salted butter? Fine. Cut the added salt to half a teaspoon.
• Nuts? A cup of chopped walnuts or pecans is lovely. Harold is against it. Harold is not baking.

How to store them

In an airtight tin at room temperature, they’ll keep for about four days, though in my house that’s a purely theoretical number. A slice of bread in the tin keeps them soft. The bread will go hard. That’s its sacrifice.

More questions I get asked

Can I make them bigger? You can. Use a quarter cup of dough and add two or three minutes. They’ll spread, so give them room.

Why did mine come out flat? Usually the butter was too warm, or the dough sat out too long. Chill it and try again. Everyone gets a flat batch. Mine was in 1979 and I still think about it.

Is Biscuit really still with you? He is. He’s out back right now with Harold. They send their regards.

Alright. I know, I know. You came here for the cookies. Here they are, finally, with all my love, and Harold’s, and Biscuit’s, in his own way.