Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Like the NYTimes recipe, I find you get a yummier cookie and better texture if you refrigerate the dough 36 hours and sprinkle a little sea salt on the cookies just before you pop them in the oven. I like to make 5 or 6 cookies to get a reward for all the work of making the dough and then refrigerate the rest.

INGREDIENTS

2 1/8	cups bleached all-purpose flour (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2	teaspoon table salt
1/2	teaspoon baking soda
12	tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1	cup brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces
1/2	cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1	large egg
1	large egg yolk
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
1 - 2	cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

See Illustrations Below: Shaping Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.

3. Following illustrations below, form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.)

4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). (Frozen dough requires an extra 1 to 2 minutes baking time.) Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.


STEP BY STEP: Shaping Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Creating a jagged surface on each dough ball gives the finished cookies an attractive appearance. Start by rolling a scant 1/4 cup of dough into a smooth ball.	2. Holding the dough ball in the fingertips of both hands, pull the dough apart into two equal halves.
3. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other. Rotate each piece 90 degrees so that the jagged edge faces up.	4. Jam the halves back together into one ball so that the top surface remains jagged.