Crispy Chewy Goodness

Up until recently, I was baking the same chocolate chip cookie recipe I baked in middle school.  The recipe usually got good reviews: soft, cake-like, and melt in your mouth...as long as they were fresh.  If the cookies stayed around more than two days, even in an airtight container, they became really stale and crunchy.  The other beef I had with them is the entire cup of butter and 3/4 cup of oil.  Is that really necessary??  So, the search for a new recipe was on.

I found the winner on my fave baking blog, Smitten Kitchen.  She has a few chocolate cookie recipes, but this is exactly what I was looking for: crispy edges, chewy middles and lotsa chocolate!  At Smitten Kitchen, a lot of the recipes come from other sites, like Allrecipes or Martha Stewart, but she reviews and alters them and gives great tips and posts appealing photos. 

I made a couple changes to the recipe by using 1/2 cup of butter and 1/4 cup of shortening instead of 3/4 cup of butter and I also added 1/2 tsp of cream of tartar to the dry ingredients, to give the cookies that appealing crackly appearance.  Give 'em a try! It's hard to eat just one...