Originally published on “Blaise the Baker” March 1st, 2016

This recipe is inspired by Nancy, who was my High School Home Economics teacher. She was, and still is, a big influence on my life. I talked about, and shared, her recipe for peanut butter cookies in my “Chew This!” column a few weeks ago. You can find the recipe and links to the column and recipe here on my blog.

I loved the peanut butter cookies so much – I decided to try her recipe for chocolate chip cookies. They were delicious! I followed her recipe, except I added a few more chocolate chips.

Shout out and special thanks to Nancy for the recipe and inspiration.

Home Economics Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup solid vegetable shortening
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup white granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon water
2 1/2 cups white all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips, mixed with 1 tablespoon white all-purpose flour to help the chips not sink to the bottom of the cookie.

Start by preheating your oven to 375 degrees F and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the solid vegetable shortening, light brown sugar and white granulated sugar. Beat until combined and creamy.

Next, add in the large eggs, pure vanilla extract and water. Cream this mixture until light in color and fluffy in texture.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together the white all-purpose flour, baking soda and salt. This will remove all lumps from the mixture.

Add the flour mixture to the beaten shortening, sugar and egg mixture and blend well. Carefully fold in the flour coated chocolate chips being careful not to over mix the dough. The dough will take all of the chocolate chips – they just need a little coaxing.

Drop teaspoon size amounts onto the parchment lined baking sheets and bake (one sheet at a time) in preheated oven for exactly 12 minutes.

Once baked, remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet before removing and serving.

Enjoy!