Cookie of the Month - Chocolate Chip Pecan

Well it's the end of the month again and time to bake for my cookie patrons, the Nelsons.  Since my oldest son (Lars) requested, as one of his birthday presents, that I make chocolate chip cookies, I thought I'd make them for cookie of the month, too.  Lars is turning 26 (wait, can that be right???) and hasn't been home for the last few summers since he got married so now that he's graduated and heading to China he knew just what to ask for that mama would be more than happy to furnish.  Anyway, I made a batch and gave him dough snitching rights and as many cookies as he wanted which ended being the whole batch especially once the rest of the family started chowing down.  So the Nelsons got a new batch.

Everybody thinks they have the best chocolate chip cookie recipe and I'm no exception.  When I was attending BYU back in the 80s, my neighbor, Robin worked at Mrs. Field's cookies in University Mall.  One night after work she knocked on my door and sheepishly showed me a scribbled up piece of paper... she had copied down the chocolate chip cookie recipe!  The ingredient amounts were in bulk  for a huge commercial batch of cookies, but we worked on it until we got the recipe down to about a double batch size.  The original directions were also for a commercial oven -- for example:  baking for 33 minutes at 275 degrees in a massive rotating convection oven -- but over the years I have decided upon a reasonable cooking time for my regular old oven which yields (IMHO) the perfect chocolate chip cookie... mind you, I don't like crispy cookies, I like them chewy and almost underdone.  So, now that you have read all this explanation, let's get on with it.

Ingredients:

1 lb. butter

1 1/2 cups white sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

3 eggs

2 cups dark brown sugar

6 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 tablespoons baking soda

bag of chocolate chips (original recipe calls for 4 cups)

2 cups chopped pecans

(makes 5 dozen or so)

 Mix butter, sugars, eggs and vanilla for 3-4 minutes on medium speed.

Add dry ingredients and mix until incorporated.

Can you tell I was wearing a bright pink shirt that day?  

It's reflected in many of the pics!

Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.  

This is my batch for Lars - he wanted milk chocolate chips and no nuts.

For the Nelson batch I used 60% cacao chocolate chips and chopped pecans.  Yum.

This next part is critical.  After the dough is mixed up, I shape all the dough into ice cream scoop size balls and crowd them on a cookie sheet and refrigerate them for at least a half hour.  The cookies turn out so much flatter if you skip the refrigeration.  Besides, this step makes all your cookies uniform and you can decide to bake them whenever you want to.

Once your cookie balls are chilled,

you can put them in a bowl or even freeze them for later baking.

Place your chilled cookie balls on your favorite air bake cookie sheet.
Gotta be air bake.

Bake at 350 for 11 minutes until you barely see brown on the edges.

Barely.

Let them set on the cookie sheet for a few minutes

and then remove them to the counter to cool completely.

So that's my version of the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Enjoy!