Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Now, at the beginning of every recipe you find online, the baker gives you their whole life story. About how this recipe was passed down for generations, and love, and blah, blah, blah. Instead, I choose to skip this step. Considering I’m a senior, this way, no one will be able to use this information in the coming years to tell me how well they know me, and I don’t need to be airing my dirty laundry out for everyone to see. You get what you get and you don’t get upset.

I’m not sure where this recipe originated from, but I’ve made my corrections to it to ensure you get the best cookie. Okay, okay, I said I wasn’t going to air out my dirty laundry, and I’m not, but I am going to give you my in-depth monologue of how to bake these cookies. If you want to skip down the plain, boring recipe, click here. As if. Like I would actually give you a “Jump to Recipe.” I’m forcing you to read this whole thing, from start to finish.

First off, you should make sure you have all the ingredients. I’ve started making cookies before and realized halfway through that I didn’t have enough eggs or flour. So, make sure you’re prepared. The ingredients are as follows:
1½ sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg plus 1 egg yolk
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 cups unbleached flour
2 cups chocolate chips

The best recipes are always the simplest. If a recipe calls for more than 20 ingredients, get the heck out of there. Why do all that work when you can get a better cookie with fewer ingredients?

Okay, now we can get into it. To start, choosing ingredients can be complicated. You can go with the easy store brand butter, which tastes fine, I guess. However, if you want true cookie perfection, you have to start with good butter. This is not sponsored, but Kerrygold Irish butter is where it’s at. It just adds that extra bit of oomph to your cookies. If you take that first bite of steaming hot cookie straight out of the oven and feel it’s missing something, you know it’s missing good butter.

I’m going to be honest with you, everything says you’re supposed to line your sheets with parchment before you start baking, however, I have never done this and I am adamant to never do this in my lifetime. To each their own. Now, preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Or, like I do, you can wait until the last second and then preheat it.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, add the softened butter. With the mixer running, slowly beat in the sugars a little at a time until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla (and by that, I don’t mean get in a fight with the vanilla, I just mean put it in the mixer, just in case you were confused). There is no real measurement for the vanilla. As my mom says, “oops.” That’s how you know you put enough in. With the mixer running, beat in an egg until fully incorporated, then beat in an egg yolk. Beat in the salt and baking soda, scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is evenly incorporated. Slowly beat in the flour, mixing until just incorporated. The best way to do this is by adding around a ¼ cup at a time. Be careful not to overmix, or the cookies will toughen. Gently mix or fold in the chocolate chips by hand.

This is important (not that anything I said before wasn’t important). Before rolling into balls, place cookie dough in the refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. Now, here’s my hack: put the cookie dough in the fridge, do all the dishes, and then turn on the oven. Then the cookies have been in the fridge for just the right amount of time. Scoop about 1 tablespoon portions of the dough onto the parchment-lined cookie sheets (which you just rushed to do). This should make about 18 cookies. Space the cookies evenly on the sheets (nine cookies per sheet).
Bake the cookies 1 sheet at a time, until just before browning, 12-15 minutes (for my oven it’s exactly 13 minutes). When taken out of the oven they should not be golden brown, there should be very, very slight browning on the bottom, and you will not be able to pick them up. Let cookies rest on hot cookie sheets for 5-10 minutes, or until firm, then transfer them to a cooling rack (if you’re a wuss; real bakers, aka me, leave on the sheet) to cool down the rest of the way.

Now you get to enjoy your beautiful cookies. Share with friends and family, or just eat them all yourself; no judging here.