Gluten-free chocolate chip cookies

1. Put two oven racks near the center of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Melt the butter. If you can manage to make brown butter and not bungle it, that's better.
3. In a large mixing bowl, mix melted butter and sugar until the sugar is hydrated. It should look like wet sand. If there's any melted butter sitting on top of the sugar, you haven't mixed enough.
4. Add in vanilla extra, salt, and the egg, provided the the wet mixture isn't hot enough to cook the egg. That would be a disaster. Don't over-beat the egg as that'll change the texture of the cookies in a weird way. Not a food scientist, don't know why. Something about egg proteins?
5. Mix in flour and baking powder. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. When the flour is nearly all incorporated, mix in the chocolate chips. While you don't have to worry about overworking the gluten (yielding a tough cookie), you still shouldn't overmix as that will do something to the pesky egg.
6. If you have an alarmingly crusty baking sheet, you should probably get some parchment paper at this point. If your baking sheets are fine, then just wait around for ten minutes. You need to let the dough set up and hydrate at room temperature, otherwise the cookies will become a hot mess in the oven.
7. If you like the illusion of eating a lot of cookies, portion out the dough into 18 cookies. Otherwise, this'll make 12 big cookies. Each dough mound will need a 2-2.5 inch epsilon-ball.
8. After 7 minutes in the oven, permute the cookie sheets and rotate each sheet by 180 degrees. Bake for 6-7 more minutes or until the edges are golden brown. If you're not living that dishwasher lifestyle, this is the point where you should tidy up your counter and do them dishes. In about 14 minutes, you'll have better things to do than dishes.
9. Let the cookies cool for as long as your self control allows before consuming.

*To make vegan: A neutral oil will work here. I recommend warming it up a bit to hydrate the sugar better. I'm not sure if that's real science or confirmation bias based on prior runs of this recipe. I've never used a flax egg, but have used ~1/4 cup applesauce and a 1 tbsp "psyllium husk egg" with varying degrees of success (aka varying degrees of edibility)

** To make chocolate chocolate chip cookies, Add 1/4 cup hot chocolate mix, decrease GF flour by 1/8 cup, and decrease total sugar to 1/2 cup. Mix in the hot chocolate mix when you add the flour.