Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe is burned into my mind and forearms (sheet pan burns. For some brilliant reason, our good convection oven is under our flattop griddle in between the 4-burner range and the big wok. So when I carry the pans of cookies to the baking rack to cool, I have to bounce up against up to 3 of my coworkers who are trying to make the rest of the food and do not care about the cookies. This means that if I do not want to drop the pans, I have to occasionally support them with the tender flesh of my inner arm. We used to have a full-time baker who would come in at 5am so she was out of the ovens by the time everyone else got there, but I don't care how interesting the programming on NPR is at 5am, I'm not doing it). It makes exactly 16 dozen cookies. We buy 72oz. bags of Nestle chocolate chips, and one recipe uses the whole bag. This recipe is actually based on the original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, scaled up by 6. Here is how you do it to make 32 cookies (a good amount to have in your home).

1/2 lb unsalted butter, left out for a while
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 t vanilla extract

Put all of those in the mixer and crank it up to maximum and go and do something else*. This takes a little while, like 5 minutes, but it whips up to a really pale brown, spongy looking mass. After a while scrape down the bowl and mix by hand to make sure everything is incorporated, and mix on low again for a few minutes.

2 eggs, cracked into a bowl, left out for a while

Add one egg to the butter mix still on low in the mixer, and when it disappears, add the other one.

*While the mixer is going to town on the butter et al.:

2 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1 t kosher salt

Sift these. The way you do it is to put 1 C of flour into a sieve over a bowl, add the baking soda and salt, and add the other 1 1/4 C and shake the sieve so that everything trickles into the bowl. Then stir the powder well with a whisk to evenly distribute the two wee ingredients.

Now that you have added the eggs and the mixer is on low, turn it off and add about half of the flour mixture and quickly alternate ON/OFF on the mixer so that you don't have flour shooting up the sides and getting everywhere. The biggest deal here is to NOT over-mix. Once most of the first half of flour is mixed in, add the rest, and continue with the ol' ON/OFF-ON/OFF. Add the chips. ON-OFF, ON-OFF. At this point you might as well take the bowl off the mixer and stir everything with a big spatula. When it is homogeneous, cover the bowl and put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Use a small ice cream scoop to make golf-ball sized dough balls. Place these 3" apart on a heavy baking sheet lined with parchment paper and press them down to a height of half their original diameter. Make absolutely sure your oven is at 325 (convection) or 350 (not convection). Set a timer for 8 minutes (9 minutes if it is one of those timers that goes off with 1 minute left on the timer--seriously this is how most non-digital kitchen timers work, and if you are using one of these, make sure you crank the knob past 30min and then adjust backwards or it will not ring strong and long. Basically, it is a good idea to get a digital kitchen timer). After 8 minutes, rotate the baking sheets without smudging the cookies with your oven mitt- or bar mop-clad hand. The dough will be spread out and several of the cookies will be browning on their perimeters. Set the timer for 2 real minutes more. Evaluate: the cookies should come out of the oven when their circumferences are golden brown and their centers are moist-ish and golden. They will continue to cook when out of the oven, so don't be fooled. Let them cool for however long you can stand it.

If you follow these directions exactly, you will have 32 perfect chocolate chip cookies. There is a big difference in taste and texture if you do it right. There is also a big difference in time if you are unfamiliar with this procedure. Really the most important things to get right are the creaming of the butter, sifting of the flour and the removing of the cookies from the oven at the right time. I forgot to take pictures today but I will put them up soon.