Thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients

Wet ingredients

12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1-1/2 sticks), melted and cooled until warm

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk (room temperature)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Dry ingredients

2-1/8 cups (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons) unsifted bleached all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1-3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips (or more or less, to taste)

Steps

1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Beat the butter until very creamy. (If you have a free-standing mixer, just leave the it mixing and prepare the dry ingredients.)

3. Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and combine with a whisk.

4. Add sugars to butter and continue to cream, scraping the sides of the mixing bowl as needed.

5. When butter-sugar mixture is very creamy, add egg, egg yolk and vanilla and mix until just combined. Do not over mix.

6. Add dry ingredients to mixing bowl and mix until just combined.

7. Stir in the chocolate chips manually.

8. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees and, with jagged surfaces exposed and facing up, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough's uneven surface. Place dough on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.

9. Bake, reversing cookie sheets' positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges are start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes).

10. Cool on cookie sheets.

Recipe will yield about 18 cookies.

Optionally, replace some or all of the chocolate chips with other chips or M&M's.