Crispy-Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone LOVES chocolate chip cookies, right?  I don’t like desserts, and even I like chocolate chip cookies.

This is a great recipe honed for several years to produce what I think is the ultimate chocolate chip cookie.  I don’t like cakey cookies because they seem dry in my mouth.  I like the soft, chewy kind, but still crisp on the bottom and around the edges.  A blend of two perfect worlds.

Preheat oven to 360F.

Lay these out on the counter top for half an hour or so until they’re soft.  Then put them into the bowl of your mixer and beat them until they’re creamy.  Then add:

2/3 cup of packed brown sugar (light or dark, I use light)

Beat these together until everything is very creamy and consistent.  Then add:

2 teaspoons vanilla (I use Mexican vanilla, it’s cheap and delicious)

Blend until the whole thing is liquidy.  If you have a Kitchenaid stand mixer, you can add all the dry ingredients together without mixing them first.  If you’re using a hand mixer, mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl and then add them to the wet:

2 cups plus 3 Tablespoons of all-purpose unbleached flour  (you can use bread flour for even more chewy cookies)

Blend only until all the dry flour is gone and the batter is consistent.  Then remove the beaters and stir in by hand:

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (or milk chocolate)

Drop by Tablespoons-full onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  I use a small ice cream scoop with the lever that rakes the dough out of the scoop, which keeps my hands from getting messy.  Bake 5 minutes on the center rack of a 360F oven, and then rotate the pan.  Bake another 5 minutes and then look at them.  They should be slightly brown around the edges but still white and soft but dry in the middle. If they’re not brown around the edges, or still WET in the middle, bake another minute and look again.  12 minutes is about all you can bake them before they’ll be toast.

Remove and cool for a couple of minutes on the pan.  Then gently pull the parchment off the pan and let the cookies cool until they’re set.

This recipe will make about 3-4 dozen cookies depending on how large you make them.