Chocolate choco chip cookies

I don’t need to give a background about choco chip cookies, you all know what it is — the ultimate comfort food! Now, I was putting off baking cookies because all the recipes say I need brown sugar and the Walgreens (a department store) near my home keeps it only during Thanksgiving and Christmas o|O. This meant I would have to take the bus to the nearest HEB (bigger department store). You say ‘Come to the damn point Meghalee’. Ok, public transport here is not very convenient; although buses and trains are always on time, they have a gap of at least 20 minutes, so if you miss your bus, then keep waiting…. In Delhi, you have a bus conductor shouting the names of the stops, who also becomes your Raju guide when you are new, the stops have names and the buses have names of all the stops written on the side. Here if you don’t have a car, commuting tends to be a problem. But the desire to eat home-baked cookies finally overpowered my hesitation and paranoia of getting lost (last week I walked over four miles so that I didn’t have to take the bus!) Anyway, I finally got brown sugar and loads of other baking stuff, which I will update in my blog soon eeeeeee, and came home without getting lost or being laughed at by scary big Americans. (Actually they are the sweetest people I ever met, at least Texans are). So here I am, with a plate full of freshly-baked cookies, and the house smells amazingly cookish (seriously, there should be a room freshener with the essence of cookies or bread being baked).
Note: There was a little blunder — the cookies in the top rack got slightly burnt 🙁 I don’t know what kind of oven you use, but if yours has two racks, don’t keep the cookie tray on the top rack; if you don’t have space and have to use it, then remove the tray three minutes earlier than the one below.
I will go back to my cookies now.. smell them, bite them, mmmm.

Prep time: 20 min Baking time: 10-13 min Servings: 2 dozen

Ingredients:
Butter or Vegetable shortening: 1/2 cup, room temperature
(I like to use butter and shortening in equal quantities, but if you don’t have vegetable shortening, just use butter)
White sugar: 1/2 cup
Brown sugar: 1/2 cup
(If you don’t have brown sugar, you can use only white sugar, add a little honey to the batter)
Eggs: 1
Vanilla extract: I tsp
Maida or all-purpose flour: 1 cup
Baking soda: 1/2 tsp
Cocoa powder: 1/2 cup
Chocolate chips 1 cup

Method:

1) Beat butter or vegetable shortening until creamy.
2) Add white and brown sugar and mix well for at least 2 minutes.
3) Beat in the egg till the mixture becomes fluffy and add the vanilla essence.
4) Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C)
5) In a separate bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder and baking soda. Add this to the egg mixture and BEAT IT!! Add the chocolate chips. (Btw, cookie dough tastes even better than cake batter!)

6) Put an amount of around 1 heaped tbsp of the dough on the cookie sheets.

7) Bake for 10-13 minutes. Cool them on a wire rack or outside.

Tadaaa!