Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Baking when it's sunny outside is fun. 

But baking when there's a downpour? So much better. 

That wasn't exactly planned, because when I started baking it was semi-sunny, but I'll admit I smiled when I noticed/heard the rain. 

When I got home from work, I really wanted to make lemon squares, but realized I hardly had any of the ingredients. I decided to "settle" on chocolate chip cookies--those quotes are meant to express the fact that nobody ever really only settles on making cookies, at least I don't think so. Instead of looking through my cookbooks and magazines, I decided to give the Internet a try, and stumbled upon this recipe. 

The words best + big + fat + chewy, when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, seem almost too good to be true. The 2,000 reviews, however, really convinced me. They did, in fact, seem to be the best and chewiest cookies ever.

After bringing the recipe into the kitchen, I started wondering if I had enough flour. I didn't make the lemon squares because I had zero confectioner's sugar (entre autres, as we say), and it turns out I didn't have the 2 cups of flour needed for the recipe. What's strange is I always have a lot of rolled oats or wild rice, but never enough flour or confectioner's sugar--maybe not so strange after all.

So I cut the recipe in half, and it yielded 11 cookies. Now I'm pretty sure they would have been super-chewy, but I was too busy on the phone pondering the possibility of staying in school until 26. I guess the cookies didn't like that I wasn't paying attention to them, so they decided to harden up. Oh well. 

No hard feelings, tough cookies.

makes 18-22

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
  
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
  
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
  
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
  
• 1/2 cup white sugar
  
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
  
• 1 egg
  
• 1 egg yolk
  
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.