Melanie W.'s Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these today and just finished cooking them about 15 minutes ago, and I've already eaten at least five. Oops! Cookies sure are good warm though!!

Taking into consideration the other experiences, I made a few modifications to mine and I ended up having the opposite experience as LuAnn and Danielle! I thought the dough was ok but not the best, and my cookies didn't go flat! I wanted to make sure they wouldn't go flat, so I did some google research and found some helpful tips. Keep reading and I'll share the secrets to my success!

From what I read, the temperature of the butter and dough is super important. You need it to stay cold. The recipes said to use softened butter, but I used cold butter straight from the fridge. I also bought expensive butter imported from Ireland, mostly just to try it, and I don't think I'll ever do that again. I don't think it enhanced the flavor at all. Anyway, I creamed the cold butter with the sugars using a hand mixer- this way you have more control over how much the butter is creamed. You don't want to overcream the butter! What I read said blend a little, mash the butter with the beaters, blend a little, and it's ok if there are still a few lumps of butter. Then I stuck the creamed butter/sugar back in the fridge for 10 minutes to make sure it stayed cold.

I made sure my eggs were cold straight from the fridge. Make sure you blend them one at a time, thoroughly.

I added 2 Tbsp. extra flour. This also helps the cookies keep their fluff.

Make sure you don't over mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Mix just until blended. I used my stand mixer for the eggs, vanilla, and dry ingredients, then hand mixed the chocolate chips.

I used less chocolate chips than called for, only 12 oz. Too many chocolate chips can cause more spreading.

I chilled the dough for the full 6 hours. (This seemed a bit excessive, but I did what they said.)

I chilled my cookie sheets. Supposedly warm cookie sheets can cause the dough to spread faster. Honestly, I don't think this made much of a difference. It seemed like as soon as I took the cookie sheets out of the refrigerator they warmed up to room temp anyway.

I have an oven thermometer and I made sure the oven temp was exactly 375.

While I was waiting for batches to cook, I kept the remaining dough in the fridge so it would stay cold.

All in all, something I did worked and the cookies turned out nice. They were slightly crispy on the outside, soft in the middle, and not overly browned. I don't think this is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe- they taste like a lot of others, but they were good.

Ok, this is pretty cheesy because it's just like the picture in the book, but I was having fun with my camera. :)