Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh chocolate chip cookie, how I love thee. While many are baking up fancy holiday cookies this time of year, I like sticking to my favorite, kind - the chocolate chip cookie. I've been meaning to make this recipe from Cooks Illustrated for awhile and finally had a chance over the weekend. These Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies were great and definitely ones I'd make again...

As much as I love chocolate chip cookies, I'm still on my search for the best recipe ever. Until then, this specific recipe is pretty close. These have a nice butterscotch note and the cookie recipe itself makes for a great base recipe to use other mix ins aside from chocolate chips. I just might try the same recipe and substitute the chocolate chips with white chocolate, butterscotch chips or even toffee bits.

Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
recipe from Cooks Illustrated

2 1/8 cups all-purpose flour (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly (1 1/2 sticks)
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large eggs
1 large egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 -2 cup chocolate chips (semi or bittersweet)

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.).
Bake until the cookies are light golden grown and the outer edges start to harden yet the centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time. Cool the cookies on the sheets. Remove the cooled cookies from the baking sheets with a side metal spatula.