I love Matt’s Chocolate Chip Cookies. If you’ve never had them, you can get them at most co-ops or where organic foods are sold. A year or two ago I decided to try to duplicate their soft texture and subtle sweetness. It couldn’t be too hard considering one can actually read the ingredient list. The main substitutions I determined I would need from my regular Toll House recipe were soybean oil and wheat flour. Well, I wasn’t quite able to reproduce Matt’s cookies to my liking (until recently…but that’s a story for another blog post), but I was able to make some darn tasty cookies with similar ingredients.

Here’s my recipe and technique:

• 1 C soybean oil
• .75 C sugar
• .75 C brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 – 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp baking soda
• .5 – 1 tsp salt
• 2.25 C wheat flour
• 1 C all purpose flour
• chocolate chips (as many as will stick in the dough!)
• chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 325. Mix oil, sugars, and eggs. Add vanilla, baking soda, and salt and mix thoroughly. Start with wheat flour since it’s harder to mix than the white flour and only mix in 1 C at a time. It may be necessary to let the last C of flour sit partially mixed into the dough for 5 – 10 min if it’s troublesome to mix. The oil will start to soak into the flour making it easier. Now, mix in chocolate chips. Sorry I don’t have the exact amount, I just sort of dump them in. For ease in balling the dough, I rinse my hands in cold water first. I find this dough to be stickier than most cookie dough so the water keeps it from sticking to my hands. Bake at 325 for 8-10 minutes depending on how gooey you like them. Keep an eye on them, though. I generally notice the first batch takes longer. I’m guessing it’s because the pan is already hot when placing the following batches.

That’s about it. That’s the secret to the cookies everyone keeps asking about. Nothing that special, really, but just wait for the nearly-sugar-free cookie recipe! FYI, I don’t tend to be very consistent in cooking or baking so these come out different nearly every time for me, maybe they will for you too. There’s also considerable difference between types of wheat flour so if you find one you like, be sure to keep track of the brand and specific name.

Give them a shot and let me know how they turn out!