Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

If you stopped by in the past few days you probably noticed over there in The Daily Bite section that we said we had quick and easy dinners coming up this week. Well we did have quick and easy dinner ideas, until we both did some compulsive baking/treat making and changed our minds! Kate changed hers first and is probably laughing now as she sees I did the same thing! Don't worry, those dinners will be coming up soon enough.

Cookies. Now we have a fabulous chocolate chip cookie recipe on this site already, and this isn't meant to replace it! I love Kate's recipe, but this one is a little different so I wanted to share it as well. Everyone has their ultimate cookie. Some like them soft and gooey, some like them thin and crispy, I like mine soft but chewy: crisp on the outside, soft in the center with a nice chewy texture. Cookie recipes also have different results in different conditions (altitude, humidity, etc.) so it's not a bad idea to try a few to find one that works best for you. I have a couple recipes that I love and I make them depending on the type of cookie I'm craving. This particular cookie is a chewy, bakery style one and for me, it lived up to its expectations! My husband even said this was "the one."

The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated and I've wanted to try it for a long time because it's different than most chocolate chip cookie recipes. Cook's Illustrated is an awesome resource and if you've ever watched America's Test Kitchen you know that they seriously test every factor possible when coming up with a recipe. I think they tried 40 different variations when coming up with the best chewy cookie.

I was going to try to be a food scientist and tell you why the interesting things in the recipe make for a good cookie, but I'll let Cook's Illustrated tell you. Here's how they explain it:

Most cookies start with creamed butter. Creaming incorporates air into the dough, resulting in an undesirable (in these cookies) lightness. Our thoughts sifted to chewy brownies and blondies, both of which typically begin with melted butter. We tried both creamed and melted butter and found that melted butter did indeed give us the dense, chewy texture that we were after.

We turned to the one factor that we hadn't yet fully examined--the egg factor--and found that one whole egg plus one egg yolk keeps the cookies soft and pliable hours after emerging from the oven. Also, cooling the cookies directly on the cookie sheet promotes the soft, chewy texture. Finally, we had a thick, chewy chocolate-chip cookie that could rival any gourmet bakery's.

For me, they certainly did. I'm going to be making these again and again.

As a side note, I think my cookies were especially good because I used eggs fresh from the farm- aren't they cool looking? Some of them are green! I'm a city girl, so I thought green eggs were really cool. You can stop laughing now.


Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Cooks Illustrated
(I used regular butter instead of unsalted and my ball-forming technique was different as noted below)

Print Recipe Text Only

2 C plus 2 T flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
12 T butter (1 1/2 sticks) melted and cooled until warm
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
2 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 C semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower- middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

Now, I'll share a method from Cook's Illustrated, and then the method I used. CI says the following:

3. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other; rotate each half up so the jagged surface faced the ceiling and press the halves back into one ball so that the top surface remains jagged. (The nooks and crannies you have created will give the baked cookies an attractive and somewhat rough, uneven appearance.) Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined cookie sheets, about 9 balls per sheet.

You got that? So it looks something like this:


The cookies turned out great, but I found that result wasn't all that different when I made them in my usual way. So I used my standard sized cookie scoop and placed them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet (the silpat works great too). Try it both ways and see how they turn out for you.

Cookie dough. Mmmm...


Bake until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 10-13 minutes. Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.

Doesn't that look like a good bakery cookie?


I love the crisp outside and edges...



And then the soft, chewy interior...




Has anyone made this recipe before? How do you like your cookies; soft and chewy? Thin and crispy? Uncooked and dough-y? ;)