Life by Chocolate Cake

I have always wondered how far one could push the chocolate envelope when it comes to cake.  I will wonder no more as I think this cake is the most intense chocolate cake I have ever eaten, made, or experienced.  If you are a true die hard chocoholic then this cake is for you.

I originally found this recipe from the Betty Crocker website and made very few improvements, I'll share the things I tweaked to make this cake "my cake." Right after I made this cake I began to think of other things I could do to make a "white chocolate" version of this cake using strawberries.  Doesn't that sound great?  I think it does.

This cake is incredibly dense, the batter was super thick, but tender and moist after baking.  The pudding and sour cream help to make this so moist even beyond the first day.  I chose to use mini chips in the cake batter instead of the big chips and really liked the resulting texture it gave the cake.  Of course adding vanilla to any cake is a must for me, it just makes me feel better knowing that it is in there.  There is a lot going on in this cake however.

The glaze is really a whole other post!  It was like pouring fudge on the cake.  I wasn't too thin, or too thick.  I found that it rolled nicely down the side of the cake, and unlike other glazes, stayed on the cake and didn't just keep on rolling to the counter.  After it cools is becomes this fudgey, gooey, chocolate coating.

Hot Coffee or Milk is a must, it's the only two things that could possibly compliment this cake to make it better.  I think this cake would freeze great, however I would advise that you glaze the cake when you plan to serve it.  Only because I'm not sure how it would turn out.

1

box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® butter recipe chocolate cake mix

3/4

cup chocolate milk with 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

1/3

cup butter, melted

3

eggs

1

container (8 oz) sour cream

1

package (4-serving size) chocolate instant pudding and pie filling mix

1

bag (12 oz) mini chocolate chips (2 cups)

Rich Chocolate Glaze

3/4

cup semisweet chocolate chips

3

tablespoons butter

3

tablespoons light corn syrup

1 1/2

teaspoons water

1. Heat oven to 350°F.  Grease and lightly flour 12-cup fluted tube cake pan, or spray with baking spray with flour.
2. In large bowl: mix cake mix, chocolate milk, butter, eggs, sour cream and dry pudding. Mix with hand held mixer until well blended, batter will be very thick. Stir in chocolate chips. Spoon into pan.  Make sure to spread the cake, evenly distributing it--it's THICK.
3. Bake 56 to 64 minutes or until top springs back when touched lightly in center. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Turn pan upside down onto cooling rack or heatproof serving plate; remove pan. Cool completely, about 2 hours.
4. In 1-quart saucepan, heat glaze ingredients over low heat, stirring frequently, until chocolate chips are melted and mixture is smooth. Drizzle over cake. 

Sugar Cookie Bars

Yes, it's on an upside-down bowl.

I've never been one to just, "come up" with a new recipe out of thin air, I have to have inspiration and then reinvent or tweak it to my liking.  When I first caught wind of the idea of taking a sugar cookie and turning it into a bar I was all about that.  Turns out dozens of other cooks have has the very same idea, go figure.  I read about ten different recipes and finally decided on the recipe that I was going to tweak to make my own. Even if having a sugar cookie bars is not your idea of delicious, you will for sure want to try this buttercream frosting.  I haven't had a better buttercream--ever!

My son, Titus, helped me make these bars, up to the point of frosting, for our church community group meeting.  It's great fun to have your kids help you cook, and they get to learn all about fractions and following instructions...so much to learn from being in the kitchen and cooking.  He's quite the cook, I'm very proud of him.  The bars come together quick and bake even faster.  One lesson I've learned is not to wait for these bars to get dark on top.  These bars cooked in 10 minutes.  I didn't really get a stop watch and keep time, but I would say that from mixing to frosting it was maybe 45 minutes to an hour.

These bars are very versatile in that you could add your favorite extract, or citrus zest and create a whole new bar.  The frosting could be tinted to any shade you wanted.  I chose to go with the  plain white and used the really cool crystal sugar, which of course could be any color available.

The cookie is tender and moist with a very "sugar cookie" taste, only thicker.  How bad can that be?  The buttercream frosting is just to die for.  Creamy and sweet with that ever so slight salt that cuts through the sweetness of the frosting.  There were some parts of the bar where the frosting was as thick as the bar itself! Don't get me wrong, I love frosting as much as the next guy, but I should try to do a better job of spreading the love next time.

1 cup salted butter, at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda

For the frosting:
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
5 tbsp. milk
Food coloring (optional)

Directions:
To make the cookies, preheat the oven to 350˚ F.   Spray a jelly roll pan with non-stick cooking spray (the size will vary) Combine the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Beat on medium-high speed until light and smooth, about 2 minutes.  Mix in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.  Add the extracts, mixing to combine.  Add the dry ingredients to the mixer bowl and beat on low speed just until incorporated.  It's easier to add all the dry ingredients to another bowl and stir them together, but if you don't feel like getting another bowl dirty then just add the salt, baking powder, and flour.

Transfer the cookie dough to the prepared baking sheet and press into an even layer. I got a paper towel wet and kept my fingers moist, not wet, to keep the dough from sticking to my fingers. Bake 10-15 minutes, until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, place the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Beat on medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute.  Blend in the vanilla, salt, and confectioners' sugar until smooth, 1-2 minutes.  Mix in the milk.  Tint as desired with food coloring.  Spread over the cookie in the pan, sprinkle with the sugar and  cut into bars and serve.

Ice cold milk or hot coffee is a very necessary accessory. 

Margaret's Tea Cakes

I had never heard of a tea cake until I was married.  My wife raved and raved about her Grandmother's tea cakes and how delicious they were.  When she was in High School she was very active in Track and Field and basketball.  It drives her crazy when i brag about how well she did in athletics and talk about all the awards she won.  Her Grandmother would make a huge batch of tea cakes for her to take on the out of town meets.  Her coach always asked if Margaret's tea cakes were, "coming with us."

Tea Cakes are a different kind of cookie in that they aren't really sweet.  They are a dense and soft cookie slightly sweet and very subtle in flavor.  I think they would be really good with some lemon zest and a lemon glaze.  But, these weren't for me, they were for my wife who likes them just the way they were.  I did tweak the recipe adding a little more baking soda, vanilla, and almond extract.  I liked they way they turned out.

A word of caution though, if you don't like to roll of fiddle with cookies, walk away.  The first dozen I made I just dropped out of my scoop.  They didn't look very pretty at all, very rough. The amount of flour in the batter made them hold their shape and not spread as I thought they would.  I rolled them in my hands and patted them out (that's what made them look so smooth).  You could roll the dough out and cut them, but I didn't think that step was necessary.

1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
6 tablespoons of milk
5 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon almond extract

Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy (about 5 min.).  Add eggs, milk, and extracts mixing to incorporate.  Slowly add flour until completely combined.  Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, rolling into a ball and slightly flattening out.  Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven 10-12 minutes.  They will not brown.  Cool on a wire rack.  Store in an airtight container.

Note:  I think they would be delicious with some lemon zest added to the dough, then glazed with a lemon glaze.

Snickerdoodle Oatmeal

I served this with a little buttered toast.

I've always heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  My sister and I grew up getting ourselves ready for school each day alone.  Both of our parents worked and left the house before we were even awake usually.  Both my sister and I chose to sleep rather than eat breakfast, so we skipped the most important meal of the day.  During the summer months we would eat cereal each morning, occasionally pancakes or frozen waffles.  My Mom would always get on us for not eating breakfast, but there was no way we were going to wake up early to eat, sleep was precious.

When we had Titus I was determined to make breakfast for him each day and have him growing up eating breakfast.  He evolved to preferring Pop Tarts, Toaster Strudel, or cereal over time but occasionally would want to have something hot...well hotter than a toaster hot.  I have this HUGE hang up for wanting my children to eat homemade food and not reheated factory prepared food.  I can't really explain it, but it is a big deal to me.  I want them to ask for home made cookies over packaged, home made brownies over Little Debbie, and so on down the list.  Maybe it because I watched too much TV, who knows I certainly don't try to figure out my crazy quirks because there isn't enough time in the day.

Having just wrapped up a long Christmas break, extended by a visit from sweet long time friends, I stayed home to help Kendra get the kids ready for their day.  Titus brought home the classroom beta to babysit over the holiday, and he needed to go back to school.  I usually go to work early, before anyone is awake since I wake up at 5am everyday without an alarm clock.  The brisk morning made me think of oatmeal and so I just decided that I would make oatmeal for the kids and not ask what they wanted.   We have microwave packets of oatmeal that they usually eat, but I wanted to make something cooked on the stove.  

All of my kids loved this oatmeal!  This is a rare treat and very unusual for them to all agree that they love anything, let alone oatmeal.  Their reaction and praise for, "the best oatmeal on earth" made decide I'd better make it a recipe and get this written down.  Since I had to think of a name for this "recipe" I tried to associate the flavors and decided Snickerdoodle cookies is the closest flavor association I could make, thus the name.  The bonus is that saying, "snickerdoodle" is fun.  The picture above is Levi's serving, which needs to be room temperature or cooler because he doesn't like hot stuff.

Snickerdoodle Oatmeal

1 1/2 cups Instant Oatmeal

1 cup Milk

3/4 cup water

1/2 teaspoon Kosher Salt

1 teaspoon Vanilla extract

6 Tablespoons butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 Tablespoons Cinnamon Sugar (plus some for garnish)

In a medium saucepan add milk and water, bring to a boil over medium heat.  When the milk and water come to a boil, add salt, vanilla, and oats, stirring well.  Cook over medium heat 2 minutes.  Remove from heat adding remaining ingredients.  Stir well to combine.  Taste and adjust to suit personal taste.  Garnish with cinnamon sugar (about a tablespoon for each serving).

4 generous servings

Notes:

• When you boil milk on the stove, be watchful.  You really don't want to walk off from a pot of milk in the stove.  When it comes to the boiling point, it doesn't boil like water, it swells and foams up.  If you aren't careful it will over flow and that's no fun to clean up!
• I think the vanilla adds a layer of flavor the compliments the cinnamon and sugar, it really helped finish off the dish, for me at least.
• I keep cinnamon sugar mixed up and in my pantry in a flour shaker.  The one I have is from pampered chef, but you can find them readily at most stores that sell kitchen duke.  My ratio is almost equal parts cinnamon to sugar.
• If you dont' think this tastes like a snickerdoodle that's ok, just change the name.
• Start to finish this was done and ready to eat in 20 minutes, maybe less.

Cranberry Orange Scone

I can remember when the no-carb craze swept across the Texas town in which Kendra and I lived.  It seemed like every single person I knew was on the no-carb protein diet.  I worked with a guy who ate a package of the already cooked bacon as a snack-THE PACKAGE!  It really blew me away for so many reasons, the most of which was, why in the world would you give up bread?  I love bread, it's one of my hands down favorite foods.   I think yeast breads would be my favorite, but bread is one of my favorite foods.  The smell of baking bread makes my mouth water.  During the holidays I will skip the protein to eat an extra roll, or two, or who's counting?

Biscuits out of the can were a staple in my childhood.  Cinnamon rolls out of a can, yep that was a staple too.  My Mom wasn't a baker, unless you count the occasional box cake she would make say twice a year. I don't really have a memory of eating scratch biscuits as a child, with the exception of our lake trips to Shell Knob.  We grew up going to the lake and would stop in Casseville, MO at this restaurant called the Lighthouse for breakfast.  I always had a hard time deciding what to order there because they had two of my very favorite things on a breakfast menu: pancakes and biscuits and gravy.  Their pancakes were incredible, crispy and yet light and fluffy.  The butter was always real and soft enough to spread without turning your pancake into bread crumbs.  Oh, and the syrup was warm.  Dad's breakfast usually came with a side of biscuits and gravy, which meant I could get both.  It was always a good day when we stopped at the Lighthouse.  The biscuits were light and flaky, super high.  I was just in awe of these ginourmous things called a biscuit because the ones I ate out of a can were croutons compared to these babies.

I've made home made biscuits, but find that the frozen biscuits we get are just as good.  I still try to make some every so often just so my kiddos have a memory of eating homemade things.  Scones are basically jacked up biscuits if you get right down to it.  The principles of  scone baking are the same as biscuit making, at least the recipe I'm going to share with you today is.  Cutting in cold butter to your dry ingredients, then adding the wet, quick kneading, rolling and wham-o you are done.  I dont' really think there is anything in the world that goes better with coffee than a good scone.  My wife loves scones and gets very happy when I whip up a batch of these, her favorite combination.

Owning a stand mixer will really make your life easier, but it's not impossible just harder.  What I love about this recipe is that they are light, not too dry and not too heavy.  I've had some scones where I felt like I just ate a brick because they were too dense and too dry to the point that I couldn't whistle for a week.  Cutting in the butter is what takes the longest, but once you get that done the rest is quick.  Before I forget.  When you are cutting the butter, don't give up.  There is a point in the process where it looks like you've made sand, that's when you need to remember me telling you not to give up.  Patiently waiting a minute or two longer yields the "pea size" pebbles you want.

I read probably 10 different recipes for scones from trusted cookbooks and came up with my own version I'm sharing today.  This recipe will be a snap to make if you own: a stand mixer, micro plane grater, bench scraper, pastry brush, and parchment paper.  A bench scraper is one of my most favorite tools to use in the kitchen.  They are super cheap and you can use them for a multitude of things.  I think a micro plane zester is also a must have item.  I use mine to zest citrus for many different recipes as well as for grating hard cheese.  Buying Parmesan or Romano cheese by the hunk is so much cheaper than already grated.  In looking for a photo to upload I ran a across this genius suggestion at Amazon.  For less than $40 you can get a zester, scraper, AND silpat mat!  What I wouldn't give for a siplat mat!  That's the next investment for me.

Scones:

4 cups All purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

2 tablespoons baking powder

1 tablespoon salt (sea or kosher please)

1 tablespoon of grated orange zest (usually one baseball size orange)

1 1/2 cups cold butter, diced (that bench scraper works like a charm for this project)

4 eggs 

1 cup whipping cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 heaping cup dried cranberries

Egg Wash:

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons water

Glaze:

Juice of one orange

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Prepare sheet pans by lining with parchment or silpat mat (sigh).  Zest your orange and set aside.  Dice the butter and set aside.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and zest.  Turn on low and mix just to incorporate.  Add the diced butter and turn the mixer on low.  Mix on low to medium speed until the butter and flour come together and resemble small pebbles (pea size) approximately five minutes.  While the butter and flour are incorporating put the eggs, heavy cream, and vanilla in a medium size bowl and whisk together.  Get your egg wash ready, too.  All you need is a coffee cup or small bowl for this: whisk the egg and water together then set aside.  When the flour is ready, turn the mixer to low and slowly add the cream mixture, mixing until it is just combined.  Add the dried cranberries and mix until they are incorporated.

On a well floured surface, turn out the dough which will be very sticky.  Dust the top of the dough with flour and lightly knead until the dough is not sticky.  Cut dough in half, set one aside.  Lightly press the dough into a flat circle about 3/4" thick.  Think deck of cards thick.  I used my hands for this, but you could use a rolling pin if you wanted to.  Using a pizza cutter cut the circle in half then each half into fourths.  If you want to make smaller scones, you would just cut the dough into fourths...you get the picture.  Place the scones on the prepared sheet pan, brush with the egg wash and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch.  Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Mix the orange juice, sugar and extract together in a small bowl and whisk until the sugar is incorporated and there are no lumps.  Add more sugar to yield desired consistency, thicker or thinner based on your preference.  Glaze the top of each scone when they are cooled.

Notes:

• Make sure your baking powder is good and fresh.  You should only keep it 3-6 months before replacing it.
• Cubing butter is easy with the bench scraper because you can cut the stick in 1/4's then dice it up.
• There is no rule about the shape of a scone needing to be this triangle shape.  Feel free to use a biscuit cutter and make rounds which would yield you more scones.  The triangel shape just screams scone and not funky biscuit.

Variations:

• Use lemon zest instead of orange (go with 2-3 lemons) and add dried blueberries instead of dried cranberries.
• Stay with the orange zest, only had chopped bittersweet chocolate.
• Use almond extract instead of vanilla, add chopped apricots.
• Stick with the vanilla extract, no dried fruit, but scrape the pod of a vanilla bean or two.

Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie

I almost forgot to get a picture.
Here it is in the oven, ready to bake.

   I think if every cook were to really come clean and own up to it they would admit to intimidation in the kitchen.  For some the intimidation might be boiling water, for others candy making or pastries, I think I could get a list quick!  For me the number one intimidation is in making pie crust.  I can't really put my finger on why, exactly I have a hard time with pie crust, but somewhere down the road of my cooking experience I had some pretty bad run ins with pie crust and ran away intimidated.  I'm not opposed to purchasing pre-shaped and in the pan pie crusts at all, or the rolled up pastry that you just unroll and plop in your own pie plate.  I'm ok with that.  Of of my biggest intimidators was in the final stage of pie crust construction---crimping.  I just could never get that crust to look pretty--ever!  That was surely the root of my problems, I just couldn't make a pretty crust.

I finally came to the conclusion that I could do it, and I was going to do it no matter what the cost.  I set out reading recipes for pie crusts and talking to friends who had great pie crusts.  I watched my sister make pie crust over thanksgiving and slowly built up my confidence.  There was one video I watched online where the cook demonstrated crimping in which I had that eureka moment and was once and for all on the other side of being intimidated and head set on motivated to make pie crust.

I knew, from my research that I needed to use butter, a food processor, and child the dough in the fridge.  These three factors were stumbling blocks for me in the past and I just decided that I was going to incorporate these steps in my crust making attempt.  I wanted to use real butter because I wanted to have that butter flavor and trademark flakiness that I just didn't see in shortening crusts (there is a HUGE debate about this topic on the Internet).  As for the food processor, I wanted to ensure that I mixed the butter, salt and flour together to get the right texture so I could add the ice water and have it all come magically together in one nice ball (just like on TV)  I didn't see that coming from a pastry blender and fork--at least from me.  Finally, chilling the dough.  That was a tough one let me tell you.  I just couldn't come to grips with the necessity of chilling the dough, but again my research showed that it was a critical step in making good pie crust.  See the flour has gluten, which is the binder, and that gluten needs to calm down after being worked over.  By resting the dough you give the gluten a chance to calm down, and the butter to chill out.  As the crust bakes the butter will evaporate and leave the flakiness that we want.  This post is really about Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie I promise.

I first started making Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie when Kendra and I were catering in Fort Worth.  We started Catering (Silver Spoons Catering) to raise money for the adoption of our two boys.  I really couldn't work a 2nd job being in ministry, so this gave me a great opportunity to do something I loved to do and make extra money as well.  As a caterer you always want to have something that is familiar to folks, yet different enough that your recipe stands out.  If you live in Texas for more than 24 hours you will run across people who talk about pecan pie.  I was going to be just another import hawking a pecan pie unless I twisted it.  Adding chocolate and bourbon seemed like not just a twist, but a tornado, and it worked.  At the height of our business Kendra and I made over 200 of this very pie in one year.  That's a lot of pie!

Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie is not for the faint of heart, it's decadent to say the least.  I have to say that I really love this pie.  The bittersweet chocolate really comes to the rescue of this really sweet and rich pie, cutting the sweetness with the bitterness of the chocolate.  I think that is one of the keys, bittersweet chocolate chips.  The pecans float to the top of the pie as it bakes which gets them toasty and delicious, glazed with the sweet filling.  The filling is fairly run of the mill, corn syrup, eggs, salt, vanilla, sugar, butter, but then the bourbon is added and we are lifting off to another planet.

As a side note let me just say that if you cook with alcohol, don't buy it if you wouldn't drink it.  Buy the best quality you can get.  If you are unfamiliar with liquor stores, like me, just remember that the good stuff is on top--always!  The lower you go the lower you go in terms of quality.  I think the best quality you can get is important.  When it comes to bourbon you don't want to go with the super high quality, sippin' whiskey, because it's just a waste and the bourbon flavor can get really overpowering.  Maker's Mark and Elijah Craig are two my favorite brands.  One bottle will last me two or three years.

Pie Crust:

1 1/2 all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, cubed
4-6 tablespoons ice water

In a food processor: add flour, salt and cubed butter.  Process on low until it is small pebbles (think grape nuts size) add ice water two tablespoons at a time until the dough comes together in a ball, usually for me it's 4 tablespoons.  Remove dough and shape into a disc, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use (20-30 minutes).  After elapsed time, remove dough to floured surface.  Dust pie dough with flour on both sides.  Roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick and place in a deep dish 9" pie plate.  Fold in dough and crimp edges with fingers.

Bourbon Chocolate Pecan filling:

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter, melted
3 eggs
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 T. Bourbon
1 T. Vanilla
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup pecan halves

Preheat oven to 375.  In a medium size bow add sugar and melted butter.  Mix until creamy.  Add eggs, syrup, salt, bourbon and vanilla extract, mix on medium speed until thick and well combined.  Place chocolate chips and pecans evenly in prepared pie plate and slowly pour filling over.  Using a spatula, smooth the filling around until the pecans look evenly distributed.  Bake at 375 for 40-50 minutes.  The pie will turn a dark amber brown an be slightly loose (like set pudding).

I love to serve this with a dusting of powdered sugar, fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Here it is!  Hot out of the oven.

Chocolate Tuxedo

I think I've had as many failures in the kitchen as I have had success, if not more failures.  The failures usually come when I get a craving for something and go on a hunt for just the right recipe only to find that it's not what I was looking for, which makes the craving worse.  I love chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips and have been searching for the perfect recipe for years.  I usually find that the dough is too crumbly and doesn't hold together well, if at all.  I don't know enough about chemistry to adjust and fix a recipe, so I just toss that recipe and keep on looking.


Over the weekend I happened upon a recipe in one of Kendra's magazines for a chocolate based cookie.  I had high hopes for this recipe as it was from a butter council, I figured they knew a thing or two about buttery cookies.  I changed up some of the ingredients and tweaked the cookies to my preference, hoping that I didn't totally destroy this cookie.  Much to my relief and amazement-IT WORKED! It not only worked, but it was delicious and just what I had been searching for all this time.


This cookie will fall into the category of, "good but time consuming", as it does take a little effort.  It's easy, just time consuming, so I'll make these when the craving gets to me, or if we have some special cookie trays to make up.  Chocolate crinkles, raspberry thumb prints, and snickerdoodles are other cookies in this vault of great cookies that just take some time to make.


1 1/2 cups special dark chocolate chips, melted
1 2/3 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 bag white chocolate chips (2 cups)  [See note below]

Prep:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Place dark chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl (see note)
• Add dry ingredients to a medium size bowl and stir together

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, add butter and both sugars.  Mix on medium speed until light and creamy.  I usually set my kitchen timer for 5 minutes and it's perfect.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each.  Add vanilla.  Turn mixer to low and slowly add dry ingredients until completely mixed.  Add white chocolate chips and stir to combine.

On a parchment lined cookie sheet.  Place rounded tablespoons of dough about two inches apart (I use a medium size spring loaded scoop).  I use a jelly roll pan and can get 12 cookies (3 across 4 down) per pan.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Let stand about a minute, them move to a cooling rack.  Store in cookie jar.

Note:

• Melting chocolate chips in the microwave is tricky.  You have to remember that chips hold their shape, so don't expect to see smooth melty chocolate.  The best trick to use is to microwave the chips for 30 seconds, then stir.  Microwave for another 20 seconds then stir.  This is usually as long as it takes for my microwave.  Just keep microwaving at 10-20 second intervals until the chips are melted and smooth.
• Adding the dry ingredients separately is not a great idea because the cocoa powder is very fine and no matter how slow you mix there will be a cocoa powder mushroom cloud!  Stirring the salt, baking powder, cocoa, and flour together is the ticket to cloud free mixing.
• I wasn't trying to impress anyone with my cookies, but if you wanted to make them really pretty.  Save about 1/4-1/2 cups of the white chips and just push three or four on the tops of each cookie before baking.  That will make them look very pretty, I think they are fine just as they are.
• I can't really say why, but as soon as ANY cookie I'm baking comes out of the oven I give each one a gentle swat with my spatula to knock out the air.  I think it makes them look prettier and I always do that.  You have my permission to do this as well.