I've been crowing about my chocolate chip cookies for weeks in my newsletter. Because I'm not a very good stylist, I've procrastinated sharing the recipe. Thinking things like, It should have photos with it, The photos should be shot on film (duh) (I am a snob), I should shoot and style them as I bake them, like Julie does, I need to make a styling board beforehand so I don't have to photograph a brownish cookie on a brownish table, Why did I leave my old styling board in Kansas, I don't know how to do this, I'm a terrible food photographer, I am a mess, I am bad, Blah blah blah.
SO, I went to the UPS store and scanned my recipe. I also took a few photos of it. This recipe is not **mine** per se, this is just my copy of it. Some guy at Cook's Illustrated named Charles came up with it. I may or may not have named my son after him. It's fine.
Right here try to imagine some really pretty photos of flour and chocolate chips spilled on the counter and some precious little hands helping me crack the eggs into my pyrex. In reality this is my very butter-splattered now-memorized Favorite End All Be All Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Of All Time.
A FEW NOTES:
- Extra points awarded for only requiring ONE dish to be scrubbed. The pan for the butter and bowl for the flour only require medium/low dishwashing efforts.
- Don't overdo it on browning the butter. I've made this recipe maybe about forty times, and whenever I get overzealous on the darkness of the butter, the dough turns out sticky and the cookies are flat and chewy. My best ones are always when I pull the butter off the heat shortly (seconds) after the white foam shows up on the top of the pan. Right when it starts to smell good.
- Cut the non-browned butter into chunks. It will melt faster. Less waiting.
- A heaping cup of chocolate chips is plenty for a single batch.
- Vanilla bean paste may be used, but doesn't make any enormous improvement (like in ice cream).
- Set the eggs out nearby while you brown the butter.
- Just double it.
(The images are clickable if you'd like to enlarge them.)