Stef's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Total Time: 32 mins Preparation Time: 20 mins Cook Time: 12 mins

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (use bread flour for a 'poofier,' less chewy cookie)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
• 1 teaspoon fresh baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar (cane)
• 1 1/4 cups well-packed dark brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 cups chocolate chips (chunks, if available, i personally like breaking up a couple bars of good chocolate)

Recipe

• 1 sift flour, salt and baking soda. set aside.
• 2 melt the butter.
• 3 add sugar, brown sugar to the butter, cream until bubbly.
• 4 add egg, yolk, milk and vanilla. be very not to scramble the egg, you may want to let the butter mixture cool off.
• 5 add slowly flour mixture. do not overmix, stop as soon as it is well combined.
• 6 add the chocolate chips, mix. the dough will not be mixable once chilled, so the chips must be fully incorporated.
• 7 chill the dough in the fridge overnight. 24 hours is always recommended, especially if grocery store vanilla is used. if you’ve never done this before, split a batch. make half after an hour, save the other half until the next day. the difference is obvious in the way the cookie looks and the flavor, there’s an almost chemical tartness that the cookies lose after the 24 hours. i never noticed the tartness until i tried this, now i can’t ignore it.
• 8 when ready to bake, scoop the cookies onto a parchment paper or silpat lined baking sheet in large round balls at least an inch apart. i use a non-stick ice scream scooper. do not forget to line the sheet, these cookies will stick to a non-stick pan, even if greased. sprinkle salt over the top of the cookies before placing in the oven.
• 9 bake the cookies in a well pre-heated (pre-heat for at least an hour) 375 degree oven for 9-13 minutes. baking time will depend on how long the dough chilled, the cookies will brown better (and faster) if the dough sat for at least 24 hours. rotate the baking sheet once.
• 10 do not overbake the cookies, they need to be watched carefully to make sure they don’t get too brown. the taste changes significantly (as with most brown sugar things) if they’re baked too long. i’ve had them take as few as 8 to as many as 14 minutes.
• 11 remove from oven, let cool for 5 minutes. gently separate any cookies stuck together with a knife or spatula, then move to a cooling rack with the spatula. they should cool for at least 10 more minutes. the cookies will break if not properly cooled.
• 12 yield is 20-ish, it’s always different for me, since i make the cookies as big as feasible, the bigger the cookie, the better the contrast between crust & crumb.