Heidi's Chocolate Chip Cookies
By: Heidi Namba
Published: Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - 11:49pm

Ingredients




2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted & cooled until warm
1 cup light or dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips

Preparation

1 Preheat oven to 320 degrees 2 Adjust rack to upper 1/3 of your oven 3 Mix flour, salt & baking soda in a bowl 4 Mix melted butter & both sugars until blended. Mix in whole egg & egg yolk. Mix in vanilla. Gradually add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. (If my dough looks too thin at this point, I add extra flour - it's a matter of preference. Dough that is more firm will result in a thicker cookie). Stir in chocolate chips (and nuts if you are adding). 5 Scoop dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake and be sure to rotate the cookie sheet halfway through the baking time.  Depending on the size of your cookie, your oven and your preference of doneness, baking will take anywhere from 10 minutes to maybe 20 for a big cookie. Remove the cookie sheet from the oven when the edges are slightly golden. The middle might still appear pretty soft or underdone.  If you find your cookies are getting TOO dark on the edges before the middles are truly done, you might want to try reducing your oven temp 5 or 10 degrees. 6 Remove cookies from the oven and slide your parchment off the cookie sheet, right onto your cooling rack. Let cookies finish cooling

About


This recipe has received first place in 2 chocolate chip cookie contests!  This recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips (that's one 12 oz bag) but I usually add more and off course you can add nuts if you'd like.
Here is a method I often use to bake these - especially if I'm making the dough a day or 2 in advanced (which many experts say actually improves the quality of the cookie). After mixing the dough, I line an 8x8 pan with plastic wrap and make sure there is extra plastic hanging over the eges - maybe 3 inches.  I plop all of the dough into the plastic lined pan and pat in down evenly.  I fold the plastic over the top.  Then I really try and pack the dough down tightly. I use another same size pan and place it on top of the plastic and press down firmly - this is handy since the pressure is even and the bottom of the other pan is flat and smooth.  After you have firmly pressed the dough evenly into the pan, place it in the freezer.  After the dough has frozen solid, I remove the pan, and turn the frozen dough out of the pan and onto a cutting board.  Take all of the plastic wrap off of it (sometimes it can stick in creases and takes a little extra work). After unwrapping the dough, cut it into even chunks and place them on cookie sheets to bake.  Of course the baking time will be a bit longer but this method results in thick & wonderful cookies!  If you double this recipe and use this method, you'll get a nice thickness to the dough in the pan.