Crisp Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies

"These are not the chocolate chip cookies you are looking for."
"Look how large I make my cookies!"
Sometimes I just like crisp chocolate chip cookies.  This is a variation on my very favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe (My Favorite CCC Recipe).  It leaves out the water and makes crisp cookies similar to the Pepperidge Farms Chesapeake Cookies or Famous Amos Cookies. I almost bought a bag of Nestle Tollhouse Morsels to make these, but I just couldn't do it.  I can taste the difference and I wanted to enjoy the cookies if I was going to take the time to bake and photograph them.  So, I cut up the Dove Promises, and I am pleased with the results.
As far as the mini size goes, I like being able to just pop a little cookie into my mouth without having to commit to holding onto a larger cookie for a couple of minutes.  I'm a lazy cookie snob, I guess.  I got the idea to make tiny cookies a loooong time ago, from a woman who came to our house one time to buy a computer or something from my computer salesman dad.  I don't remember the exact circumstances because I was in high school, but I remember that the woman was of Indian descent and she brought over these teeny tiny chocolate chip cookies that were about as big around as a dime.  Each cookie only had about two chips.  Seriously, two chocolate chips per cookie.  I kind of felt bad for the woman thinking she didn't understand how to make American chocolate chip cookies.  Then I tasted the cookies and realized what a genius this gentle Indian cookie-baking woman was.  I then went through an ity bitty cookie phase, which I had forgotten about until this week.  
Since I don't have the patience any more to make cookies the size of a dime, I enlarged mine to about the size of a quarter.  Still plenty small, and still plenty delicious.  Give 'em a try.



Cookies on the pan
Crisp Mini Chocolate Chip Cookies
     --adapted from Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur
Ingredients 

  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup Crisco
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • ¾ cup brown sugar 
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ¾ tsp baking soda
  • 2 ½ cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
  • 1 bag Dove Dark Chocolate Promises, unwrapped & cut into ¼-inch chunks
  • 1 ½ cups chopped lightly toasted pecans (optional)

Directions
1. Cream butter, Crisco, egg, & vanilla in a medium size bowl. (This will take a little while for the wet ingredients to emulsify.)
2. In a large bowl, stir together with a whisk the sugars, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour.
3. Combine moist mixture with dry mixture just until it comes together (do not over mix).  Dough will be crumbly.  Add the chocolate chunks and pecans. Refrigerate dough two hours or over night.
See what I mean about crumbly dough?

4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Use a half-teaspoon measuring spoon to make tiny dough balls and place them three-quarters to one inch apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet.  
5. Bake 8-11 minutes, or until puffed and light brown around the edges.
Makes a lot of mini cookies.  I haven't counted.
My trusty IKEA half teaspoon forms the cookies.





I rolled these no-nut cookies in nonpareils before baking, just to make them cuter.