Vanilla Bean Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have an arch-nemesis.

Two, actually.

And you’ll never guess who or what they are.

… Suspenseful enough? Okay, I’ll spare you the grueling details and lack of sleep since you’re dying to know (you were dying to know, right?!)

Baked potatoes and chocolate chip cookies.

Yup, two food items I absolutely LOATHE. Not loathe eating, but loathe MAKING.

Forrealzies.

Chocolate chip cookies and baked potatoes HATE me. I swear, they’re totally out to get me. And I don’t even know what I’ve done to them to receive such awful treatment.

I mean, I love baked potatoes, especially when loaded with tons of green onions and butter. And chocolate chip cookies? We go way back, obvi! So rich and buttery and such a classic. Who doesn’t love them?

But they don’t love me, because every time I make either item, it fails miserably. Like, I have better luck becoming a Real Housewife than baking a perfect potato.

Seriously.

I’ve tried everything: par-boiling, then baking, baking for a long time at a series of different temperatures, microwaving, slitting, piercing, slathering… EVERYTHING. And every time? Hard-as-rocks potatoes with skin that isn’t crispy… it just… is.

And I’m tempted, at this point, to beat the potatoes to death because I’m so annoyed that baking them at 400 for 30 minutes did NOTHING but unfortunately, “beating them to death” doesn’t work so well when they’re still raw, super dense, and could be considered a deadly weapon if thrown at a steady speed.

On an off note, how sh*tty would it be to die by a baked potato?

And then there are chocolate chip cookies. Cookies act all sweet and innocent and stuff, loved by all the parents and the kids and the boyfriend, but they have a seriously evil side.

Like the fact that they’re totally sluts and love spreading it in the oven. I’ll pull out my baking sheets and they’re all spread out like pancakes, thin as paper; those slutty cookies.

Or how they never quite have that crinkly cookie top. You know, how chocolate chip cookies usually have that valley-like, high and low, uneven top? I see those bumps as “mountains of butter and sugar and chocolate”, but my cookies like to make me angry and turn out hideous and flat and not mountainous. Just fugly.

And the butter to cookie to chocolate chip ratio. If there’s too many chocolate chips, it’s no bueno in my book. I like lots of cookie, slight chips–but I know everyone’s different. However, no matter what, I like that allover, deep butter flavor–it makes them so tender and gooey and perfect. And I’ve never mastered it.

Basically, my family is convinced I am an incompetent cookie baker. And let’s face it, I am. My sugar cookies NEVER look close to Bridget’s, and I can’t even make a decent chocolate chip cookie that doesn’t look like a rejected pancake.

But then I found it. The One.

Golden, buttery crust, studded with the right amount of milk chocolate chips and teensy flecks of vanilla bean. Aka, FLAVOR. It’s amazing, spectacular, and like, the best evah. And I can definitely say that since I have had the worst ever. Like, my whole life. Best of all: no chilling! Because lol, who seriously chills dough? *impatience much?*

Thank god I can easily be won over and forget the past.

Vanilla Bean Chocolate Chip Cookies *adapted from Kelsey at Apple A Day’s recipe 

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp vanilla bean paste (or 2 tsp vanilla extract)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease two cookie sheets with cooking spray and blot excess spray with a towel; or, line sheets with silipat liners. Set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, soda, cornstarch and salt, and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars until creamy, about a minute. Beat in the egg and vanilla bean paste to combine.
3. Gradually add flour mixture to the butter mixture, beating well after each addition. Once dough has come together, stir the chocolate chips in by hand with a wooden spoon.
4. Portion dough into heaping Tablespoonfuls onto the cookie sheets, about 2″ apart. Bake for approx. 8-10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through cooktime to ensure even baking. Do not overbake (they will remain fairly light in color). Allow to cool a couple minutes on the baking sheets before transferring cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Store leftovers airtight for up to 3-4 days.

If you can, use vanilla bean paste here. It really elevates the flavor of these cookies from yum to FORREALTHESEARETHEYUMMIESTCOOKIESI’VEEVERHAD.

Swear it.

Alright, baked potatoes. Meet your maker, you dirty beyotches.

xo, Hayley