Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies - made January 7, 2012 from Cook’s Country Chocolate Desserts (book #179)

No matter how many different recipes for chocolate chip cookies I've tried and even though I've already found two I liked (Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies and Ultimate Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies), a potentially good chocolate chip cookie recipe always catches my eye.  I'm usually sucked in when the picture accompanying the recipe is absolutely mouthwatering and shows a moist, thick cookie that makes me salivate.  Plus putting "thick and chewy" in the title is a baking magnet.  This was one of those recipes from this booklet/magazine.  My cousin Christine gave it to me for Christmas and although it's not as thick as a book, I already want to try nearly all of the recipes in it.  And I probably will.  The first one out of the gate is this recipe.

Because you melt the butter, this is really easy to put together in a short amount of time.  I didn't bother with using my stand mixer but mixed it all by hand.  Remember when making chocolate chip cookies, don't add the chocolate chips all at once.  Hold back a handful to add to the last scoop of dough when, almost inevitably, all the chips are gone and you're just left with the remaining (chipless) spoonful of dough.  I chilled these for an hour before I made them.  Normally I would've made these the night before I needed them but I was still sickly and didn't have anything left in me after making the honeybun cake.  But I needed these for a thank you care package so I mixed up the dough the morning before I mailed the package.

Because the recipe gave weight measurements of the ingredients, I used my food scale to measure everything out for the greatest accuracy.  I got results similar to what the write up in the booklet promised: crisp edges, moist and chewy middles and the inside looked like  the original picture that lured me into trying the recipe.  Good, right? Unfortunately though, I thought these cookies were way too sweet.  Maybe it's my sickly taste buds that lowered my sugar tolerance; perish the thought as I can usually ingest a lot of sugar without blinking.  But I think these truly were genuinely too sweet.  I prefer my chocolate chip cookies to have more of a buttery taste rather than a sugary one and for the sugar not to compete with the chocolate chips so forcefully.  Which is too bad as I like everything else about the cookie - texture, spread, ease of preparation.  But not all the sugar flavor.  So it's really unfortunate that I packed these in the care package I sent before I realized how sweet the cookies were.  Oops.

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (10 5/8 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup packed (7 ounces) brown sugar
½ cup (3 ½ ounces) granulated sugar
1 large egg plus 1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-1 ½ cups chocolate chips

1.     Adjust oven rack to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 325°F.  Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.
2.    Whisk flour, baking soda, and salt together in medium bowl; set aside.  Using stand mixer fitted with paddle, mix butter and sugars on medium speed until thoroughly blended.  Beat in egg, egg yolk, and vanilla until combined.  Add dry ingredients and beat on low speed just until combined.  Stir in chips to taste.
3.     Roll scant ¼ cup of dough into balls.  Hold dough ball with fingertips of both hands and pull into 2 equal halves.  Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, join halves together at base, again forming single ball, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface.  Place formed dough balls on prepared baking sheets, jagged surface up, spacing them 2 ½ inches apart.
4.    Bake until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft, 15 to 18 minutes, switching and rotating baking sheets halfway through baking.  Let cookies cool on sheets.  Remove cooled cookies from baking sheets with wide metal spatula and serve.