Smell that? November smells like pumpkins! Check out this delicious (yet still simple) classic pumpkin pie recipe from Nuo Hotel Beijing.

Ingredients (The Crust)

• 1,200g butter
• 600g icing sugar
• 300g egg
• 1,800g cake flour

Ingredients (Pie Filling)

• 450g pumpkin purée
• 75g egg yolk
• 50g egg white
• 80g sugar
• ½ cup whipping cream
• 2g ground cinnamon
• 2g nutmeg

Instructions (The Crust)

1. Combine all the ingredients together in a big mixing bowl and mix well.

2. Roll the dough out into sheets and let them rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes. This will make it easier to transfer into the baking pan.

3. Transfer the crust into the baking pan and make small holes on the bottom with a fork. This will allow heat to pass through the crust more evenly when baking.

4. Prep your pie crust by baking it for 15 minutes at 180 degrees C.

Instructions (The Filling)

1. Combine all your ingredients together and mix well.

2. Strain the pumpkin purée mixture into a large bowl. This will remove any chunks and give you a much smoother texture.

3. Fill the pumpkin purée into the pie crust.

Baking

1. Bake at 160 degrees C for 30 minutes.

2. Depending on your oven the cooking time will vary. Check your pie after 30 minutes. If the pumpkin purée is still runny, put your pie back in the oven. Continue checking on it every 5 minutes until your pumpkin purée becomes solid.

3. Let your pie cool down to room temperature before slicing. Enjoy!

Pro Tips:

1. To avoid a soggy bottom crust, prep the pie crust by baking just the crust at 180 degrees C for about 15 minutes and then letting it cool.

2. If you’re using fresh pumpkin, “cook” the purée and then let it cool down before filling your pie crusts. Simply letting your pumpkin purée come to a bubble for about 5 minutes will remove any of the raw pumpkin flavors and give your pie more depth.

Not a baker? No problem! There are plenty of talented pastry chefs in Beijing. The Sweet Cravings Beijing group on WeChat is filled with both professional and amateur chefs selling their baked goods. To join, add Camkon on WeChat.

This post was originally published in 2019.

Images: Mina Yan

We’ve all been stuck at home with online learning, so in search some offline, hands-on fun, we decided to make these yummy pumpkin muffins! The caveat? The kid had to actively be part of every step of the making process. Check out the video below to see how kids can totally follow this recipe from Sally’s Baking Recipes, and maybe even learn from our mistakes…

5 Reasons Why This Pumpkin Muffin Recipe Rocks:

1. Reliable and easy, using basic ingredients you most likely already have

2. No mixer needed!

3. Extra soft and moist, with a rich pumpkin flavor

4. Very adaptable recipe for adding nuts, chocolate chips, etc.

5. Really quick and simple steps that kids can follow

Ingredients

1 and ¾ cups (219g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (120ml) vegetable oil
½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
⅓ cup (67g) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 and ½ cups (340g) canned pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
¼ cup (60ml) milk (dairy or nondairy)

The worldwide pandemic might be slowing down inbound visitors and new expats to China, but we’re still meeting new people and seeing fresh faces around Beijing. So let’s meet these new ‘kids’ on the block!

I was super excited when I first heard about Angie Chan. She had signed up to be on the Jingkids International Parent Board and had introduced herself as being from Indonesia, where I had also lived before Beijing. But what got me most excited? She bakes! Not just your usual cookies and cakes, but a very specific and special cake that only those who have traveled to the far reaches of Southeast Asia would appreciate – the pandan cake. Made from pandan leaf extract, a plant indigenous to the region, and enriched with coconut milk, this chiffon cake is fluffy yet moist, light, and entirely unique in its taste.

Now that we have established my love of pandan cake, let us give Angie, aka the Chiffon Lady, and her family a proper Beijing welcome!

My name is Angie, I’m from Indonesia. I met my Malaysian husband in the beautiful island of Bali and got married seven years ago. We have been living in Hong Kong, Shanghai and now, Beijing. He is working in the airline industry, managing the business for the North Asia region. My 6-year-old son is studying in the British School of Beijing in Sanlitun (BSB, Sanlitun). I’m a full-time mom who loves baking and crafting.

What has been the best thing about arriving in Beijing?
New city means another new adventure for us. We are excited to explore what the city has to offer. Meeting new people, experiencing new food.

Since you were living in Shanghai before, how similar/different does it feel?
Lots of people like to compare Shanghai and Beijing. For us, both cities are equally charming and each has its own uniqueness. Shanghai is a cosmopolitan city with ancient accents and Beijing is a charming historical city with modern accents. However, since we arrived in late August, we have been blessed with plenty of clear blue skies and generally great weather. One difference between the two cities is that air in Beijing is drier whilst in Shanghai, it’s more humid. We are grateful that we have the opportunity to experience life in both cities!

How is the family fitting in?
My husband is used to moving around every few years and he has been relocated so many times due to his job’s nature. He has no difficulty to adjust to a new place and have been traveling to Beijing regularly for many years. As for my son, we made sure that we relocated before the new school term started so he won’t miss first day of school, because I think it would allow him to familiarize with new environment, adapt to new school routine, and mingle with classmates.

How are you taking care of yourself through this transition?
For me, building support system around me wherever I live is very important. I was fortunate to have an Indonesian family as my neighbor when I arrived Beijing who introduce me to the other fellow countrymen who are also living in the city. I’m also active in the parent’s group at my son’s school. In the meantime, I continue to pursue my passion in baking and crafting.

We noticed you already set up a baked goods business! Is this something that you do in every city you move to? Do you have to change the recipe to suit the local taste?
This small home business was started one and a half years ago because I missed the baked pastries from my hometown and I could not fly back home due to the pandemic. At that time, I could not find pandan chiffon cake in any bakery in Shanghai. I decided to bake some from scratch, shared my creation with my friends, and posted it on my WeChat moments. The recipe was fine-tuned through trial and error. Soon, lots of people that I know were thrilled and they “forced” me to sell it because they missed it too. I received good responses because I keep the recipe authentic and use only natural ingredients with no artificial flavoring nor preservatives.

I now have various flavors of Chiffon cake besides pandan such as orange, Earl Grey, etc., and continue to experiment with new flavors from time to time.

What are you most excited about in Beijing?
I’m excited to explore lots of historical and natural scenic spots that are available in Beijing and its surroundings. Born and raised in a country that only has summer all-year-around, I am also as excited as my son to play in the snow during winter and I’m currently learning how to ski. Being in Beijing will also allow me to visit nearby cities like Tianjin, Qingdao, Harbin, and many more.

What are your plans for the summer?
I hope we can travel back to our hometown. I miss my family and I’m very sure lots of people are feeling the same. Otherwise, if that is not happening, we will definitely be traveling within China as well as exploring parts of Beijing that we have still yet to visit.

If you would like to sample the delicious culinary creation that is pandan cake, scan the QR code below to order from Angie!

KEEP READING: Musician, Designer, Educator… Maria Nauen’s Done It All, and Then Some

Images: Courtesy of Angie Chan

If there is one dessert that’s synonymous with spring time, it’s the lemon tart. The combination of sweet and sour plus the bright yellow colors is enough to perk anyone up. In the latest issue of jingkids we sat down with chef and owner of 118 Bakery, Eva Qiao, on her love for baking and the secrets to her famous lemon tarts.

Qiao found her passion for pastries when she was studying for her master’s degree in Financial Mathematics in Paris. But life has a way of working out and Qiao fell in love with the local food there and decided to change her career path from finance to culinary arts. The aspiring chef then spent the next two years learning and working with more than 20 top chefs from different countries.

Aside from the lemon tarts, 118 Bakery regulars simply can’t resist their classic mousse cakes and sugar and oil-free French bread. But before we start drooling over their entire menu, let’s take the lemons life throws at you and turn them into irresistible treats.

Crust Dough

Ingredients

• 109g Butter
• 2g Salt
• 70g Powdered sugar
• 25g Almond powder
• 35g Egg
• 182g Flour

Instructions

1. Combine the butter, salt, powdered sugar, and almond powder in an electric mixer and pulse briefly until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

2. Add in the egg and flour and pulse the mixer again until the mixture sticks together and your hands can form a ball with it.

3. Place the dough in the fridge and chill for one to two hours.

4. Roll out your tart crusts and bake at 170 degrees Celsius for 15 – 20 mins.

Filling

Ingredients

• 24g Lemon juice
• 54g Sugar
• 54g Egg
• 70g Butter
• 1/3 Gelatin sheet

Instructions

1. Combine the lemon juice, sugar, and egg into a medium bowl and whisk.

2. Place the bowl over a saucepan filled with simmering water. Cook on moderate heat while whisking until the mixture becomes thick. If you have a thermometer, keep the mixture at 80 degrees Celsius. If not, coat the back of a spoon with the mixture. It’s ready if you can run a clear pass through it with your finger. The mixture will thicken once cooled.

3. Remove the mixture from the heat and immediately strain into a sieve.

4. Add in the butter, gelatin sheet, and whisk until completely melted and the mixture become smooth.

5. Let the mixture cool to room temperature before filling your tarts.

Meringue

Ingredients

• 100g Egg white
• 100g Sugar
• Dash of lemon juice

Instructions

1. Allow the egg white to sit until at room temperature. Then whisk together the egg white and lemon juice until soft peaks form.

2. Using a piping bag with a start tip, pipe the meringue over the top of the lemon.

3. Curd and bake for about 12 mins until golden brown.

This article appeared in the jingkids 2021 March issue

Whether e-learning is going well for your family or not, the days continue to grow shorter until the inevitable Time That You Are Responsible For Your Children’s Happiness All Day Every Day, otherwise known as Lunar New Year school break. With kids being home and bound to screens for 2-4 weeks beforehand, you may feel more pressure to go out and do something, but within guidelines and well sanitized, of course. In case you don’t feel like sorting through WeChat groups and Dangping yourself, we collected all our ideas into a little calendar that allows you to not have to think about a blessed thing. And isn’t that really why we’re here — to be Beijing’s essential international family resource?

Mon Feb 8 – Go on a photography walk. 

This is a cool way to learn more about photography or have the kids make a travel vlog, and just get out of the house for some exercise! After lunch is the sweet spot weather-wise, and any camera will do! Teen writer Qin Luyao wrote up some truly wonderful spots for a great walk and photos of great views here, and they’re all close to good eats as well.

Tues Feb 9 – Sign up to be a Pen Pal with Best Buddies/SENIA-Beijing

If your child loves to write letters and wants to practice their typing, the Pen Pal program is great for connecting with children who would otherwise feel even more isolated. Any child aged 9 and older who wants to be Pen Pal Best Buddy for a child with special needs can sign up at the QR code on the flyer here. You just need to commit to communicating with your pal once a month through a secure communication platform that they will provide.

Wed Feb 10 – Make a fun bookmark

Our Maker’s Corner series is always inspiring, and this one from 2018 turns the perfect randomness lying around your house into adorable handmade bookmarks. The best part is that these can encourage your child to read a new book so they can use their creation, and even make more to give out as gifts!

Thurs Feb 11 – Walk all of Chaoyang Park

Maybe you’ve only done it accidentally when you mixed up a meeting place with friends, but Chaoyang Park is the perfect spot to tucker out those kids and get some amazing exercise in the meantime. It’s nice to pack a lunch and snacks, take a full day with scooters or bikes, and just walk until you want to stop and play, then keep walking until it’s time to go home. Even on a chilly day, the activity alone will get your blood pumping — and make for an easy bedtime!

Fri Feb 12 – Make a Sidewalk Sponge Brush

After such an active Thursday, take it easy Friday with a craft you start indoors then take to the streets! But wait, it also has no clean up time, my favorite kind of craft! Take a look at the how to here and send us photos of your child’s calligraphy creations.

Sat Feb 13 – Little Chef Cooking Class at East Hotel

How cute is this? Every Saturday in February, East Hotel will teach your kids how to make colorful Chinese dumplings from 2-3pm for just RMB 188, or a 3 class package is RMB 528/6 class package RMB 1,028 – excluding their special gingerbread house making in December.)

Sun Feb 14 – Host a Virtual Party, Just For Fun!

Invite your friends from your home country, friends you never get to see in Beijing, or your kids’ classroom for a fun virtual time with fairies, improv, magic, and a lot more. Peruse our list of virtual parties and book them for some much needed social time.

Mon Feb 15 – Let’s Go Ride a Bike!

In the winter? Are we crazy? Well, that might still be up for debate but cycling in the wintertime is actually the best time, says our longtime friend and contributor Anna Pellegrin-Hartley. It’s worth a look at her blog over here to learn why she thinks so, then plan your cycling route!

Tues Feb 16 – Have a Snow Day at The Place!

In honor of Beijing hosting the Winter Olympics, or just because it looks like a great time, The Place set up a large snow area in the center atrium. Here you can sled, slip, and throw snowballs at whatever willing adult you can trick to get in there with you!

Wed Feb 17 – Scoot at Tai Koo Li Before Indulging in Books From Page One

One nice thing about the wintertime is that fewer people just go hang at a mall, and Tai Koo Li is no exception. If your kids like to scoot on their scooters, the atrium is wide open and empty. Let them get out their energy before bringing them to the second floor of Page One bookstore and choosing an activity or story that makes them feel like they’re traveling even if they can’t leave Beijing.

Thurs Feb 18 – Bake a Cake, Why Don’t Ya?

By this point in your “vacation”, everyone will need a chill-out activity that results in some delicious treat indulging – so here we bring you Chef Lily Zhang from théATRE Tea and her birthday cake recipe. No birthday needed for this round of cakes and cupcakes — just a chance to let loose and have a good time together.

Our future is in our and our children’s hands.

Fri Feb 19 – Start Planning With Fridays For Future

Now that you’ve had some time out and about, and time to reflect as a family, it might be a good opportunity to talk to your kids about protecting the earth, and how your family can work together to combat climate change. Read our interview with teen climate activist Howie Ou and then review all the actions you can take on Fridays For Future’s website: www.fridaysforfuture.org

Sat Feb 20 – Create a family board game

You have lots of pieces from various board games; why not make up your own? It’s a great chance to see just how far your child’s imagination can soar when they are the ones who make up the rules. Then try to play and see how it works — together!

Sun Feb 21 – Test a recipe or two

Now use your newly found cooking skills to try some of these Chinese recipes for English speakers to make homemade chili soup, dumplings (of course), hot and sour soup, beef and noodle soup, stir fry, Wuhan noodles, and even more! A perfect way to spend unscheduled family time together while catching up on all the laundry you let loose during the break.

KEEP READING: Enter the Creative Writing Competition – Once Upon a Time

Photos: Pexels, East Hotel

Baking cupcakes and brownies are easy. You just get a box of mix and add in eggs and water. There’s even a version of brownies that only require three ingredients. But bread, on the other hand, is a different story. If you can make bread from scratch, then you are a legend amongst men.

As we look forward to another week of quarantine at home, the idea of warm, freshly baked sourdough bread is enough to make my mouth water. And while I’ve seen lots of bread recipes online, a little part of me doesn’t actually believe it’s actually possible for an amateur baker with no fancy bread making equipment at home, to bake a loaf. That is until Beijing expat foodie Greg Monk sent a photo of his freshly baked walnut and raisin wholewheat sourdough to one of the foodie groups on WeChat. If Monk, who’s not a chef by trade, can do it, it gives hope to the rest of us amateur foodies.

Made from scratch by Greg Monk

Monk shared his recipe from Bread: A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman.

Ingredients:
Overall Formula
Break flour: 3.2oz
Whole-Wheat Flour: 12.8 oz
Water: 9 oz
Salt: .6 oz
Yeast: .13 oz, instant dry
Walnuts: 7 oz
Dried cranberries: 2.6 oz
Raisins: 2.6 oz
Total yield: 5.9 oz

Levain Build
Whole-Wheat Flour: 3.8 oz
Water: 2.5 oz
Mature culture (stiff): .8 oz
Total: 7.1 oz

Instructions:

1. Stiff-textured whole-wheat levain: Make the levain build approximately 12 hours before the final mix, and let stand in a covered container at about 70-degrees Fahrenheit. During hot weather, or if the levain will ripen for longer than 12 hours, the flour in the levain can be salter at 1.8 to 2.1 percent to slow its activity.
2. Mixing: Add all the ingredients to the mixer except the walnuts, cranberries, and raisins. In a spiral mixer, mix on first speed for 3 minutes in order to incorporate the ingredients. If necessary, correct the hydration by adding water or flour in small amounts. Finish mixing on second speed for three minutes, to moderate gluten development. Mix the walnuts, cranberries, and raisin together and add to the dough Mix on first speed only until they are evenly incorporated. Desired dough temperature is 76-degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t own an electric dough mixer because, you know, you’re not a professional chef and even if you bought one on Taobao you’d probably only use it about once a year, you can do this part by hand. Monk recommends “About 10 minutes. It’s too wet to knead so you need to apply a different technique that involves using your finger and thumb like a pincer, pinching the dough up/down left/right and diagonally, then stretching and folding. When the dough sticks just scrape off what’s on your hand and wet your hand”.
3. Bulk fermentation: 1.5 to 2 hours.
4. Folding: Fold the dough halfway through the bulk fermentation.
5. Dividing and shaping: Divide the dough into 1.5-pound pieces (or larger, as desired); shape round or oval, or make into pan loaves.
6. Final fermentation: 1 to 1.5 hours at 75-degrees Fahrenheit.
7. Baking: With normal steam, 460-degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes, then lower the temperature to 420-degrees Fahrenheit to avoid excess darkening due to the fruits. Loaves scaled at 1.5 pounds should bake for 35 to 38 minutes.

Source: Bread:A Baker’s Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman
Photos: Greg Monk, saveur.com, rawpixel.com, Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The end of the year is the holiday season, and the time for house parties, brunches, and any excuse to get together to wine and dine. As any good hostess can tell you, guests should never arrive empty-handed to a house party. One of the easiest things to bring is a good pie for dessert, and one can never have too many pies.

Nuo Hotel Beijing is known for its extravagant buffets, and pastry chef Nick Xu fills the N’Joy dessert station with at least 20 pies along with other cakes, candies, and tarts every week. Here he shares with beijingkids his all-time favorite, the classic pumpkin pie. One of the best things about this recipe is that once you’ve mastered the basics of pie-making you can easily get creative and start coming up with your own variations of fillings.

Ingredients (The Crust)

• 1,200g butter
• 600g icing sugar
• 300g egg
• 1,800g cake flour

Ingredients (Pie Filling)

• 450g pumpkin purée
• 75g egg yolk
• 50g egg white
• 80g sugar
• ½ cup whipping cream
• 2g ground cinnamon
• 2g nutmeg

Instructions (The Crust)

1. Combine all the ingredients together in a big mixing bowl and mix well.

2. Roll the dough out into sheets and let them rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes. This will make it easier to transfer into the baking pan.

3. Transfer the crust into the baking pan and make small holes on the bottom with a fork. This will allow heat to pass through the crust more evenly when baking.

4. Prep your pie crust by baking it for 15 minutes at 180 degrees C.

Instructions (The Filling)

1. Combine all your ingredients together and mix well.

2. Strain the pumpkin purée mixture into a large bowl. This will remove any chunks and give you a much smoother texture.

3. Fill the pumpkin purée into the pie crust.

Baking

1. Bake at 160 degrees C for 30 minutes.

2. Depending on your oven the cooking time will vary. Check your pie after 30 minutes. If the pumpkin purée is still runny, put your pie back in the oven. Continue checking on it every 5 minutes until your pumpkin purée becomes solid.

3. Let your pie cool down to room temperature before slicing. Enjoy!

Pro Tips:

1. To avoid a soggy bottom crust, prep the pie crust by baking just the crust at 180 degrees C for about 15 minutes and then letting it cool.

2. If you’re using fresh pumpkin, “cook” the purée and then let it cool down before filling your pie crusts. Simply letting your pumpkin purée come to a bubble for about 5 minutes will remove any of the raw pumpkin flavor and give your pie more depth.

Photos: Mina Yan

This article appeared in the beijingkids November 2019 Beijing Baba issue

Hot cross buns, hot cross buns,
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns,
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons,
One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns…

This rhyme dates back to the 18th century, but the English have been eating buns with crosses marked on the top on Good Friday for over 600 years. They were made to celebrate the end of the Lent fast, and originally they were simply called “cross buns”, but the rhyme sung by street vendors selling them warm became so popular that “hot” became part of their name even when served cold.

You can buy hot cross buns in Beijing from Baker and Spice, and also from the charity Bread of Life. But following my adventures in mince pies last Christmas, I decided it would be fun to make some, using what I could get in Chinese supermarkets.

I based mine on Paul Hollywood’s recipe on the BBC Good Food website, but with one important difference. Hot cross buns are more like a sweet bread than a cake, relying on a great deal of kneading and proving. So for this, I turned to my trusty breadmaker.

I have a friend who mocks me for using a machine, and swears by getting your hands deep into the dough as a form of meditation or therapy. But he lives in a wealthy suburb of Brussels, with many traditional family bakers producing crusty baguettes every morning just down the road, and only bakes bread at the weekend. I, on the other hand, live in China, a country that refuses to accept any meaningful distinction between bread and cake. So I load up my Petrus 8500 each evening with flour, yeast, and the rest, and every morning we have fresh bread for breakfast.

So I started with 300 milliliters of milk, which I heated in a pan with a knob of butter (Hollywood calls for 50g, but I didn’t bother to measure.) When the milk came to the boil and the butter was melted, I put it in the breadmaker’s pan. I beat an egg and added it, then came 500g of flour; I used the same high gluten flour I use for bread. 75g of sugar (I used ordinary granulated white rather than the caster sugar from the original recipe), a teaspoon of salt and half a sachet of yeast complete the basic dough.

I set the breadmaker on the dough setting, which takes an hour and a half, giving me time to prepare the extras. I had 75g of sultanas (or possibly raisins or currants) left over from the mince pies, and I was also delighted to have a chance to use the candied peel I’d made. Sadly though, despite having originally been a method of preserving fruit over the winter, my peel had not survived four months in the fridge and had to be thrown away. So I replaced it with 50g of raisins (or possibly currants or sultanas.) An apple was easy to obtain and finely chopped, the zest of an orange grated in, and though powdered cinnamon is not readily available I simply grated a stick until the mixture smelled suitably festive.

The mixed and risen dough, and the flour I used

When the machine beeped, I checked the dough, which had risen to fill the pan. I simply poked it down a bit and chucked all the fruit on top, then ran the kneading cycle again. Incredibly this worked, producing a big ball of dough with the goodies evenly mixed through. After another hour of raising I tipped it out onto a floured board. The recipe suggested dividing it into 15, but I went for 16 because it was easier to get the lumps more or less even. Having shaped 16 lumps into rough balls, I left them on a floured baking tray to prove for another hour.

The buns before proving

The next task was to add the cross. I mixed about 60g of flour with 50ml water (a slightly more liquid combination than the recipe), but I had no piping bag, so ended up crudely painting the crosses on with a chopstick. The result, as you will see, was not aesthetically ideal:

Yes, I know. But wait to see how they turn out…

The messy buns went into an oven preheated to around 175 degrees Celsius. Hollywood suggests a glaze made by warming apricot jam, but I had some honey which I bought from a mountain farm. It’s runnier than supermarket honey, either because it’s so genuine and natural or because I was duped by a crafty farmer who just fills jars with sugar water; so I just put it in a bowl on top of the oven to warm a little and painted it on with a pastry brush (which I do have). The results were more pleasing:

That’s more like it

More importantly, they were delicious, split open and buttered hot from the oven: not as sweet as commercial buns, even with the honey glaze, but fruity and richly textured. Enjoying one with a cup of tea, I was able to relax and consider the deeper questions of life. Such as, what kind of fool would buy a hot cross bun for a penny when you can get two for the same price?

Photos: Andrew Killeen

Who is Michelle’s and what’s so special about her chocolate chip cookies? The answer is, there’s nothing all that special about these chocolate chip cookies and Michelle is just a rad lady (a family friend of mine) who was kind enough to give me this recipe.

We guess the main reason for writing this out is that we are of the opinion that the world (in a very small way) would be a better place if everyone took about two hours out of their busy schedules to make up a batch. The smell of childhood will fill the apartment. Any negativity invading your sense of wellbeing will quickly be turned upside down, and you’ll have everyone in your vicinity eating from the palm of your hand. This, in addition to a slight sugar rush should you decide to scarf down a couple, is the quickest way we can think of achieving a zen-like state even just for a moment.

We would like to add, that there is one thing that sets these little fellas apart from other recipes you might find on your recipe website de jour. Simply use two entire 12 oz. bags of semisweet and bittersweet chocolate chips. At times it feels like the ratio of cookie to chocolate is a little excessive, but we like how the role of the cookie is transformed slightly to become a delivery receptacle for chocolate rather than the focus of the treat.

Without further ado, we give you a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

14 tbsp. Butter
2 tbsp. shortening
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
Two tsp. vanilla
Two eggs
2 1/4 cup flour
One tsp. salt
One tsp. soda
2 12 oz bags of chocolate chips

Instructions: 
Combine flour, salt, soda, and set aside
Cream butter and shortening with a mixer (do not soften butter)
Add and mix brown and white sugar
Then add eggs and vanilla
Add flour mix to above
Add chocolate chips
Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for 12 min