Chocolate Chip Cookies,...and Twixies!

As a high school lass in love (with a boy and with baking), I always made chocolate chip cookies (for the boyfriend and friends) that stayed soft long after they cooled. For years I had no idea why, I thought it was my wrapping technique. As I became a more serious baker, I changed my techniques to those found in cookbooks. Recently, while reading the baker and cook's guide to culinary awesomeness (aka: Cooks Illustrated), I read a recipe that made me realize that two things I did in my high school baking days were the keys to my chocolate chip cookie success! One, I melted the butter and two, I let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet before removing them. Viola! My soft cookies were back!

My chocolate chip cookie baking also yielded a new cookie, which I call a "Twixie." I put aside a small amount of cookie dough, minus the chips. Then finely chopped up a few mini-Twix bars, mixed with the dough and baked. Let's just say the time-honored chocolate chip cookie has a new rival.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe, from Cooks Illustrated.com

INGREDIENTS

2 1/8	cups bleached all-purpose flour (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2	teaspoon table salt
1/2	teaspoon baking soda
12	tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1	cup brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces
1/2	cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1	large egg
1	large egg yolk
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
1 - 2	cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.3. Following illustrations below, 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, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment paper-lined 20-by-14-inch lipless cookie sheets, about nine dough balls per sheet. Smaller cookie sheets can be used, but fewer cookies can be baked at one time and baking time may need to be adjusted. (Dough can be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 1 month—shaped or not.)4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). (Frozen dough requires an extra 1 to 2 minutes baking time.) Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.


STEP BY STEP: Shaping Thick Chocolate Chip Cookies

1. Creating a jagged surface on each dough ball gives the finished cookies an attractive appearance. Start by rolling a scant 1/4 cup of dough into a smooth ball.	2. Holding the dough ball in the fingertips of both hands, pull the dough apart into two equal halves.
3. Each half will have a jagged surface where it was ripped from the other. Rotate each piece 90 degrees so that the jagged edge faces up.	4. Jam the halves back together into one ball so that the top surface remains jagged.