Mr. B's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

We are headed back to the old school classic kid dessert: a wonderful soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie. This is still my twenty-year-old brother’s all time favorite dessert ever since I first made them. Growing up we would simply follow the cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chip bag, but these are a huge step up from those cookies. I discovered these cookies from one of my good friend's father; he would always make them for Christmas and I would go coo-coo over them. So naturally once you fall in love with a baked good you will do anything to track down the recipe. It took some finagling but I finally got the recipe out of him and it was from Cook's Illustrated. (Which is a really awesome magazine and website, foolproof recipes!) The major differences I noticed from this recipe to more traditional recipes are that the butter is melted, the brown sugar to granulated sugar ratio is different, and instead of two eggs you have one plus an egg yolk. Once you have these cookies though I guarantee that you will never try another recipe. 

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

{ 2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour / ½ teaspoon table salt / 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 ½ sticks) melted and cooled slightly / 1 cup brown sugar, packed / 

½ cup granulated sugar / 1 large egg / 1 large egg yolk / 2 teaspoons vanilla extract / 

1-2 cups chocolate chips }

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

Either by hand or with electric mixer (depending upon if I’m too lazy to get out my electric mixer), mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. 

The dough is very cohesive and doesn’t stick to your fingers, which is really nice for this next part.  I’m not sure how much this step actually does, but I do it anyway because I’m a little superstitious. Form a little less than a ¼ cup dough into a ball. Holding the dough ball using the fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves. Rotate halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth the dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet.

Bake, rotating the cookie sheets’ positions hallway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve out of the oven while the chocolate is still melty or let cool and store in an airtight container to keep these gems fresh.