The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

I really like the blog "The Amateur Gourmet," and I follow its author, Adam Roberts, on Facebook.  But I'd never actually made any of the recipes featured there until a few weeks ago.  The holiday season was in full swing, and I was working all the time.  The work that I do to pay the bills does not, unfortunately, involve cooking, and the end of the year is our busiest time.

But when I saw an Amateur Gourmet post called "The Best Cookies of Your Life," I had to take a peek.  It seems to me that most people do not take cookies very seriously; my sister and I cater a holiday cocktail party every year, and although people love the savory nibbles and fancy tarts, no one seems to eat the cookies.  Even when they are beautiful and festive and piled into a delicious cookie tower - nobody's interested.  I guess they just don't seem fancy enough; maybe they seem too ordinary to be interesting.

But cookies are the bee's knees as far as I'm concerned.  They can be simple and easy for even the least experienced baker to make - and make well - but they can also be exotic, and challenging.  And unlike a lofty, snooty frosted layer cake, they can be tasted right away, which is a boon to those of us with immediate gratification issues and, frankly, anyone who is even slightly apprehensive about taking to a party something one has not actually tasted. 

So anyway, although chocolate chip cookies are not the most exotic cookies in the world, the Amateur Gourmet was so effusive in his praise for what he called "The Best Cookies of Your Life" that I just had to try them.  I made them exactly as he did, using chocolate chips rather than chunks, and he was right.  They were the best chocolate chip cookies I had ever had.  Big, crisp on the edges but chewy in the middle, lots of good vanilla flavor, and, best of all, plenty of salt.  That really makes a difference and can take a cookie recipe from pallid to sublime.  So I was hooked, and since I found a package of chocolate chunks in the pantry this past weekend, I've been wanting to make the cookies again.  So this afternoon I did, and here they are:

And looking a bit more festive:

These photos don't do justice to the golden goodness of the actual cookies - I am finally pulling out the new camera tonight, in hopes that future photos will be a bit better than these.  But don't let the apparently wan exterior shown above deter you from baking these cookies.  They are easy, and scrumptious.  And here is a link to the AG post, and the recipe:   http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2006/10/the_best_cookie.html

One bit of advice:  don't try any usual cookie-baking tricks with this recipe.  Using unbleached flour, chilling the dough before baking, etc. - those only hurt this recipe.  Make sure your ingredients are relatively warm when you mix everything together (I would say "room temperature," but if your rooms are like mine today, that will be way too cold; hence the butter-warming operation going on at my house earlier:

),

and go ahead and drop the dough onto the parchment without chilling.  It's messy, because it's sticky, but I tried chilling, and it was not, in this case, a good thing.  As for the chocolate, I loved the recipe with chips, and I loved it with chunks.  Use what you have, and enjoy.  My house smells so good right now - thank you, Adam Roberts, and thank you, Martha Stewart!