My PERFECTED chocolate chip cookie recipe

Chocolate chip cookies are truly my most favorite food in the whole wide world. Well, chocolate chip cookie DOUGH is actually my favorite but the baked cookie comes in close 2nd. In the 20 somethin years I've been baking, I probably have made chocolate chip cookies hundreds of times. I can make them with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back. I've literally tried dozens of different recipes and have fined tuned each batch and this recipe is the result. You should feel very honored that I am passing this recipe onto you. Yes, the actual ingredients result in a great cookie but it's also how you put things together and how you bake them. I have it down to the smallest detail. I have posted photos below of the whole process and of course, the ultimate end result. I believe that you should always take your cookies out of the oven before they appear done. They appear slightly underdone with very lightly golden edges. Well, I guess it's a matter of preference. Every time I make chocolate chip cookies, I make a quadruple batch which uses 4 bags of chocolate chips! Quadruple!!!! You of course can make the single recipe which is shown below the photos.

This photo shows my trustworthy Kitchen Aid mixer doing it's job. The dough should appear kind of soupy at this point (before you add the dry ingredients) since this recipe calls for MELTED butter (my quadruple recipe used SIX sticks of butter! Yikes!)

Guittard chocolate chips are my go to chip. I prefer them over any other brand. I prefer a mix of semi sweet & milk chocolate in my cookies. I always watch for sales on these chips otherwise they are quite expensive. Bartells is a great place to purchase them when they are on sale. Sometimes as low as 99 cents a bag! That's very rare though - usually around Christmas time.

I use 2 bags of milk chocolate chips & 2 bags of semi sweet. I of course have to eat a handful of milk chocolate chips right out of the bag.

This bowl is filled right to the top and this is one of the commercial Kitchen Aid mixers & bowls. You should feel the weight of this! It's heavy!

Notice my scoop in the bowl. Very handy for making uniform size cookie balls. They come in all sizes.

Close up of cookie dough ball. Doesn't that look good?

Hmmmm....I leave the room for a moment and look what I find when I return to the kitchen. He must have learned that from me. I taught him well. Look at the size of that hunk of dough he is eating!

I use 3/4 sheet jelly roll pans that I purchased online and I line the pans with parchment. No washing the pans afterward!

Out of the oven and too hot to eat! To speed up cooling, I slide the whole sheet of parchment, with the cookies on top, right onto the cooling rack. Cookies are not disturbed at all. The cookies cool quicker and my pan cools quicker so I can use it again.

Almost the perfect temperature to eat! Oh yeah.

These are not flat crispy cookies. They aren't super thick either. They are just right and have slightly crisp edges with a soft center and when they are still warm, the chocolate is all melty and mmmmm!

Heidi's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and 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

Preheat oven to 325 degrees
Adjust rack to upper third of the oven

Mix flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl

Mix melted butter & both sugars until blended. Mix in whole egg then mix in egg yolk. Mix in vanilla. Add the dry ingredients slowly 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

Scoop dough onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment. Bake and be sure to rotate the cookie sheet halfway into baking. Depending on the size of your cookie, baking will take anywhere from 10 minutes to maybe 20 for a big cookie. Take them out of the oven when the edges are slightly golden. The middle might still appear mushy. If the edges are getting too dark and the middles are truly underdone, you might want to try reducing your oven temp to 310 degrees.

* Another easy option for baking your dough at a later time. Line a baking pan (8 x 8 pan works well) with plastic wrap and then place all of the chocolate chip cookie dough into the pan and flatten it. Really press it down. Cover the top with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 1 or 2 days. When ready to bake it. Lift the dough out of the pan. Unwrap it and cut it into neat little even square. Place on parchment lined baking pan and bake. Of course it will require a longer baking time. These frozen squares of dough usually result in a very thick and delicious cookie. It helps if you make at least a double recipe so that the dough in the pan has a good thickness.