Monday, August 17, 2015

Large Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies

Many, many years ago, my mother-in-law gave me a handful of recipe cards as a gift for Christmas. On each card was a tried and true family recipe.

Isn't that a great gift idea for a new daughter-in-law? And yes, I'm taking notes for the future when I have daughters-in-law!

One of the recipes was from Aunt Jane (hi, Aunt Jane!). The first time I read through the recipe I thought when in the world would I ever make that many cookies?

And then I had children.

Remember, this recipe is for a LARGE batch of cookies!

Here we go:



ingredients:

6 cups shortening (one three pound can of Crisco, or three pounds of butter - I use butter)
12 teaspoons vanilla
6 cups white sugar (about 3 pounds)
3 cups brown sugar
12 eggs (yes, a dozen)
14 cups all-purpose flour (about 5 pounds)
6 teaspoons salt
8 teaspoon baking soda
12 ounce bag mini chocolate chips

You need a BIG bowl to mix these in. I have a 12 quart stainless steel bowl I use when I make applesauce, and it works pretty well. You could also use a stock pot, if you have one that's big enough. Or (perish the thought!) cut the recipe in half so it fits in the bowls you do have.

First things first. Measure the dry ingredients into a large bowl (a different one) and stir them together.



Break the eggs into another bowl. If you beat them slightly, you'll appreciate it later.



Open the chocolate chip bag and have it ready.

If you're using butter, let it soften first.



Now you're ready.

In the largest big bowl, mix the shortening or butter, the sugars and vanilla. Mix until smooth.

I tried using a hand-held mixer once. No go.

Now I use my (clean) hands. Yes, just get in there and let your fingers do the walking!

Squeeze and mix until you have a smooth mess of sweet goodness.



Add the eggs and keep mixing until it's smooth again.

And the flour mixture and keep going.

Okay, somewhere along in here you can switch to a sturdy spoon for mixing. Your hands will be getting tired anyway :)

Finally, add the chocolate chips and mix until they're evenly distributed.


Now that you have a humongous bowl of dough, what do you do with it?

Well, you could have a marathon baking session, or you can do what I do. I roll them into logs, wrap them in wax paper, and freeze them.

This batch makes about fourteen 12-inch logs, plus another 4 dozen cookies that I had to bake to keep my family from complaining.



When you're ready to bake some cookies for a quick dessert or late-night snack, pull one of the logs out of the freezer. Just slice as many 1/4" rounds as you need, and bake. 10-12 minutes at 350° is about right.

Anyone ready for a dozen fresh, hot cookies?




24 comments:

  1. Only one bag of chips???? Ruthy stares and re-reads the recipe, sure that should be multiplied by at least 3.... and possibly 4.... and then realizes she's a choco-holic and perhaps some folks like cookie with their chocolate!!! Oh, silly Ruthy!!!!

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    1. *See my answer below re: chocolate chips :)

      This recipe was made for your lifestyle, Ruthy. You can write away while the big munchkins slice and bake cookies with the little munchkins. Win/win!

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    2. I'm with Ruthy. A dozen eggs and only one measly bag of chocolate chips? Considering I usually use half a bag of chips to my recipe that only requires one egg, something seems skewed here...and it's probably me.

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  2. LOL, Ruthy, I had the exact same reaction.

    Jan, this is so cool. I have to admit, as I was reading that massive
    Instead of ingredients, I keep thinking why not just make multiple small batches? But then I got to the part where you roll them into logs and freeze. Brilliant!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know, I love that idea. I've frozen in balls (like Mrs. Fields) and then if you bake them still frozen, you get the crisper outside and the chewier middle.

      But I don't always have time to do it, and logs would be BETTER!!!

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    2. And Jan, I use butter, too. No Crisco in chocolate chip cookies. That's akin to tragedy.

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    3. The frozen dough is SO CONVENIENT!

      The biggest problem around here, though, is that no one wants to actually bake the dough. I've had entire batches disappear one inch at a time....

      And YES! BUTTER! I used to buy Crisco only when I made this recipe, then several years ago I pared down the fats in the house to butter, olive oil and coconut oil - with an occasional small tub of lard when needed for a recipe.

      But butter adds so much flavor - it's almost sinful, but oh, so good!

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  3. I love the idea of making dough ahead and freezing it, but I had the same reaction as Ruthy and Cate to only a 12 oz. bag of chips for such a large batch of cookies. I think I missed the flour measurement. Are you using the whole 5 lb. bag of flour shown Jan?

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Tracey! Thank you so much for catching my mistake! I went back and put the flour in the list of ingredients, so it's fixed now.

      Yes, the recipe calls for 14 cups of flour, which is almost exactly a 5 pound bag. When I made the recipe this time, I actually measured the flour to be sure - but I often just dump the bag of flour in.

      Oh lazy, lazy me!

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    2. JAN, OR, next time you make this recipe you can measure what's LEFT IN THE BAG and then each time you make it, you can just(my overused word for today, haha) subrtract that amount from the bag, less measuring. Now who's being lazy, me.

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  4. Oh. My. Stars. The butter alone would break the bank!! LOL.

    That's just amazing. And I love that there's not a ton of chocolate. I like way more cookie in the ratio. :)

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    1. You're right, Missy - this recipe is an investment, especially with the price of butter!

      But you get about 50-60 dozen 2" cookies from this recipe.

      I've made these for Boy Scout fund raiser suppers, VBS snacks, carry-In dinners at church, family reunions - any time there will be a lot of people. They always disappear!

      I'll bake off a few dozen for our church picnic next weekend. With a deadline only two weeks away, I'm so glad I'll be able to use the "bake and take" feature of this recipe :)

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  5. Great idea. I'm all for time saving plans to get a quick meal or as in this case-snack. yay. And I have to say, I'd like more chocolate too unless you are getting one of those giant bags they have at Costco or Sam's Club. Then one bag is great. In fact this recipe would save me a lot of snacking out of that big bag I get at Costco because a normal recipe doesn't use it all and there that bag sits open and calling my name. LOL

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    1. But...but...Sandra! The snacking out of the big bag is one of the perks of buying them! You can snitch a dozen chocolate chips and no one is the wiser. :)

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  6. Wow! And I thought MY chocolate cravings were bad! The cafe is filled with chocolate fans today :)

    A blanket answer to all those who question the amount of chocolate: YES! One 12 oz bag of the MINI chocolate chips. They're the size of the chocolate chips in "Chips Ahoy" cookies.

    These cookies bake out rather thin, slightly chewy, with crispy edges. The mini chips get spread throughout the dough so that you have a bit of chocolatey goodness in almost every bite.

    If you use the regular sized chips or too many mini chips, you'd run into the problem of not enough cookie to hold the chips firmly in the cookie. Trust me.

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    1. Hmmm...that mind explain my last batch of sqooshy cookies....but yum, they were good. Melted chocolate with some cookie dough. What's not to like?

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  7. Well, I'm with everyone one else, Jan. ONLY ONE BAG OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS? That's almost sacrilege to call them chocolate chip cookies. I'll take your word for it, though.

    I like to do my cookies with a mixture of butter and shortening. That seems to produce softer cookies. But this is so much better than buying ready-made cookie dough. My kids have actually bought that stuff just so they could eat the dough. So I can see having entire rolls disappear from my freezer.

    Thanks, Jan!

    ReplyDelete
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    1. The mixture of butter and shortening would give them a good texture without sacrificing the flavor! Great idea, Mindy!

      And yes, entire rolls disappear. Usually between 10pm and 3am.

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    2. Why is it those creatures are up and about at those hours? I suppose I understood it at one time, but now I prefer to sleep!

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  8. So this is a gianormous recipe for little ol' me, but perfect for the next time I have to make a humongous batch for some function or other. I usually quadruple my recipe and tend to make mistakes along the way. Such fun. And I love the rolling them into logs and freezing them. I'll start doing that when I make regular batches of cookies since I don't want to bake them all for just little ol' me.

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    1. Because there's NOTHING like fresh cookies right out of the oven! And by freezing the dough, you can bake them in single serving amounts. :)

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  9. Wow! Great idea!! I may never run out of cookies again!

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  10. Wow! Great idea!! I may never run out of cookies again!

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    1. You're right, Virginia. This recipe is made for big families :)

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