ultimate chocolate chip cookies

With 38 cookies left to go in the 2,000 cookie marathon, I give you…chocolate chip cookies.  Does that seem like a strange choice?  Not Christmas-y at all?  A little anticlimactic?  I agree.  So why chocolate chip cookies?  Because when my daughter was talking to Santa last week, she told him we were going to leave out cookies for him.  And Santa said  “I hope they’re chocolate chip.  They’re my favorite.”  Well done, Santa.  Thanks a lot.

  That rant aside, these are fantastic chocolate chip cookies.. I got the recipe from a New York Times article(read here) about the secret to making excellent chocolate chip cookies.  The secret: chill your dough for 36 hours to achieve cookie Nirvana.  With 7 1/2 hours until bedtime, that’s not happening tonight.  Sorry, Santa.

ultimate chocolate chip cookies

ingredients

• 4.25 oz (1 c. minus 1 tbl.) cake flour
• 4.25 oz (1 c. minus 1 tbl.) bread flour
• .1 oz (1/2 + 1/8 tsp.) baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. baking powder
• 3/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 10 tbl.(1 stick + 2 tbl.) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 5 oz. light brown sugar
• 4 oz. granulated sugar
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 10 oz. (1 bag) 60% cacao chips
• sea salt or pink Himalayan salt for sprinkling

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt together into a bowl.  Set aside.  Cream butter and sugars together in an electric mixer on medium- high speed until very light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.  Add egg, then vanilla.  Turn mixer to low, then slowly add flour mixture until well combined.  Add chips and turn off mixer when they are just mixed in.  Put dough into a bowl, cover in plastic wrap, and chill for 24-36 hours(or skip this part. They’ll still be great.  It is worth trying, though.  The cookies really do come out better.)

  Preheat oven to 350°.  Scoop golf balls sized mounds of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Sprinkle the top of the cookie with salt.  Bake for 15 minutes until edges of cookies start to turn brown.  Cool sheet on wire rack for 5 minutes, then remove cookies from sheet to wire rack to cool completely.

1 batch made, 45 cookies, 2,007 cookies total.