CI's Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last time I made some CCCs, The Chewy recipe was all the rage and I just had to try it. Before Alton Brown's The Chewy came about, I had seen the Cooks Illustrated recipe floating about as the best CCC recipe out there, and marked it to try. I finally got around to making it (over a month ago now) - and it is quite an impressive cookie. I'm not sure which I would say is better - I would have to try them head to head to decide. (Which, actually, someone did!)

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Cooks Illustrated
Makes 1½ dozen 3-inch cookies

CI note: These truly chewy chocolate chip cookies are delicious served warm from the oven or cooled. To ensure a chewy texture, leave the cookies on the cookie sheet to cool. You can substitute white, milk chocolate, or peanut butter chips for the semi- or bittersweet chips called for in the recipe. In addition to chips, you can flavor the dough with one cup of nuts, raisins, or shredded coconut.

2⅛ c bleached all-purpose flour (about 10½ ounces)
½ tsp table salt
½ tsp baking soda
12 tsp unsalted butter (1½ sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1 c brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces
½ c granulated sugar (3½ ounces)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 c chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat oven to 325F. 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. Form scant ¼ 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.

REVIEW:
Yum! These really were thick and chewy, and definitely a recipe I would make again!