Homesteader's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Homestead Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love to adapt recipes to fit and utilize homegrown goodies from the homestead.  This recipe utilizes our raw honey, a duck egg, and my homemade honey bourbon vanilla extract.  I am always telling folks that duck eggs are better for baking, so it should not be a surprise that most all my baking recipes will include them.  Raw honey is a much better choice for sweetening goodies than white sugar, and who really wants to use imitation vanilla extract?  To top it off, these cookies are made with whole wheat flour.  So, enough talk, lets get to it.


Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter*
6 tablespoons pure honey*
1 duck egg
1 teaspoon homemade honey bourbon vanilla extract*
1/2 cup light brown cane sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour*
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips


1.  Whip room temperature butter in a mixer.
     (I love my Kitchen Aid!)
2.  Add honey, egg, vanilla extract, and sugar.  Mix well.
3.  Slowly add flour, but do not over blend.
4.  Add baking soda and sea salt, careful to not over blend.
5.  With a wooden spoon, stir in the chocolate chips.
6.  Chill dough for about 15 minutes in the fridge.  Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees.
7.  Drop dough onto baking stone.
8.  Bake for about 7 minutes, depending on size of cookie.

These cookies should be thick, with a brownie-like consistency and LOTS of chocolate chips.


Rules of baking:
1. Fresh, high quality ingredients are a must!  Do not, do not, do not buy cheap flour.  I used Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat for this recipe, King Arthur is another good brand.
2.  Your butter must be room temperature.  Not melted, just room temp.  It will make a difference in the end result.
3.  Be sure that the honey you purchase is pure and not cut with or a product of high fructose corn syrup.  Yuck!
3.  You do not have to use homemade vanilla extract, but quality really matters here, so buy the good pure stuff!
4.  For more even baking, I always use baking stones for cookies, not metal cookies sheets.
5.  Never, never, never over-bake cookies.  They should still be super soft when they come out of the oven.