New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

To go along with "The Duckling Gets a Cookie," we made cookies! I am forever searching for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe, so we tried a new one. I am pretty sure everyone on Pinterest has at least seen, if not pinned, some version of the New York Times Best Chocolate Chip Cookies. Here is the original recipe from The New York Times. Now I altered mine a bit since I am not a fan of bittersweet chocolate, so my altered recipe is below. Beware, the recipe calls for 24 hours of chilling time! I think cookies that have to be chilled before baking are a form of torture, but I did it! You will have to excuse the lack of pictures. I forgot to take pictures during the mixing phase; probably because I was distracted by the girls.

Ingredients:

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour

1 2/3 cups bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/4 pounds chocolate chips

Sea salt

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside. Or in my case let you children sift the dry ingredients (they did a pretty good job of keeping it in the bowl).

Bria cleaned up what they got out of the bowl.

2. Cream butter and sugars together until very light using the paddle attachment of your mixer, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, for us it was probably 15 seconds (longer then the original recipe said). Add chocolate chips; I mixed them in by hand like I usually do. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24-36 hours. We did just a little less then 24 hours. I was surprised the texture of the dough actually changed while in the refrigerator; like the sugar was more incorporated after being chilled.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (I use waxed paper). Our first pan was made with cooking spray because I somehow was out of waxed paper.

4. Scoop golf ball sized mounds of dough onto baking sheet. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove cookies to plate to cool more.

A note on baking the, 18 minutes was a little too done for me, so I lowered the temperature to 325 and tried 18 minutes again. Better, but still a little too done. 17 minutes was pretty good, but I thought 15 or 16 would be better. So I went out and got parchment paper and baked them the following day on parchment paper at 325 for 15 minutes. They were gooey just like I like them! They were a bit flatter then I expected, so I am going to say we needed a bit more of the flour that we lost during sifting. Oh well, they are still yummy!