I know there are a million recipes for chocolate chip cookies in existence, ranging from the Nestle standard to the Neiman Marcus million-dollar recipe. I found my personal favorite...on the back of Aldi brand chocolate chips. Apparently the magic comes from the hot water, as I've never seen that in any other recipe. Who would have guessed? Also, it only uses one bowl, it comes together quickly, it's always produced the same great results for me, and it's super easy to cut in half or double. In other words: it's a winner.
I'm writing it down here so that I never lose it, even if Aldi changes its recipe. I do add vanilla, which wasn't in the original recipe.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes approximately 3 dozen cookies.
2/3 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 Tbsp hot water
2 tsp vanilla
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375ยบ. Melt butter (until very soft or even until completely melted), then stir in brown sugar. Add eggs, hot water, and vanilla and stir to combine. Add in flour, then baking powder, soda, and salt on top of the flour. Stir the dry ingredients together gently to make sure there aren't any big pockets of baking powder or baking soda (a fork is good for this). Then, stir the wet and dry ingredients together. Fold in chocolate chips.
Form dough into balls (about 1 tbsp each) and place on cookie tray. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies are slightly golden brown on top.
