Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I ran across this recipe on Fake Ginger's blog and couldn't resist.  Now I have an amazing oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe from my friend H's mother that I'm sure I will share on here sometime, but it never hurts to try something new!  Plus, upon querying Andrew as to what he would prefer - oatmeal chocolate chip, chocolate chip, or snickerdoodle - he chose chocolate chip.  

This recipe was amazingly quick and easy to throw together.  I'm an instant fan of any baking recipe that called for melted butter rather than room temperature butter because I rarely have time to let butter soften properly (and I've yet to find a method that softens it better than just leaving it on the counter for a few hours).  The original recipe called for huge cookies - I'm not kidding!  It used a 1/4 cup measurer to scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet!  While that may be fun for kids, I thought this size was a bit more manageable.

I made these cookies to go with Andrew to a soccer tournament he was refereeing this past weekend - for him and to hand out to the other referees there.  The result?  I'm apparently making them for the next tournament too.

Okay, please forgive me a moment while I brag.  I'm so happy with the way this picture turned out!  After reading some advice from the internet, specifically The Pioneer Woman's 8 Tips, I think I've made some progress.  I have several friends with great cameras and even greater talent with them so I'm hoping for some constructive feedback on my improvements!

My silly little Pentax point and shoot actually takes better pictures than I originally gave it credit for and I think it will do just fine for my current uses.  I used Google's Picasa photo editing software to just barely brighten up and sharpen it.  Nothing crazy.  Natural light does wonders for food.  I found the shade of my porch to be perfect.  Just don't make the same mistake that I did by first interpreting natural light like this:

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies  
adapted from All Recipes (link)

Makes 32 cookies

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups chocolate pieces^*

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

2.  Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

3.  In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1 tablespoon at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets^**.

4.  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges start to brown. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

^*I used about 1/2 cup of semisweet morsels, about 1 cup of mini semisweet morsels, and about 1/2 cup of mini M&Ms.  Why?  Because those were the half or almost empty chocolate bags I had sitting around!  Feel free to use whatever combination of chocolate strikes your fancy.  Fake Ginger used half dark chocolate and half white chocolate, which I think would be amazing too.

^**These cookies will be on the larger side so I only got 8 to a cookie sheet and they fit perfectly.