I did it!  I finally did it!!   I found a way to make a chocolate chip cookie that stays tall and rounded, soft and chewy with lots of chocolate pieces in it.    I am in love with these cookies.

So for National Chocolate Chip Cookie Week, we have these beauties.

There must be a ba-zillion recipes out there for chocolate chip cookies, and I must have made at least half a ba-zillion of them, but could never achieve this kind of result.  Oh, they were good all right; some crisp, some chewy, but most all of them flatten out either during baking or as they cool.   I’ve wanted a thick, full cookie that comes out of the oven looking almost the same as it went in, and now I have it.

What this recipe does is… swap out 1/4 cup of butter and substitute 1/4 cup full-fat cream cheese.  You wouldn’t think that would make a big difference, but it did.  The resulting cookie is so soft with a richness to the dough unlike any other cookies I’ve tried.

Don’t use light, or fat-free cream cheese because your dough will become really soft, and your cookies will spread too much. The cream cheese gets mixed with the butter at the start of the mixing process, followed by the sugars, egg and vanilla.  Then the flour mixture gets mixed in and finally the chocolate chips.

Make sure to chill your dough for at least two hours before you bake to ensure your cookies bake thick and puffy.  I also found out that if you form your dough into cookie balls before chilling, and chill them all together on a baking sheet, it is much easier to transfer them onto other baking sheets when ready to bake them, than it is to form dough balls when the whole batch of dough is chilled. All the while you are forming cookie dough balls from chilled dough, the dough is coming to room temperature as you work, and then you get limpy whimpy cookies when they are baked.   I want thick, puffy cookies that are overflowing with chocolate, and that’s what these are.

CREAM CHEESE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Yield:   Makes about 2 1/2 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup ( 1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup cream cheese, softened ( use full-fat cream cheese)
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
•  2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. cornstarch
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks ( or a mixture)

Directions:

1.  In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, cream cheese, sugars, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes

2.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, salt and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.

3.  By hand stir in the chocolate chips/chunks.

4.  Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping mounds ( 28 – 30).  Place mounds onto a large flat platter or baking sheet, flatten slightly with your palm, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to overnight, before baking.  Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.

5.  Preheat oven to 350*F., line baking sheets with parchment or spray with cooking spray.  Place cookie mounds on baking sheets, spaced at least 2 inches apart.  Bake for 8 – 9 minutes, or until edges have set and barely browned, tops are just beginning to set, pale and glossy in the center.  Cookies will firm up as they cool, so do not bake more that 10 minutes.  Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.

6.  Cookies will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.  Unbaked cookie dough can be store airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked at a future time. Chilled cookie dough balls may be transferred to a zip-lock bag and frozen for future use also.

SOURCE:   this recipe was adapted from one by Averie Cooks