Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
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| Photo by Jamie Winkelman |
Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies | |
I like my chocolate chip cookies thick and chewy. A crisp chocolate chip cookie just doesn’t cut it for me. This recipe is adapted from Cook’s Illustrated, whose test kitchen deserves all the credit for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Creating a jagged surface on each dough ball gives the finished cookies an attractive appearance. These truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the baking sheet to cool. You can substitute white chocolate, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semisweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut.
Ingredients
2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 to 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
Heat oven to 325°F. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions.
Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside. Using a wooden spoon, mix butter and sugars by hand until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.
Form a scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using the fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, jam the halves back together into one ball so that the top surface remains jagged.
Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined baking sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller baking sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.)
Bake, rotating each baking sheet and switching shelves halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). (Frozen dough requires an extra 1 to 2 minutes baking time.) Cool cookies on baking sheets.
Makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies. Serve or store in airtight container.