Favorite chocolate chip cookies

Our two favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes are both from the Cedar Crest Victorian Inn, in Ashville, NC. They published their own little cookbook, and I picked up a copy when we were there several years ago. Both the regular and the triple chocolate cookies bake up big & chunky, more like a "Mrs. Field's" cookie than like a traditional toll house cookie.

This recipe first appeared in the January 1996 "Cook's Illustrated." The dough also freezes well.

Jim's Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
(a double batch fits just fine in my stand mixer)

2 1/8 cups unsifted all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to warm
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 c. (one 12 oz. bag) semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower-middle positions.

Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in a bowl and set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugars. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla.
Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop heaping tablespoons of dough on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 16 minutes at 325, rotating cookie sheets halfway through baking time.
(Convection oven at 300 degrees for 16 minutes, no rotating necessary.)

Cool for a couple of minutes on cookie sheets, then remove to countertop or
brown paper bag to cool until chocolate chips are set.

Makes about 2 dozen 3 inch cookies.

******

edited to add the proportions for a double batch, because you can't have
too many of these cookies.... they go fast, and they freeze well too, either baked
or unbaked!

4 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
3 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled to warm
1 1/2 c. light brown sugar
1/2 c. dark brown sugar
1 c. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 egg yolks
4 tsp. vanilla extract
4 c. (2 bags) semisweet chocolate chips

Yields about 50 cookies.





This message was edited Dec 9, 2005 4:31 PM