Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

While we both love tackling involved recipes, such as macarons and fancy layer cakes, we also love mastering our favorite classic desserts. Today, our experiment was to perfect one of our favorite treats, chocolate chip cookies. Over the years, we have tried countless recipes, from the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe made with cake and bread flour, to experimenting with various types of chocolate chips, to sprinkling sea salt on top for a sweet and salty combination. Though we have loved aspects of each of the recipes we have tried, with their complex flavors and ingredients, we have learned that sometimes it is the classic recipes with the best-quality ingredients that are truly the most delicious. 

Semisweet Chocolate Chunks and Milk Chocolate Chips

After sampling these cookies at a friend’s party, we were given Martha Stewart’s Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, and have been using it ever since. A relatively thin cookie with crisp edges, a chewy center and two different types of chocolate, these cookies are simple yet incredibly tasty. Our favorite part about this recipe is the fact that it uses both semisweet chocolate chunks and milk chocolate chips, playing with two different textures and flavors. We like to use Ghirardelli and Guittard chocolate, as well as our favorite Nielsen Massey Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract, for the strongest flavor. Though you may have to spend a bit more, these high-quality ingredients truly pay off for an outstanding cookie. 

Use an ice cream scoop when forming the cookies to create consistent sizes

Some tricks we have picked up on after creating several batches of these cookies include using an ice-cream scoop to form perfectly even and rounded balls of dough, as well as refrigerating the dough for at least an hour before baking to control spreading and enhance the flavor. If you aren’t sure that refrigerating the dough makes a difference, this article from King Arthur Flour’s Flourish blog will definitely change your mind! Another trick we frequently use to prevent cookies from drying out after baking is to store them in an airtight container with a slice of sandwich bread on top. Though this may sound strange, the bread helps to give moisture to the cookies which are denser and drier, leaving the bread stale and firm like a piece of toast! Try it for yourself, just make sure to change the bread every two or three days (if the cookies last that long!) to ensure freshness. 

Look at those chocolate chunks!

We know there are hundreds of delicious chocolate chip cookie recipes out there, and while you may have a family recipe that you always use, we can certainly say that following this recipe will yield amazing cookies! 

Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Everyday Food

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups packed, light-brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips
• 8 ounces semisweet chocolate chunks, or chopped from block

Cooking Directions

1. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
2. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on medium-high until light and fluffy, 6 minutes. Reduce speed to medium-low and beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Mix in flour mixture just until incorporated; fold in chocolate chips and chunks.
3. Using a 1/4-cup ice-cream scoop or a large spoon, drop dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet (you should have 24) and refrigerate 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange cookies, 3 inches apart, on each of two parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until edges are light golden brown, 17 to 18 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to a wire rack and let cool. Bake remaining dough using new parchment.

Enjoy!