Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Well hello there! I’ve decided to put less pressure on myself to write perfect posts, and just throw some things up here when I have time.  Maybe that way it won’t be a whole YEAR before I post again?!

Cool!

A few things have changed around here since I made that Brown Sugar Cherry Pound Cake below.  Mainly, I have two kids now!  A Calder and a Jack.  Little man Jack turns ONE next month, and I have so much to say about his first year (and what a wonderful whirlwind it’s been!), but for now let’s just focus on these cookies.

These cookies!  They’re so good.  Like, I made them once a week for four weeks good.  I know the recipe by heart good.  I’ll never not have some in my freezer good.  Know what I mean?

Everyone has their own idea of what the perfect chocolate chip cookie should be, and these are definitely mine.  They’re soft on the inside and chewy at the edges, gorgeously rippled on the surface and full of deep, nutty, caramel flavor within. Plus they’re pockmarked with puddles of pure chocolate, and do I need to keep describing these? Are you just going to make them already? No mixer required! No waiting for butter to soften! No “curing” dough in the fridge for 24-48 hours! You could be eating them in like 20 minutes. Go. Go now.

Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Barely adapted from Chris Morocco and Bon Appetit 

Ingredients:

• 1½ cups (200 g) all-purpose flour
• 1½ tsp kosher salt (I like Diamond Crystal brand)
• ¾ tsp baking soda
• ¾ cup (1½ sticks; 169 g) unsalted butter, divided
• 1 cup (200 g) (packed) dark brown sugar
• ¼ cup (50 g) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 6 oz (170 g) bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, with a rack in the center position. Line a baking sheet (or 2) with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

Brown some of the butter: place one stick (or ½ cup) of the butter in a medium saucepan set over medium heat.  Cook the butter, stirring frequently as it melts, then foams, until it reaches a nutty brown color.  You’ll know it’s almost done when it stops foaming/bubbling/hissing, and the milk solids have turned an amber brown.  Scrape the brown butter into a large, heatproof bowl (scrape out all of the brown bits! Flavor!), and let cool for 1 minute.

Cut the remaining ½ stick butter into tablespoon-sized(-ish) pieces.  Whisk the remaining butter pieces into the brown butter, one by one, until they’ve melted in and incorporated.

Add the sugars (both brown and white) and whisk until well combined (and not lumpy).  Add the egg and yolks, whisking until smooth, then the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, and mix/fold together with a spatula until the dough comes together and no dry spots remain.  Fold in the chocolate. The dough will be soft but should hold its shape once scooped; if it slumps or oozes after being scooped, stir dough back together several times and let rest 5–10 minutes until scoops hold their shape as the flour hydrates.

Use a 1½ -inch (3 Tbsp) scoop to portion out balls of dough on the prepared sheet pan(s), leaving a few inches between each (the cookies will spread in the oven).  Bake the cookies, one pan at a time, 8-10 minutes, or until they’re deep golden and firm/set around the edges, but still slightly moist in the center.  Allow to cool on the baking sheet(s).

Makes about 16 cookies.  Cookies last roughly 3 days (well-wrapped) at room temperature, or several months in the freezer.