Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

While these cookies are not as good as our browned butter chocolate chip cookies, they're a great chocolate chip cookie that gets slightly crispy on the outside and nice and chewy inside. Pull them out of the oven just before they turn golden brown though, or else they'll be crunchy (though I have saved them with a piece of bread in the cookie jar)! The cookies in the picture actually turned out to be too crunchy, but they sure look great don't they?

I found this recipe online a few years ago (therefore I don't know where it came from), and it came with step by step instructions of how to shape thick chocolate chip cookies. Basically, you just want the top of the cookie to have a jagged surface. You do this by rolling 1/4 cup of dough (or smaller if you don't want ginormous cookies) into a ball. Hold the ball in the fingertips of both hands, then pull the dough apart into two equal halves. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other. Rotate each piece 90 degrees so the jagged edges face up. Jam the halves back together into one ball, keeping the top surface jagged. Don't flatten the ball at all.
There you have it—how to make pretty cookies. A little more work than just plopping the dough on the sheet, but they look great!

The recipe I have has weird measurements, but I found that if I double them, they're easier to work with. But I'll put both measurements on the recipe, with the halved amount in [brackets]. The halved recipe makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies, so doubling that makes 3 dozen.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
4 1/4 [2 1/8] cups all-purpose flour
1 [1/2] tsp salt
1 [1/2] tsp baking soda
3 [1 1/2] sticks of unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 [1] cups brown sugar (light or dark)
1 [1/2] cup granulated sugar
2 [1] large eggs
2 [1] large egg yolk
4 [2] tsp vanilla extract
2–4 [1–2] cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi, bittersweet, milk, white, peanut butter chips, etc)
2 [1] cups nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut, if desired (not sure if 2 cups of nuts is way too much though)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325º. Either by hand of 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.
Using a 1/4 cup scoop (or smaller if desired), shape (as described above) into jagged balls and place onto parchment paper-lined (or silicone mat) cookie sheet.
Bake for 15–18 minutes (start checking the cookies at 13 minutes because you don't want them to get too dark!). If baking two sheets at a time, switch sheet positions halfway through baking. Cool cookies on cookie sheets (this helps the chewiness).
*High altitude modification: May need to add extra flour. Bake at 350º for 10–12 minutes.

Nothing better than the smell of freshly baked cookies! Go bake some now!