It is the perfect time of year to get in the kitchen, put some Christmas music on, and bake! Maybe you’re gifting the cookies to others for the holidays, maybe for Santa, or even just for yourself (no judgment here)! Baking cookies is a great way to spend time with the ones you love the most, have some laughs, make a mess, and simply just have fun and get your bake on.

Let’s get started!

This classic McCormick recipe calls for only 10 ingredients. In just 15 short minutes for prep time and an eight-minute cook time, you will have 30 scrumptious cookies in no time! Let’s be honest, during this time of year, we don’t have time for complicated; this recipe makes it so easy and stress-free. Every signal one of those 274 calories is worth it, I promise.

Ingredients-

• 3 1/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups butter, softened
• 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 4 teaspoons McCormick® All Natural Pure Vanilla Extract, but any works!
• 1 package (12 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips- a little extra doesn’t hurt anyone!
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (this is optional)

Instructions-

Be ahead of the game and preset your oven to 375°F. In the meantime, in a separate bowl mix the flour, baking soda, and salt. In your electric mixer, on medium speed, beat the butter and sugar until you get that light, fluffy consistency. Next, add eggs and vanilla. A pro tip is to crack eggs in a separate small bowl, then just throw them in. Make sure everything is mixed well! Now at this point, you’re going to gradually add and beat in the flour mixture on low speed until everything is well mixed. Now for the best part, add and stir in the choc

olate chips, add extra if needed (it’s always needed)! If you are feeling fancy, mix in the walnuts, but this part is totally optional. Now just take a spoon and blob the cookie dough two inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Adding parchment paper might be helpful to ensure no cookies stick to the baking sheet. Now just throw them in the oven and let the cookies bake for 8-10 minutes, then just let them cool.

That’s it, it’s as simple as that, eat and enjoy! The only thing left to do is argue who is on clean up duty. Although, teamwork does make the dream work.  My personal experience with making these cookies was so much fun! I did it with a group of friends (while listening to Christmas music of course), and we had the pleasure to pass them out to teachers as a little Christmas appreciation gift from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes club. Shout out to Revivals Outreach Center for letting us use their kitchen as the mixer came in very handy as we could do multiple batches at once. “I didn’t know at first how it was going to go making nine batches of cookies at once, but when we got a system it went very quick”, Kayla Weise, one of the FCA leaders’ states. We made and packaged about 400 cookies in under two hours.

Brooke Weiss, one of the FCA leaders speaks on the challenges and explains, “it was a challenge to get everyone to work together smoothly, but fun to know  everyone had a part in making the cookies.” It did take a little time to organize everyone and assign jobs for this heavy task of 400 cookies, but once we got our assembly line going, and organized who was doing what, we got our rhythm down. Everyone had a different perspective on what a spoonful of cookie dough looked like, but that’s what makes every cookie unique.

“It was great getting to spend some quality time with some of the fellow students”, FCA leader Brock Denglier explains. We also got to enjoy some extra cookies we had leftover and Denglier states, “the cookies ended up tasting amazing and I enjoyed how they were homemade and had a personal touch to them, they were hands down 10/10”.

We are so happy we got to do this together and thankful for the students that came out to help! We are glad we could show our appreciation to teachers with these delicious cookies. “I loved getting together with friends to do something nice for the teachers that do so much for us”, Weise states.

Recipe link-

https://www.mccormick.com/recipes/dessert/vanilla-rich-chocolate-chip-cookies