Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies rock. Chocolate chip cookies doubly so. That is all.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups minus 2 tbsp cake flour (8 1/2 oz by weight)
1 2/3 cups bread flour (8 1/2 oz)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp coarse salt - kosher salt or sea salt, preferably
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
1 1/8 cups (8 oz) granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 lb bittersweet chocolate disks/chips
sea salt

Start by sifting together the flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt into a bowl. Next, cream together the butter and sugars. You'll need to use an electric mixer at the very least - a stand mixer with the paddle attachment is your best bet. Cream for about 5 minutes until very light. Add the eggs, one by one, and incorporate fully before adding the next. Stir in the vanilla (I like cookies with some extra vanilla so I used a little more than the 2 tsp listed).

Next, mix in the flour. Do it in batches to save your kitchen from a cloud of flour, but be quick, as you don't want to mix this too much either. Once incorporated (5 to 10 seconds after adding the last batch), stop mixing. Add the chocolate chips, carefully so you don't break them too much. I did it with the stand mixer on the lowest setting, and everything was mixed up within a few minutes.

Cover the dough in cling film (in multiple sections, if desired) and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, preferably 36. You can leave the unbaked dough in the fridge for up to 72 hours.

When ready to bake, set oven to 350 degrees F and remove the dough from the fridge. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper (or grease it, but the paper is preferred). Scoop out the cookies. They should be roughly the size of golf balls and then some. If you don't play golf or have never seen a golf ball up close, they should be round and roughly 1 inch in diameter, maybe a little bit more.

Place the cookie dough balls on the cookie sheet, making sure to leave at least an inch between each cookie. A standard size sheet should hold roughly 12 - 14 cookies. If you wish, lightly sprinkle the cookies with sea salt at this time (I did, and it's delicious).

Bake in the middle of the oven until lightly brown but still soft. In my oven, it took pretty much exactly 18 minutes, but when they're ready depends on a lot of factors (your oven, the size of your dough balls, your altitude, whether or not you shaved today) so keep a close eye on them once you've passed the 15 minute mark.

Remove from the oven, leave the cookie sheet for five minutes and then transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. I use a spatula - for now, the cookies will be extremely tender and will collapse if you poke around them too much. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before biting into them.

If there's dough left, repeat the process to create more cookies.

If there are cookies left when they've cooled down completely, store in airtight containers. They will last a week or so, and they should stay nice and chewy for about 2-3 days, maybe even more if you're lucky.

If you wish, replace the chocolate chips with white chocolate chips and maybe a few macadamia nuts. Yum.