Top Favorite: Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Alton Brown's Chocolate Chip Cookies - made May 20, 2013 from Kitchen and Trial Error

This is my other top favorite recipe for chocolate chip cookies and also went into the goodie bags I brought to my work conference last week.  Not much more to say about them other than they're made especially good when you use high quality milk chocolate chunks for them.  The brown butter adds a nice flavor to the cookie and the bread flour makes them chewy.  But no matter how good your ingredients are and how faithfully you follow the instructions for mixing them together, if you overbake them, they still won't be as good as they should be.

I've mentioned repeatedly that the most common mistake I see people make with cookies is they overbake them.  Overbaking means baking until the middles are puffy and brown.  You want to bake cookies only until the edges are golden brown and the middles are just barely past the stage of looking shiny or raw.  Once you take them out of the oven, the middles will sink - they're supposed to.  When they're completely cool, they'll be moist.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet, milk or white chocolate chips or any combination (your choice)

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat and keep stirring/cooking until butter has turned brown and has a nutty fragrance.  Pour in a large mixing bowl (or bowl of your stand mixer) and set aside to cool to lukewarm.
2. In a separate bowl, sift the flour, salt, and baking soda together. Set aside.
3. Add the sugar and brown sugar to the melted butter and cream on medium speed, about 2 minutes. Add the egg, yolk, milk, and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
4. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Portion into cookie dough balls using an ice cream scoop and chill the dough balls at least two hours or overnight.
6. When your dough is chilled, preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
7. Place dough balls on the cookie sheet, leaving ample room between them, as they spread while baking.
8. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a rack to cool. Store in an airtight container.