Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Or the most talked about chocolate chip cookies on my cooking board and in many food blogs, anyway. There have been many, many, many discussions about which recipe is the best. For the most part, I’ve stayed away from the discussions because I’ve always been so satisfied with the old standby but after a near disaster a couple of weeks ago where my cookies spread out into one huge cookie (the expiration date on my baking soda was fine!), I decided that it was time for a change.

As a regular reader of Annie’s Eats, I saw this pop up on my Google reader a few months back and I filed it away in the back of my mind until I was read for this change. And since this recipe has been one that has been highly touted as the favorite on my cooking board, I finally decided to give it a try. It didn’t take much for me to convince Kyle to at least let me try them (he thinks the Toll House recipe is only good cookie recipe) because the recipe has 2 full teaspoons of vanilla which he is a huge fan of in his cookies.

Can you say YUM?! These cookies are incredible!! They were thick. They were chewy. The edges were just a wee bit crunchy and was the perfect texture complement to the chewy centers. And they didn’t last too long in the house. These cookies made me forget all about my WW Points when three four of them made it down to my stomach when I made them on Sunday. Shameful? Maybe. But I seriously couldn’t get over how great they were. More importantly, I think I’ve swayed the cookie monster of the house into loving this recipe so much that I can make them again! Maybe this weekend…

Note: Because America’s Test Kitchen doesn’t publicly publish their recipes and since everywhere I’ve seen this recipe posted says “adapted from America’s Test Kitchen”, I can’t confirm that this is original recipe.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

source: found on Annie’s Eats; adapted from (?) America’s Test Kitchen

• 2 cups plus 2 tbsp. all-purpose flour
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. salt
• 12 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled until warm
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower-middle positions. Preheat oven 325°. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Whisk dry ingredients together in a medium bowl; set aside. With electric mixer, or by hand, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly combined. Beat in egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Add dry ingredients and beat at low-speed just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Roll a scant half-cup of dough into a ball. Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull apart into two equal halves. Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, place formed dough onto cookie sheet, leaving ample room between each ball. Bake, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy (approximately 11-14 minutes). Do not overbake.