Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am a lover of all kinds of chocolate chip cookies. Except Chewy Chips Ahoy. No way, man. I ADORE Tate’s Chocolate Chip Cookies, they are insanely delicious. I also really like the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookie recipe (which I waxed poetic about in another post). Uplifters Kitchen in Santa Monica has a MEAN salted pecan chocolate chip cookie. And my friend’s mom makes THE BEST oatmeal chocolate chip cookies ON EARTH. And don’t forget Double Tree’s chocolate chip cookies! How do they do it?! I could eat an entire warehouse full of those. Yummy, yummy, yummy, I’ve got love in my tummy.

Anyway, I’m getting carried away on the gentle waves of chocolate chip cookie bliss…this post is supposed to be about my chewy chocolate chip cookies.

These cookies have a mildly interesting story. I didn’t even set out to make chewy chocolate chip cookies. Au contraire, I set out to make thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies a la Tate’s. I made the official Tate’s recipe a while back and they were extraordinarily underwhelming and absolutely nothing like Tate’s cookies. One could chalk this up to faulty measuring (or whatever) on my part, but I also read many reviews that agreed with the fact that the recipe yielded cookies that were quite unlike the real thing. It’s just as well. If we could make them ourselves, we wouldn’t buy them.

So then I came upon Alexis Stewart’s thin and crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe, which had a picture that looked exactamundo like Tate’s. Not only are our names kind of similar, she is also the daughter of Martha Stewart, so it’s like impossible for those genes to do wrong, right? And pictures never lie! So of course I had to try it. FAIL. AGAIN. I could still chalk this up to mistakes on my part, but I still wanted to try a different recipe that got me the results I was looking for.

So I found a third recipe and as I was perusing the ingredients I saw something CRAZY. The recipe did not call for any eggs! Indignant, I made the recipe with an egg included. Well, the cookies were not crispy AGAIN. I can’t blame the recipe of course, because I essentially did not follow it, but the cookies were ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT. I couldn’t believe it. They had so much flavor, they were chewy, they were buttery and had the perfect amount of chocolate. They were scrumptious. Even the next day the texture was almost exactly the same and the taste was just perfect.

There are a couple unusual things about this recipe. 1) One of the ingredients is WATER. What! I think that was supposed to replace the egg but I added it anyway. 2) The cookies are baked at a mere 300 degrees F for around 18 minutes! So odd. But so so so good. And the final flavor secret here is that I refrigerated the dough for about 3 hours. MMMMM. Even when I was looking at the pictures while writing this post my mouth started watering.

SO. Here we are:

Alex’s Accidentally Amazing Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Oh, also! For general chocolate chip cookie tips, check out my other post on How to Make Your Chocolate Chip Cookies Better!

INGREDIENTS

1/2 cup butter, softened but not melted

1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

2 tablespoons water

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (6 oz.) – if you like chocolate, certainly don’t be shy!

METHOD

1. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

2. Cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar together using a stand mixer, or by hand. Add the egg, water and vanilla and mix to combine

3. Gradually add the flour mixture just until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.

4. Refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour, but longer is better (I did 3 hours!). If you’re really dedicated, refrigerate overnight.

5. Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Roll dough into balls and place 2 inches apart on a baking sheet (I use a silpat – it will change your cookie life)

6. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Once they start to brown remove them from the oven and let stand on the pan for 3-5 minutes. Remove from pan using a spatula and cool on a wire rack.

7. DEVOUR.

Heavily adapted from the Sunset recipe on MyRecipes.com

Want to see another impossibly yummy dessert recipe? Check out my Simple French Apple Tart