COLUMN: Cookies that belong in heaven
Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Because what I’m about to share with you is pretty exciting. And you totally deserve it.
You’ve survived an entire semester full of cold days and papers, tests and projects coming out your ears. So I’m giving you this recipe so you can reward yourself with – the best chocolate chip cookies in the world!
And you should know, I don’t use that title lightly. I’m a snob when it comes to my chocolate chip cookies. They have to be tall and soft and melt in my mouth without being cakey or dense or overly chewy.
This recipe will give you all of that. The girl who gave me this recipe told me that these cookies have “junk in the trunk” or “thick thighs”. She was right. Trust me. I’ve been making chocolate chip cookies all semester long and none of them have been good enough to share with you.
How lucky that right when I was about to give up I stumbled upon these perfect gems. I hope you enjoy them. You really, really deserve it.
P.S. You might want to make enough to share.
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup of your favorite chocolate chips (I like to use the mini ones)
1/2 cup toasted chopped nuts (optional)
Place the butter in a saucepan and cook it over medium heat until it’s totally melted. Keep cooking it until it browns. It takes a little patience, but if you wait your butter will get really foamy and then start to brown. It will smell really nutty and caramel-y. Remove it from the heat and pour it into a mixing bowl.
Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and egg yolk and beat until the mixture is totally combined and looks a little shiny, about 2 minutes.
Add the vanilla and beat well.
Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar and beat until combined. The dough will be thick. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts.
Scoop the dough by tablespoons onto a lightly greased or parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees until the cookies are just barely set. Remove from the oven and let the cookies sit on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.
Notes:
• Removing these cookies from the oven on time is key to making sure they stay soft. It’s always such a bummer when you make cookies and eat them while they’re warm and soft and then put them away only to come back later and find rocks waiting.
Even if they don’t look totally done, they will finish cooking and setting up on the hot baking sheet after you take them out of the oven. If you need to, just bake one test cookie at a time until you get the right baking time. It will vary depending on the size of your dough balls and your oven.
• If you want to make these cookies ahead of time, or make extra for future gorging, I recommend scooping them into balls and freezing them on trays before putting them into a bag.
You may also form them into balls and cover them on the baking sheet and store them in the fridge that way. I stuck my whole bowl of dough in the refrigerator halfway through making these and it came out solid. So the other way is much easier.
Have a happy summer!
– Jennelle Clark is a senior majoring in psychology and minoring in art. She loves cooking food, taking pictures of food and eating food. E-mail her at jenn.nelle@gmail.com with questions or comments.