Chocolate Chip Cookies

At college I had a neighbor who ALWAYS made the best chocolate chip cookies. They were so soft and of course it's best when it's milk chocolate. I tried getting a hold of her the other day and she told me that the recipe was on her board on Pinterest. I couldn't find her on Pinterest. She said she just randomly found it and started making them that way ever since. Challenge accepted. Since I couldn't find her, I found a recipe instead. If you search for "chocolate chip cookies" there are millions of results. I now narrowed it down to the first 100 I saw and how good they looked based on the picture. I created a "Must do in 2015!" board and pinned it. I tried it for the first time yesterday and I want to make them again because they are already almost gone. I have to remember this recipe. My past cookie making hasn't been the best due to the fact that when they come out of the oven, the chocolate chips have turned into mountains while the rest of the cookie is either sunken in or still gooey all over the tray. No good. So here is the recipe I made. I also don't take credit in these pictures. They are from the website here. Now you can see why the pictures enticed me.

My Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. If your butter was still hot when you added it your dough may be really wet at this point. Let it rest at room temperature for a couple of minutes if this is the case and then it will be cool enough to scoop into cookies.
4. Roll a scant half-cup of dough into a ball. Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull apart into two equal halves. Rotate halves 90 degrees and, with jagged surfaces facing up, place formed dough onto cookie sheet (Or just put a dang ball of dough on the cookie sheet and roll it taller than wider!). Bake, reversing position of cookie sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy (approximately 11-14 minutes). Do not overbake.
5. Cool cookies on sheets until able to lift without breaking. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

My only note is that I just rolled them in balls and didn't try to attempt step #4. I also didn't turn the pan halfway through baking.