amy cakes: The best chocolate chip cookies- ever

My parents have subscribed to Cook's Illustrated Magazine for as long as I can remember. The editors develop recipes in what is called America's Test Kitchen- they honestly tweak and tamper with recipes 40, 50, 60 times in order to get the desired end result. In addition to publishing Consumer Reports style rankings of various cooking gadgets and ingredients, they are famous for developing recipes with "about 97 steps" (my dad's words, not mine.) While their recipes may be tedious and at first glance, overwrought with silly cadence (more on that later), they simply know how to do their job over at America's Test Kitchen- the recipe I want to share is their painstakingly developed recipe for Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies. This recipe lives up to it's name- I was a Tollhouse girl through and through until I met this recipe, and I haven't looked back since. The thing that really sets them apart from other chocolate chip cookies is the fact that they incorporate browned butter. The beautiful geniuses at ATK know what's up. My roommate and I have made these cookies several times, and this time we subbed m&m's and coconut for chocolate chips and nuts- I think any combination of mix-ins would be great as long as you make the base batter the same way and keep the same proportions for the mix-ins. And how could we not use these fun m&m's we found at Target in honor of the NFC and AFC championship games this weekend!


Perfect for us- Packers colors, Patriots colors...and Browns colors?

Cook's Illustrated Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies

simply the best

You will need:

1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons butter
3/4 cup brown sugar (they suggest dark brown but I think light brown is fine too)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg plus 1 yolk
1 1/4 chocolate chips (we used m&m's)
3/4 cup nuts (optional) (we used unsweetened flaked coconut)

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and adjust the racks so you can use the one in the middle.

2. Whisk together flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside.

3. Divide your butter into two portions- 10 tablespoons and 4 tablespoons. Cut up the 10 tablespoons into smaller pieces so they melt easier. In a medium non-stick saute pan, melt 10 tablespoons of butter. Stir constantly with a wooden spatula or spoon until melted butter starts to bubble. At this point, it will start to froth. Keep stirring. I think that it starts to smell like Parmesan cheese at this stage, which I know is weird, but it really does. Soon the bubbles will go down and it will clarify. Keep your eye on the butter and keep stirring until it starts to brown and smell caramel-y. Shut the heat off immediately and pour the butter out of the pan and into a glass liquid measuring cup or bowl. You don't want to take your eyes off the butter during this whole process- it takes a few tries to get it down but once you've browned butter a few times you will know what to look for and know once you've gone too far (you've gone too far if too much brown/black sediment starts to accumulate in the pan and it smells burnt).

4. Add the remaining four tablespoons of butter to the browned butter and allow to melt.

5. In a larger mixing bowl, add both sugars, salt and vanilla. Add the completely melted butter to this mixture and stir/whisk until combined.

6. Separate your egg yolk and white, and add the separated yolk along with one whole egg to the sugar and butter mixture. Stir for about 30 seconds. Now here is where the 97 steps come in. Let this mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk for another 30 seconds. Repeat this process of resting and mixing twice more until the mixture has thickened up, but is smooth and shiny.

7. Mix in the mix-ins- chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, candy, whatever! with a rubber spatula. Make sure that there are no flour pockets.

8. Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out three tablespoons of dough and roll into a ball.

ready for their close up

9. Arrange six dough balls on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 9 to 11 minutes. 10 minutes seems to work well for my oven. Shout out- these Reynolds parchment paper sheets are fantastic. Highly recommended!