Then I discovered that it was time to step away from the stand mixer and get into it by hand. Yup, good old fashioned hand mixing with a spatula. Turns out I had a serious case of overmixing. The secret to soft, flat melt-in-yer-mouth, ohhhhhh-so-good, oooey, gooey, chewy chocolate chip cookies is no electric beating and minimal cooking time.
What you need:
-2 1/2 cups of unbleached all purpose flour
–1 teaspoon of baking soda
-big pinch of salt
-1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
-1 cup packed brown or golden sugar
-1 cup white sugar
-1 tablespoon of vanilla extract
-2 eggs
-2 cups semisweet or milk chocolate chips
What you do:
Preheat oven to 350°. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a bowl and set aside. Put the room-temperature soft butter in a bow and mush it around with your spatula. Now add sugars and keep mixing. add vanilla and eggs and again, keep mixing and mushing. You want it to be well mixed – but you’ll still see little lumps of butter. By the time you’re done mixing they’re the size of coarse bread crumbs in your mixture. Now add the dry ingredients and mix until the dough comes together. Throw in the chocolate chips and give a final mixing until everything is even.
Drop one-inch balls onto an ungreased cookie sheet and keep them about an inch and a half apart.
Bake for 11-13 minutes, making sure to take them out just as they brown. If you’re a fan of crunchy, let them cook a little longer and the edges will crisp up.
These won’t rise. They may be a bit puffy, but basically flat. And gooey. And delicious. Grab a glass of milk and enjoy some before the kids eat every last one, you deserve it.
And, just so you get your cookies to your version of perfection, LifeHacker.com has this handy dandy chart for tweaking your cookie recipe to your personal preference:
