Chocolatey and rich, chewy and sweet. When I want to eat chocolate chips but also want to add something to eat with it, I ask my brother if he would like to bake with me. Usually, we don’t have many ingredients to bake more complex desserts like cakes or brownies; cocoa powder and heavy cream. That’s why we always make chocolate chip cookies. Usually, before baking, we bike together to the town center CVS to buy sugar, vanilla, and chocolate chips. We can, however, tend to forget what to buy, so we each think of what we need and repeatedly list them out until we can remember beforehand. We mostly only go to buy chocolate chips since it’s the ingredient we use the most.

Even if I don’t have chocolate chips, we use what we can find, like chocolate bars and or something that has chocolate in it. Sometimes, we don’t have enough other ingredients like flour or sugar. Then, we take the original measurement for one of the ingredients and compare it to how much we have of it. For example, if the original measurement was one cup of flour, but we only had three-eighths of a cup of flour, we would also multiply every other ingredient measurement by three-eighths. I measure out the ingredients while my brother adds them into the mixing bowl. Our ingredients each have different ways to prepare them, sifting the flour and baking soda, melting the butter in the microwave, and beating the egg.

I usually forget to remove the pots and pans from the inside of the oven before preheating, leading my brother to set up the oven, making it seem like he’s helping me more than I’m helping him. I scoop the cookie dough into a baking tray. Then, my brother helps carry the tray to the refrigerator to cool down as we wait for the oven to heat up. Right after the cookies are done, we hover over, eagerly watching them.

The chocolate chip cookie was satisfying to eat, and more importantly was a fulfilling experience because my brother and I don’t commonly do things together. I feel like we wouldn’t bake as quickly and efficiently if we were to individually make cookies instead of collaborating. My brother and I think that desserts are more delicious because of the thought that was put into making them, and when I bake chocolate chip cookies with my brother, I can hands-on experience the effort and care put into them.