St. Anne the Tart Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm sharing one of my favorite cookie recipes with you. It has been a recipe I have used for over 15 years now. Sometimes I tweak it -- like today's addition of hazelnuts & vanilla sugar -- but otherwise, it's stayed tried and true, year after year. 

St. Anne the Tart Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Makes 8 very large, bakery-style cookies)
Recipe by Megan Smith

10 1/2 ounces All Purpose Flour (I use King Arthur Flour)
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
7 ounces brown sugar (dark is my favorite)
3 1/2 ounces granulated sugar
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract (I like Watkins)
2 cups chocolate chips (I prefer half bittersweet and half semi-sweet)
Maldon Salt for the top and Kettle Chips if you have them

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees and line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Go ahead and get all of your ingredients in place -- the recipe will come together quickly! 
Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. 
Once the butter has melted, cool it slightly and then put it in a clean mixing bowl.
With a mixer (if you have one -- if not, by hand) mix together the butter and sugars until blended, but don't go crazy on trying to make it fluffy or anything. Just incorporate it all together. Then, add the egg and egg yolk, and vanilla, and mix until all is a cohesive blend. 
Dump the flour mixture and mix well with the butter mixture, just until all of the flour is fully mixed in. Then add the chocolate chips. You can always lessen the amount of chocolate, depending on your liking. 

For large, bakery-style cookies, use a 1/2 cup measuring cup to scoop out cookie dough and form a ball in your palms. Split this ball in half with your fingertips and then squish together in a circle again, making sure the jagged edges from the middle are now facing up. This may sound like a weird step, but it gives the cookie its peaks and valleys for holding the Maldon salt :) Place the cookie on the parchment and repeat with the remaining dough. 

Place only 4 cookie dough blobs on each parchment sheet. I prefer to just cook one sheet at a time, but you could do both sheets if need be. Put the cookies into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes, briefly remove from the oven and give the tops a generous sprinkling of Maldon salt. Return the cookies to the oven and set a timer for 6 minutes. Check your cookies after the timer goes off... you want the edges to be browning but the middle of each cookie to be pale and almost looking underdone (just not raw).
Remove from the oven. If using kettle-style chips or pretzels (like we did at the bakery), now is the time to place one in the top, making sure to nudge it down in the cookie a bit so that it won't pop off when the cookie is cool. 

Bake off the second cookie sheet. Cool the cookies on the parchment-lined pan. No need to transfer to a wire rack, unless you want. Once cooled, I like to wrap each individually in plastic cling wrap. They store well in the freezer and even the dough balls can be stored in the freezer for a later time and baked! 

xo, 
Megan