new york times chocolate chip cookies

Hailed as “the consummate chocolate chip cookie,” the 2008 New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe is everything you hope for in a perfect chocolate chip cookie and more.

Anyone who has ever worked with me in a professional setting knows that my key to keeping office peace is with homemade treats. It’s my way of saying thank you, happy birthday, you’re pretty fantastic and please don’t kill your colleagues at the end of a long week. Having moved to a position where I work from home and the majority of my daily interactions are with a four legged assistant, I get pretty excited when I get to travel and collaborate with real live humans. More importantly, I get excited to have an excuse to bake for someone other than Z and I.

I asked a colleague what he would like baked for our company meeting this week and his response was good old fashioned chocolate chip cookies. No nuts, no raisins, nothing fancy. Though I’m sure my Brown Butter Cinnamon S’mores Cookies would have been a total hit, I found this to be the perfect opportunity to try out the New York Times recipe that was adapted from Jacques Torres and published in 2008 as one of the best chocolate chip cookie recipes ever.

The stars aligned this weekend and I just happened to have both the cake and bread flour on hand that the recipe calls for. I adapted the original recipe just a smidge as I was low on vanilla and wanted to use the Ghirardelli milk and bittersweet chocolate chips that I had picked up the week prior. The end result was hands down the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever made. How had I not made these prior to today?

My mother gifted me with the flat chocolate chip cookie gene. Yes, it’s genetic. Look it up. Anyway, the combination of cake and bread flour successfully beat out the faulty genes and bad chocolate chip cookie juju to produce the most gorgeous cookies you have ever seen. The flour rose just enough to yield hills and valleys of perfectly crisp edges while keeping a delightful chew in the center. My combination of both milk and bittersweet chips gave the cookies an incredible balance of both sweet and rich flavors.

Z pointed out no less than three times that these were “good ones” and for someone who eats for the sole purpose of survival, that’s quite impressive. It’s a bit tricky to just happen to have all of the ingredients on hand, but totally worth making a special grocery run if necessary. I’ll likely add both cake and bread flour to my list of pantry staples so that these cookies can become our go to recipe. If you’re as late to the party as I was, do yourself a favor and give these a try!