Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm back on the sweet stuff again, so I hope you're ready! The last month or so has been something else around here, so thank you for being patient with me while I sort my head out. Fortunately, baking has always been very therapeutic for me, so I'm back in the game faster than I expected. Today's recipe isn't a fancy one, nor is it a challenge. It's a tried and true favorite of mine that I'm sure will become one of yours as well. It's also pretty classic, so I don't have a catchy name to mark them out as mine. No gimmicks, just dreamy, chewy, buttery chocolate chip cookies.

Because who doesn't like chocolate chip cookies?! Monsters, that's who. No, wait, even monsters love cookies. We all learned that when we were only three letters in to learning the alphabet.

For a long time, my go-to recipe for cookies was the one on the back of the package of chocolate chips. And why not? It's good. It's convenient. It's been around for ages. But sometimes I buy off-brand chocolate chips, or sometimes I just want to be a little different and stand out from the crowd. Sometimes I have the chocolate chips on hand, in the accepted brand, but I need a chocolate fix and I tear into the bag in a frenzy and destroy the label, and because I'm using it just out of convenience, I'm not about to scour the internet for the basic recipe that might not even be right.

But after one of those chocolate crazes that destroyed the accepted label, I did poke around on the internet for a new cookie recipe, and I have ended up using one as a jumping off point and adding elements from another. My jumping off point is simple recipe from King Arthur Flour, and you can find that recipe here.

I've also been a big fan of Alton Brown since I first caught late night reruns of Good Eats on television when I was in college, and I took some wisdom from his recipe for chewy chocolate chip cookies, namely the use of bread flour and kosher salt. A search for "Alton Brown chewy chocolate chip cookie," returns several different versions that all claim to be his (and probably it's just that  some of them are older and others are updated). But they all use bread flour, and that was what stuck with me from the late night trance of watching Food Network during midterms.

So bearing those in mind, here is my recipe (Find the recipe and condensed instructions at the bottom of this post for convenience):

2/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 cup unsalted butter, right from the fridge, or at room temperature

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract, optional

1 teaspoon vinegar, cider or white

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg

10 ounces (2 cups) bread flour

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (1 whole 12 ounce bag)

I love how easily this dough comes together. Take the first 8 ingredients and dump them into a mixing bowl. I prefer to use my stand mixer, but if you don't have a stand mixer, a handheld mixer and some arm muscles will do the trick. Your butter doesn't have to be softened for this recipe, but everything comes together a little bit easier if it is. My favorite trick (because I don't always plan ahead before making cookies) is to microwave both sticks of butter together for about 15 seconds. Your microwave might be different, but on mine this gets them just soft enough that they don't fly out of the bowl when I start the mixer. Also, the almond extract is optional, but it really adds a nice depth of flavor to the cookies. I highly recommend it, especially if you want to wow people. Maybe don't use it if you're making the cookies for people with nut allergies, I guess, unless they've really upset you. But please don't do that. Just hide their keys or something. Don't murder them.

Once that has all been mixed together and is starting to look like cookie dough, add the egg and mix it up again. Then add the flour and mix it again. Then add the chocolate and mix it again. A thought on the flour: the KAF recipe suggests 2 cups of flour, or by weight 8.5 ounces. When writing this up I used my "2 cups" and weighed them. If you want to weigh your flour, my volumetric method yielded 10 ounces. If you prefer to scoop, fluff the flour first. I do this one of two ways, depending on my energy level. If I'm very energetic (and brave), I make sure my flour canister is tightly closed, hold it on its side, and I give it a few gentle shakes. If I'm lazy and/or have already opened the canister, I use my measuring cup to turn the top few cups of the canister, filling the cup and emptying it. Then I scoop from the fluffy, looser flour on top. Then, whether I have shaken or stirred my martini flour, I scoop as gently as I can and then shake the measuring cup a little. This sweeps off the excess and usually just a teensy bit more, but that's okay since it's packed in a little tighter than it should be due to the scooping. Clear as cookie dough? Great. If it's too confusing, just weigh out 10 ounces of flour. That's more consistent anyway.

I also want to address the mixing of the chocolate chips. When I was growing up, standing on a kitchen chair to see the top of the counter and helping my mom make chocolate chip cookies, we always dumped in the chocolate chips and continued mixing with the mixer as we had done through the whole recipe. Some years later, I was making cookies with a friend who seemed positively offended that I was about to run the mixer through the dough to stir in the chocolate chips. She swore it would chop up the chips and ruin the cookies. Serious question: is this a common belief, or was my friend (and presumably her family, who taught her this) just weird? I've never had the mixer abuse my chocolate chips, and, even if it did, they're chocolate chips. Aren't they supposed to be small, misshapen pieces? Anyway, don't worry about that happening. Just use the mixer. It's a billion times easier than trying to stir them in by hand.

Once your chips are mixed throughout, scrape the dough together, cover it with plastic, and put the whole bowl in the refrigerator. You don't absolutely have to do this step, but allowing the dough to rest helps develop the flavor as the flour absorbs the moisture in the dough. I usually mix up the dough in the morning and just let it rest while I'm at work and bake the cookies later that afternoon or evening. If you have the patience and self-control, the dough can rest for up to 48 hours. It has only lasted that long at my house once, though. On that occasion, I noticed that the caramel-y flavor of the brown sugar and vanilla was more developed, but the almond flavor was hardly noticeable. I prefer the balance of flavors after about an 8-12 hour rest, but play around with it and see what you like. 

When the dough has rested for as long as you can stand, form it into cookies. You may need to let it sit for about a half hour to become easier to work with. I usually just use a kitchen spoon to help me make "regular" sized cookies. This dough also lends itself very well to making big cookies like you can find at a bakery. If you want big cookies, use a 1/3 cup measuring cup. I really want to use a cookie scoop to form these cookies, but trust me, it doesn't work. The dough is just too stiff and it wreaks havoc on the gear mechanism. If you really must use a scoop of some kind, use an ice cream scoop without moving parts.

Position your cookies appropriately, based on their size, and bake them at 375. The bake time varies depending on the size of your cookies and whether your dough is chilled, anywhere from about 11 minutes (small, not chilled) to 18 minutes (large, chilled).  Watch them, though, and pull them out when they are cooked to your preferred level of doneness. (If you gauge them like meat, I prefer mine on the rare to medium-rare side, but you're eating them, bake them how you like.)  When the cookies look so good that you just can't stand it anymore, pull them out of the oven and let them cool on the pan until they're cool enough to move without making them all smooshy. 

The best way to enjoy these little bits of heaven is still warm from the oven with a glass of cold milk, but really, there is no bad way.  

Bonus tip: These work great as a prepare-in-advance treat. After the dough has rested in the refrigerator, portion out the cookies and freeze them. That way you can bake as few or as many as you want whenever you need a quick dessert for guests, a thank you for a neighbor, or if that "I need a cookie NOW!" mania hits. You're welcome 😉

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

2/3 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1 cup unsalted butter

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon almond extract, optional

1 teaspoon vinegar, cider or white

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 large egg

10 ounces (2 cups) bread flour

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (1 whole 12 ounce bag)

In a large mixing bowl, combine both sugars, butter, salt, vanilla extract,  almond extract (if you're using it), vinegar, and baking soda, and beat until smooth.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and mix again until fully combined. Scrape down again. Mix in the flour, followed by the chocolate chips.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8-48 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit and scoop dough by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicone baking mats. 

Bake the cookies for 11 to 12 minutes for "normal" sized cookies or up to 17 minutes for large bakery-style cookies.

Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool on the pan until they've set enough to move without breaking.