Through the Chocolate Chip Cookie School, a group of 4th graders learned how labor-intensive vanilla is to grow and produce. The teacher was thrilled to learn this too!
Unless you’re a marathoner, you probably won’t be making chocolate chip cookies every day. So when Nielsen-Massey (America’s oldest family-owned vanilla company) sent me a bottle of vanilla paste, I immediately got to thinking about how I could enjoy the intense vanilla experience. I have the answer, and it’s become a daily habit:
Mix vanilla bean paste into plain organic yogurt
Mix in shaved chocolate (Williams Sonoma hot chocolate is incredible, pure Guittard chocolate (California’s oldest family-owned chocolate company!) Or get chocolate to shave or chop in yourself.
ENJOY.
Add a few drops of pure peppermint oil for an incredible mint chip experience.
You can even freeze this and use it as a chocolate chip cookie frozen yogurt sandwich filling.
May 15 is National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day 2014! The cookie has seen many twists, turns, brands and evolutions since it came into our lives, in the 1930s. (And that’s the kind of things kids will be studying with the books and programs we’ll be creating here at the Chocolate Chip Cookie School.)
Here are 12 recipes some great food bloggers contributed as their favorites.
Which will you make…or hack into yet another version of the chocolate chip cookie?
Etienne Guittard, father of some great chocolate chips
Milk Chocolate Brown Butter Cookies – I can hardly type at the thought of these incredibly rich and buttery versions of the chocolate chip cookie. If you can’t get your hands on TCHO, both Guittard Chocolate and Ghirardelli make wonderful milk chocolate chips (both in the San Francisco Bay Area). Report back to me!
Orange-Infused Chocolate Chip Cookies – Orange and chocolate go hand in hand. These orange zested cookies from Namely Marley very well might have enough of a sophisticated bent to slow down my consumption. Maybe.
Coconut Oil Chocolate Chip Cookies – Here’s a cookie recipe the Gilligan’s Island castaways would have loved. The Peanut Butter & Peppers blog focuses on healthy (or healthier) eating. So in this recipe coconut oil substitutes for butter.
Chocolate Chip Cookies Gone Italian – This Ginger, Chocolate Oatmeal & Pinenut Cookies recipe includes some of my favorite mix-ins and has a singularly Italian theme.
Italian Cookies With Chocolate Chips – Another nod to the country who brought us Ghirardelli (brought him to San Francisco, where he made chocolate!)
Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies – If you need an excuse to drink milk, try this chocolate chip cookie recipe House of Annie describes in lovely photos. It’s packed with 3 cups of flour (versus the usual 2 1/4 cups), resulting in a highly absorbent cookie. Just the ticket to dipping goodness.
Salted Chocolate Chunk No Bake Cookies (dairy free) – At first glance, I thought “but are they good?” Then I saw that they’re like eating cookie dough. Fascinating!
Rum-soaked Chocolate Chip Cookies – This contribution from Cooking in Stilettos may come in handy to forget what your stomach feels like after a marathon cookie making and eating session.
A late breaking, pine-nut filled 13th recipe from Diane Padoven of Napa Farmhouse 1885: New Year’s Resolutions Chocolate Chip Cookies – What could those possibly be? Made of air? You’ll just have to see.
For further chocolate chip cookie-philia check out:
