Holiday Favourites: Union Station Chocolate Chip Cookies

The winter holidays are the time of year where my family makes bunches of candies and cookies. There are tons of recipes that remind me of home, which I've been forced to recreate as it's something I kind of miss. It's hard not to miss this time of year when you're unable to return to the place of your origins, but not everyone is able to.

I remember reading during the course of my studies that the first thing people try to recreate to remind them of home when they migrate is food. This makes sense, since it stimulates almost all of our senses; it brings us comfort. So in order to both unintentionally gain weight and ease my holiday rut, I've been baking cookies. They're quite simple to make, and they're always fun to do with other people.

Union Station Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
4 oz. chocolate bar, melted
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2½ cups oats, powdered
½ tsp. salt
12 oz. chocolate chips

First, mix the butter, brown and granulated sugars, vanilla extract, and eggs together. Powder the oats, and add them to the first mixture with flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the melted chocolate bar to the cookie dough, and stir in the chocolate chips with a spatula. Bake the cookies at 375 degrees for 8 minutes.

The batter is quite thick. I recommend doing the chocolate chips without the assistance of a mixer because there is a likelihood that, well, it might burn out on you. This has happened to me twice, and it's incredibly frustrating. However, you may be capable if you're lucky enough to have a large stand mixer. I do not, and I make do with the small hand-mixer that I picked up at the store on a whim.

Choose your chocolate chips and bar per your own tastes. My mother used to use Hershey's chocolate bars and Nestle chocolate chips, which was always quite lovely. However, as I've been spoiled by a silly boy, I've found that we prefer using Ghirardelli for everything; the taste of melted chocolate is much more noticeable in the dough, and it's fun to mix the 60% cacao dark chocolate with the milk chocolate chips.

The plus side with using oats is that it keeps the cookies fluffy after they've been cool for a few days. Normal cookies tend to be harder after cooling, but I prefer still having a chewy texture. Make sure that you remember to powder the oats; I've seen the results of whole oats, and it looks and tastes bizarre.

And the results for the cookies? As I enjoy using my friend as a testing dummy for my cooking, he said they were quite lovely. Everything was "to perfection," though I think he may have been flattering me. Either way, everyone who has had one has enjoyed it and said they were delicious.