Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chips Cookies

Yim painted me a picture of my all-time favorite Japanese anime - Totoro - for my birthday. Given what little talent I have, I decided to bake her something for her birthday. Initially I wanted to bake brownies because she doesn't like brownies. Something to do with childhood trauma. I thought I would help free her from the bygone and start embracing brownies the way these sweet treats deserve. For reason unknown to me, Adrian expressed his sympathy for Yim when I told him of my good-will plan.

Anyway, I set out to searching for a good brownies recipe but I somehow settled on cookies. There are many cookie recipes but non of them are interesting enough to capture my attention. After all cookies are just flour, egg, sugar, oil, salt and leavening agent. Pretty idiot-proof. Right?

Wrong. I once watched a Hong Kong TV sitcom that made a big fuss about fried rice because it was the true test to the chefs. I heard the same thing said about omelet, too. Apparently the unassuming chocolate chip cookie is the baker's crucible. So few ingredients, so many possibilities - for success AND failure -. A quick search on internet shows a multiplication of the humble recipe, some more mutated than the other, cookies topped with bacon for instance.

Then I stumbled upon this article on New York Times on Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chips Cookies. It has great tips from the grandmother of Chocolate Chips Cookies, Ruth Graves Wakefield, and also some of the best bakeries in New York such as Jarques Torres Chocolate and City Bakery. One of them is to leave the dough for 36 hours before baking. I had to skip this step because I had less than 16 hours before I saw Yim.

While the famous bakeries have chocolate made for them, with the lack of such luxury, I used local dark chocolate chips. They work pretty well as far as I can tell. However I did pick up the next most essential tip: sea salt. There's nothing special about the recipe that I used. What set it apart is the sea salt. A sprinkling of sea salt just before baking add a distinctive dimension to the Chocolate Chip Cookies. I shall never underestimate the use of salt in sweet baked goods ever!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup natural cane sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• coarse sea salt for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven at 170C. Line a piece of baking parchment over baking tray.
   
2. In a mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
   
3. Cream butter with sugar, vanilla extract and eggs.
   
4. Fold the wet ingredient into the dry ingredients. Add chocolate chips and mix to combine.
5. You may leave the dough for up to 36 hours in the refrigerator before baking. Or proceed to bake as I did. Use what you need and freeze the rest.
   
6. Drop two tablespoons (or one for smaller cookies) of dough at a time onto the baking parchment. Cookies should be 3" apart.
   
7. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in preheated oven for 15 - 18 minutes for big cookies or 10 - 15 minutes for smaller ones.