Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies

There is something mysterious about the chocolate chip cookie. I know, you might think I’m crazy and I’m okay with that. I mean, how hard can it be to make a soft, chewy, and tasty chocolate chip cookies? Trust me, I’ve made numerous chocolate chip cookies in attempt to achieve the perfect cookie and apparently, there are multiple of factors that go into making a chocolate chip cookie with the perfect taste, texture, and appearance. In my typical nerdy fashion, I researched how to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I came across a plethora of tips: use an extra egg yolk, refrigerate the cookie dough before baking, use melted butter, don’t use melted, use corn syrup, make bigger cookies…the list goes on. You know what I concluded? It is too much work; thus, I shall never achieve the perfect chocolate chip cookie. It was something I was just going to have to come to grips with, well, until I decided to not be lazy anymore.

The top priority most people want in the perfect chocolate chip cookie is a soft and chewy texture and my priority is no exception. However, in order to achieve this, many bakers under bake cookies. While the baking time plays a factor in the texture of the cookie, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve bite into a cookie and I thought I mind as well be eating cookie dough. While there is nothing wrong with that a little cookie dough action every once in awhile, I think a true cookie expert doesn’t need to make under baked cookie to achieve a soft and chewy texture.

So the purpose of this rant is to tell you that I’ve found a foolproof chocolate chip cookie recipe that will achieve a desirable textured cookie! In other words, this recipe is a simple way to have soft and chewy cookies without adding stress or time to your baking experience. The secret? Instant pudding mix. The pudding gives the cookies a soft texture that will last for days. As an added bonus, the vanilla pudding gives further depth of flavor to the cookies so you end up consuming multiple (yes, multiple) tasty and soft cookies. Also, you can the swap pudding flavor for a different chocolate chip cookie experience. I used vanilla but the cheesecake pudding sounds like it will make these cookies twice as addicting. More dangerous, yes, but totally worth it. I’m not a big proponent of packaged cookies but I’ve done my taste testing and this recipe is reminiscent of Keebler’s Soft Batch Chocolate Chip Cookies. Obviously, these are homemade and x100,000,000,000 times better than the Keebler’s. Sorry Keebler, no offense. These cookies are super tasty and have the perfect soft and slightly chewy texture.

While I believe these cookies are pretty freaking fantastic, it’s always good to test the recipe on other people. Luckily in my household, testing doesn’t require much work. I can tell a recipe is good if only after a few hours of baking, half of my batch is already gone. Darn that cookie monster!

Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies
compliments of  Mommy Savers

Ingredients
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 3.4-oz. package instant vanilla pudding
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs, room temperature
2 cups chocolate chips

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. In mixing bowl, cream together brown sugar, white sugar, butter, vanilla extract, and vanilla pudding mix. Beat until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add flour and baking soda into butter mixture and stir until well-combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
3. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges are just slightly brown. Cookies will seem underdone but will continue to cook after you take them out of the oven. Let cookies cook for 2 minutes before removing to cool rack to cool.