General Baking Tips

I know that a little bit of magic is responsible for my cookies turning out as well as they do. Or maybe you could call it "love." But there are some practical things I do that many home bakers don't do, and these things make for a better cookie:

1. Weigh ingredients. Especially flour and eggs. A cup of flour is 5 oz. One large egg (cracked) is 1.75 oz.
2. Rotate the baking pan half-way through. 
3. Do not over-bake. It takes some practice to know when to take cookies out of the oven. When in doubt, err on the side of too soon. An under-baked cookie tastes way better than an over-baked one (most of the time).
4. Taste nuts, especially walnuts, before adding them to the batter. Rancid walnuts are gross and are probably a big part of why kids (and adults) think they don't like nuts in cookies. I get mine in bulk at the co-op and store them in the fridge.
5. Always toast nuts before adding them to the batter. So much more flavor that way.
6. Use parchment paper. Then you don't have to deal with greasing cookie sheets or scraping ruined cookies off the pan. I save the used parchment paper and use it again on similar-smelling cookies.
7. Use good butter (like Hope Creamery). And please don't use Crisco. 
8. Use good chocolate. The best chocolate chips I have found are Ghirardelli 60%. And I've tried a lot of chocolate chips. 
9. Use an oven thermometer. Seriously.
10. Enjoy it.

I'll probably think of more. And maybe I'll write little posts explaining why each of these things is important.