When I was a child, baking would bring the whole house together. My 47 siblings and I would hear the gas stove start snapping and the curses as someone would strike a match to try to light the pilot without setting the house on fire. I vividly remember the screams drifting out of the farmhouse window on trails of smoke as I played amid the rows of corn on our commune’s farm that went on forever, the smells of burning flesh when they would fail to keep the fire contained, and the cool breeze of a carefree summer evening.

There’s nothing quite like a good chocolate chip cookie, is there?

Chocolate chip cookies have existed for thousands of years, originally cooked on the tops of hot rocks warmed by the sun during the dawn of the Mesozoic era. Fossilized evidence has been vigorously taste-tested by paleontologists specializing in coprolites. But we don’t need to hear the paleontologists’ “yum” sounds to know the cookies were a hit; that they are still around today is fact enough!

Since their inception, chocolate chip cookies have been a mainstay in pantries, bake sales, and Christmas Eve fireplaces the world over. Brands like the nautical Chips Ahoy, the known and renowned Famous Amos, and the farm-to-table Pepperidge Farm have become titans of industry on the backs of these small delectable treats, making ready-to-eat “chocolate chippers” (as my mother calls them) available on store shelves the world over.

But as we know, home-cooked will always be better than store bought. That’s why you came to an online recipe blog! 😉 😉 😉

It’s not only because you can be judicious with your sugars, or the fact that you can taste Love itself in every bite, but because the experience of actually crafting the cookie releases dopamine directly into the brain during every step of the process. Science has proven it!

First, you measure your ingredients. Obviously with baking, you must exactly follow the measurements listed. This isn’t a willy-nilly process like grilling or driving. So make sure your measuring cups, measuring spoons, rulers, and litmus paper are each in accordance with the standards set by the American Cooking Measures Organization. Up-to-date standards are always set in ACMO’s weekly journal, and any cook worth their weight in 10,000 lbs of cookies would already be subscribed to that.

Measuring can be a therapeutic exercise in mental wellness. Preparing your spoon or cup, pushing the perfect amount of an ingredient in it, so striving for perfection that you can’t imagine a single extra grain of flour being in your dish… these motions and emotions help bring balance while the world outside your kitchen counter is a whirlwind of imprecision. But your preparations, your measures, they bring peace. I’m not ashamed to admit that measuring is my favorite part of baking.

Once you measure each ingredient, begin combining them according to the recipe. It’s important to taste the mixture after each step of the process. Any issues or errors will be immediate obvious, so you can quickly toss out the entire dish and start from scratch.

As a child, my mother would let us help with this part. We’d eat handfuls of flour mixed with sugars and salt, slurp at the yellowed yolk of a freshly cracked egg, and, most importantly, lick the beaters. While I prefer to hand-mix in 99% of cases, I am nostalgic for the experience of licking a beater covered with freshly mixed dough. A faint memory of one such occasion comes to mind: standing in the kitchen covered in flour, my eyes barely able to see over the edge of the counter. One of my siblings is reaching for the electric mixer, holding it up to his mouth. But the switch is still on, and as his tongue reaches for a tasty morsel, it is pulled and twisted into the beaters, wrenching out of his mouth to leave a bloody spray across room.

Sometimes, I think, it’s the memories that add an extra sweetness to our favorite treats.

Once the ingredients are all in the same bowl and mixed together, it is time to bake! Scoop them by hand onto a baking sheet, and put them into the oven. Don’t worry about how long; for me it seems to take a different duration to cook through every single time I bake. Just remain ever vigilant, and all will be well. Then slide them out, let them cool, and enjoy with a nice thick frosty glass of whole milk!

Here’s a tip! Make your entire batch of dough, cook only a small number of cookies, and put the rest in the freezer to “cook in the future” (i.e. eat a lot of raw cookie dough until you feel sick each subsequent night).

And I have one final treat for you before you go. A cookie of wisdom, if you will!

There is a Secret Lindeman Family Recipe™ for the perfect chocolate chip cookies, and today I’m going to share that with you. You can share your results with family, friends, and pets, but remember: keep the recipe to yourself. It’s a secret! Shhhh!