And you know actually my beliefs about music therapy have changed a lot. It was sort of banged into our heads in school that Music-As-Therapy (the music experience as the main therapeutic aspect) was pretty much the only way to go as a music therapist and Music-In-Therapy (with more talking and processing of the music experience) should be rarely if not ever used. I understand the reasoning behind this. We want to be a credible profession so if we use only Music-As-Therapy we are doing something no other professional could do and also we can get more concrete data from our patients. But in a psychiatric setting this really doesn't make much sense, because outcomes are not so tangible. Patients need understanding of their disease, understanding of healthy coping skills and wellness skills and this cannot really totally be achieved with just Music-As-Therapy. I struggled with this in the beginning but I have come to realize that in this setting I have to change my thinking. The music interventions in themselves are therapeutic with the patients, but in this setting I have come to realize that if I do not process what we just did, draw parallels to life, discuss, and use other therapeutic techniques then I am not being the best therapist I can be.
Anyway, I'm rambling. On to the subject of cookies.
I have recently started a quest to find the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe. Of all things baked, chocolate chip cookies are probably my favorite. So I have been reading recipe after recipe of those that claim to be the best. One thing I am realizing is that most are really not that different. They all pretty much start out with the same base recipe and then proportions are changed a little or unique techniques such as browning the butter, shredding the butter or adding yeast are used giving each person their claim to the best chocolate chip cookie recipe. And you know where that base recipe comes from?... Nestle Toll House.
I think that Nestle Toll House cookies were actually the first thing I baked by myself. I was in my first apartment and I think I thought that baking was a grown up thing to do so I got a package of chocolate chips and followed the recipe on the back. The recipe is darn good too. I have used it many times. 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.
COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. .
This recipe makes a crispy cookie on the outside and a little chewy on the inside. It stays a little flatter than I like but I have found that if you chill the dough and cook them on foil the cookies stay a bit thicker.
This week I tried two different cc cookie recipes that claimed to be the best. The first batch I took to work and the second are in the oven at the moment.
Attempt #1: cookies that are slightly thick and chewy. A few too many chocolate chips for me and not really anything special. I made a change of using browned butter instead of softened. This added a slightly caramel flavor which was good. Original recipe from Debbie Borsick on allrecipes.com. As you can see, the recipe is exactly the same with addition of vanilla pudding mix. Overall I thought that Nestle's were just as good.
Attempt #2: cookies in the recipe were advertised as thick and chewy. They did turn out chewy but not so much thick. I did think that the flavor was better than the first but not extraoridinarily. The original recipe calls for European butter and you are supposed to shred it instead of letting it soften. I did shred it, but I did not splurge on the European butter. Maybe this is what makes it so over the top because as you can see, this recipe is also VERY similar to Nestle's. I made sure to weigh the flour because 3 cups sounded like a lot and doubled the vanilla to give it more flavor. The dough was awesome before baked, but after cooking they were good but nothing really special. Recipe is from VanillaSugar food blog
So the quest continues. All 3 recipes are good, really good. But I am still holding onto hope that their is something better. More over the top. Maybe I will try the 2nd attempt again with European butter. Maybe I will try to find a recipe that is more far away from the original of Toll House. But I think this may be a long journey of trial, error and probably too many cookies than I need to be tasting.
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