Easiest Cookies Ever

I'd like to share two extremely easy and delicious cookie recipes today. Quite frankly, there is no reason why anyone should have to buy stale pre-cooked cookies (ew!), pre-made cookie dough (shame!), or cookie mixes (blasphemy!) when baking cookies is really this easy. In the culinary arts, there seems to be a huge fear of baking in general. Truthfully, it is a lot harder to cover upyour mistakes when you're baking--you're much more likely to have to throw everything out and admit to yourself that you just wasted a whole lot of time and ingredients than you would if you made a cooking goof. But don't let those fears overwhelm you. Start small with cookies and work your way up to more advanced baking recipes!

The first recipe is the extremely traditional Chocolate Chip Cookiesrecipe from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book: Celebrating the Promise. Look, this cook book has been around since 1930--so this is the same recipe your grandmother used when she would make you chocolate chip cookies from scratch. In fact, it's the exact way my mother taught me to make cookies--only she had this recipe memorized, so I never realized it was duplicated in an actual cookbook until I bought my own copy of the BH&G recipe collection. You know, I ran into a regular customer of mine from The Players Club, where I tend bar, once while I was shopping in thebaking aisle at the grocery store. He looked in my cart and said, "Shortening? Do you actually know what that's for?" He was stunned that a 22-year-old girl baked for herself. But why wouldn't you bake for yourself? Made-from-scratch cookies taste so better than any pre-mixed brands, and there's no sweeter gift to your friends and family members. Make these cookies for a friend who's down in the dumps, your sweetheart, party guests, or just for fun. After, they only take maybe five minutes longer to prepare than a pre-made mix.

The second recipe is just as easy as the first one, and a copy can be found online at AllRecipes. Don't be fooled by how simple the recipe is; these cookies are extremely rich, and so scrumptious. Sometimes when I make these, I substitute the cup of butter with a cup of butter-flavored shortening. It almost seems wrong for something so easy to make to be so delectable.