Chocolate Chip Cookies

My dear friend Ellen in Ca. makes the best, chewiest chocolate chip cookies! She'd bring them over and they would never last very long in our house. She showed me how to make them, but I never could make them like she did. Her trick was to use cold butter, which is opposite of what most recipes tell you to do.

Now that there are miles and an ocean between us, I've had to try and find a recipe that could stand in as a substitute. I came across this highly rated chocolate chip cookie recipe (I love reading recipe reviews) and thought I'd give it a try. They were described to come out just the way I like them, chewy and crisp on the edges. Yum!

This recipe calls for melted butter??? The recipe doesn't require the dough to be refrigerated and it was very soft once mixed. I actually put mine in the fridge for 2 days, because I've heard or read that it really brings all the flavors together. These were pretty darn good!  I used dark and white chocolate chips, nuts would be good in them too.

Cookies made by a friend always have a special sweetness about them. These made me think of my dear friend :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies from Gourmet October 2003 at Epicurious

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 1/2 salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/2 c packed light brown sugar
1 c granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 t vanilla
2 1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Line baking sheets with parchment or wax paper.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.

Beat butter with sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.  Lightly beat 1 egg and add 1 3/4 T of it plus 2 remaining whole eggs to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute.  Beat in vanilla.  Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, stir in chips.  At this point, I refrigerated the dough for 2 days, the recipe doesn't call for that.

Scoop 1/4 c batter for each cookie, 3 inches apart and flatten mounds with a moistened palm of your hand.  I just used a tablespoon to form balls and they were plenty big.

Bake until golden, 13 to 15 minutes.  12 minutes was the magic number for the smaller cookies.

Cooled cookies keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 3 days.  Mine won't last 3 days :)