My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

So there are a lot of different Chocolate Chip Cookies recipes and I'm sure many of you have tried lots of different ones; I know I have. I have several recipes that I like, but when I came across this recipe from Tessa at Handle the Heat, I knew I had found something special. The texture of these cookies is how all chocolate chip cookies should be. They are chewy and stay that way for a few days. I took a batch of these to school last year and several people told me these were the best cookies ever. I made them again recently and go similar reviews. LSH took some to law school and most of them were devoured quickly. One great thing about this recipe is that the dough really isn't that tasty. If you are like me, eating the raw cookie dough is a huge temptation. This dough is not that tempting and is much better saved for cooked cookies. :D

Time: 60ish minutes by the time you get them all baked
Makes about 4 dozen cookies
Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Cream together the butter and both sugars in a big bowl until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time and finish off with the vanilla.

Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and add it to the batter. (I think this is the step that does something special to the texture of the cookies. I had never made a recipe that did this before.) Finally add the salt.

Stir in the flour one cup at a time using a heavy-duty spatula (I almost broke a plastic one doing this). Keep adding the flour until everything is incorporated. Once everything is mixed, add in the chocolate chips. The original recipe called for 2 cups, but I like a high ratio of chips to dough so I added some more.

Once chips are folded in, use a spoon or a spiffy cookie scoop to drop large globs of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Leave some space between them because they will spread a bit.

Bake them for 10-12 minutes or until the middles are set and the edges are starting to brown. Let them sit on the pan for about 2 more minutes and then move them to a cooling rack.

Let them cool, or not, and enjoy with a tall glass of milk!

Original post at http://www.handletheheat.com/2011/05/classic-chocolate-chip-cookies.html