Recipe: My go-to cookies

I very firmly believe that everyone should have a go-to cookie recipe in their arsenal. You don’t necessarily need to have it memorized (I’m horrible at memorizing things, and any recipe with more than about three ingredients won’t stick in my head), but it should be something that, when the recipe is in front of you, you can whip together quickly and without much fuss.

For me, this is one of those recipes.

This originally started out as a simple Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe. Now, I use the dough base for a lot of different combinations.

Usually, I make Triple Chip Cookies – milk chocolate, white chocolate and peanut butter chips. But I’ve also used nuts, fruit, and any combination thereof.

This time around, I went with a different version of the Triple Chip Cookies. I chopped some baker’s semi-sweet chocolate and white chocolate, and threw in some butterscotch chips. I used about a quarter of a cup of each, getting me to the three-quarters of a cup of fillings I recommend for the recipe.

I find I’m able to get everything mixed together in about 15 minutes (less if my butter is super-soft). So that, plus the time the cookies need in the oven, means I can usually have a full batch of cookies ready to eat in under an hour. I love that aspect.

If you keep these cookies covered and out of the fridge, they’ll stay soft for about a week. That is, if you can resist eating them for that long.

My go-to cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter (softened)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup filling of your choice

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350F.
2. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate, larger bowl, cream together the butter and both sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla, and then continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy.
4. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture. Fold in your filling.
5. Drop from a teaspoon, about two inches apart, onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for eight to 10 minutes, or until the edges start to brown and the centre is set.