A while back, a recipe for chocolate chip cookies appeared in a newspaper food section—the cookies were supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread (or sliced cookies). Word spread quickly and it seemed folks couldn’t pull out their flour bins fast enough to give them a try. Indeed, the recipe and accompanying story had a great pedigree: it was well written and well researched, with input from some of the best bakers in the land. Not to be outdone, I went into the kitchen and whipped up a batch of my chocolate chip cookies, which, admittedly, I hadn’t made in a while, just to see if they still held up. When I bit into one bursting with gooey chocolate chips and crisp toasted nuts, with all due respect to the author of that recipe, I couldn’t imagine chocolate chip cookies tasting any better. One thing I did take from that article was that chocolate chip cookie dough improves with resting for at least 24 hours before baking. I’m a big fan of keeping logs of dough in my refrigerator or freezer, so my dough was usually rested, even if inadvertently, but now I recommend making it a point to give the dough time to chill out.
Many chocolate makers now produce chocolate “drops” or “chunks” that are suitable for use in this recipe. Regular chocolate chips are designed to resist melting, so I don’t use them in my chocolate chip cookies.
