How To: Bake chocolate chip cookies

Here is a great idea for gifts for absolutely any holiday, give the gift that everyone likes, delicious homemade chocolate chip cookies! Make these cookies with the whole family and then package in a decorative tin.

Preheat your oven before you begin mixing your ingredients for the dough. This will help make sure the oven is hot enough so that the first batch cooks evenly, and it will also help you know how long each batch will take. If the oven is cooler when you start the first batch of cookies, then they will take longer to cook and it may cause you to overcook the next batch.

Make sure that all of the ingredients are as fresh as possible. Old eggs and hard butter do not make good cookies. Also make sure that the chocolate chips are fresh and not dried up or melted.

Measure all of the ingredients properly. The texture and viscosity of the cookie dough is essential to making the perfect cookies. If the dough is too dry, you can end up with hard, brittle cookies.

Use real, unsalted butter and let it soften at room temperature instead of in the microwave. If you don't mind the extra fat, use butter even if the recipe calls for margarine. Butter will make cookies softer and more flavorful. Don't melt the butter, just soften it to the point that it will combine with the dry ingredients.

Try substituting half of the all-purpose or white flour with whole-wheat flour. The whole-wheat flour will add some flavor to compliment the chocolate chips and can add that special "something" to the cookies that will make everyone want your secret. It may also help ease your mind about using real butter.

Chill the chocolate chip cookie dough between baking batches in the oven. This will make it easier to handle.

Bake the chocolate chip cookies using light cookie sheets instead of dark, non-stick cookie sheets.