Barbara Bush's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

An emblem of grace, a fierce advocate for literacy, and a public servant, Barbara Bush was much more than a public figure. A beloved wife, mother, and grandmother, the former First Lady spent many of her early years as a mother in Texas. And like many Texas mothers, she was known for a handful of recipes. We thought we'd give her famous Chocolate Chip Cookies a try. A unique characteristic of her cookie recipe is that it calls for almost equal parts of chocolate chips and flour—this means that her cookies are packed with semisweet chocolate chips, and we aren't mad about that. When finished baking, the cookies come out beautifully golden brown. After cooling on a wire rack for a few minutes, a bite into one cookie reveals a crisp tender texture that comes from the fluffy butter-sugar mix made with the addition of hot water and vanilla. These cookies are not gooey, but instead they are crisp on the outside and remarkably soft on the inside with pockets of half-melted chocolate chips dispersed throughout. This recipe makes for a batch that keeps very well (when stored in an airtight container).