FOOD : With Chips on the Line : One Cookbook Declares Another’s Cookie Recipe a Chocolate Champ

WHEN THE owners of the Orchards, an inn in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts, held a chocolate-chip cookie contest last year, they received 2,600 recipes, from throughout the United States and Italy, Mexico and Canada as well. As often happens, the contest led to a cookbook, “The Search for the Perfect Chocolate-Chip Cookie,” by Gwen Steege (Storey Publishing: $15.95 hard-cover, $7.95 paperback).

“The grand-prize-winning recipe” Steege says, “was for a rich, moist double-chocolate-chip cookie,” a recipe from another cookbook: “Winning at the Table,” published by the Junior League of Las Vegas.

The judges were three Chocolatier magazine editors, Orchards pastry chef Heather Andrus, and inn proprietors Chester and Carol Soling.

DOUBLE-CHOCOLATE-CHIP COOKIES

1 3/4 cups flour

teaspoon baking soda

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg

cup unsweetened cocoa

2 tablespoons milk

1 cup pecans or walnuts, chopped

1 cup semisweet chocolate pieces

Combine flour and baking soda and set aside. Cream butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla and sugars and beat until fluffy. Beat in egg. At low speed beat in cocoa, then milk. With wooden spoon, mix in flour and baking soda mixture just until blended. Stir in nuts and chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto nonstick or foil-lined baking sheets. Bake at 350 degrees 12 to 13 minutes. Remove from oven and cool slightly before removing from baking sheets. Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Food styled by Norman Stewart; prop styling by Stacey Anne for A La Mode/L.A.; cup, saucer and spoon courtesy of Lynne Deutch, Ltd.