Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cooks Illustrated from Ourbestbites.com

• 
  
  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. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in mediumbowl; 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.

Take about 1/4 C dough and form into a ball. Break ball in half and place dough on cookie sheet with broken edge facing up. (Or just use a standard sized cookie scoop).

Bake until cookies are set around outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 10-13 minutes.

TIPS:

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