I have never met a chocolate chip cookie I didn’t like ~ warm & gooey ones, ones with crispy edges, fluffy cake-like ones… To me, there’s not much better than a good chocolate chip cookie. But the best I’ve had to date was from Milk Bar in NYC. Milk Bar is famous for their baked goods, things so delicious they warrant names like “Crack Pie”.
Now you see, I get chocolate chip cookie cravings on a very regular basis. The only problem is, my apartment is in South End, Charlotte, not in the East Village of New York. Lucky for us Charlotteans, I found a copycat recipe online. And even luckier- I made one tiny change that made all the difference in the world. I was out of vanilla extract and absolutely determined not to make a second trip to the grocery store. So after staring at the bottle of almond extract for a total of 3 minutes I thought to myself “What the hell ~ why not?”. And that one little substitution took this from the best cookie in the world- to THE BEST COOKIE IN THE WORLD.
The hint of almond extract is very subtle, but enough to make you stop and think for a second. It’s not quite what you expect from a traditional Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie, but then again, that’s not what I was aiming for in the first place. There’s always a special place in my heart for break and bake cookies, but these babies take the cake (take the cookie?).
Try them and let us know what you think in the comments below!
Ingredients
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- ¾ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons non-fat milk powder
- 1 ¼ teaspoons kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or chocolate chunks ( I do a mix of both!)
- ¼ cup flaked salt
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- With a wooden spoon, mix the sugars together in a large bowl and add the melted butter. Stir vigorously for about a minute or more. Mix the egg and vanilla in the measuring cup you used for the sugar and add to the mixture. Stir until the mix gathers a glossy sheen, about one more minute.
- Mix in the flour, milk powder, salt, baking powder, and baking soda until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips and mix until evenly distributed.
- Form into balls about the size of a golf ball) and place on a baking tray lined with parchment paper about 2 to 3 inches apart. Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown around the edges but still soft in the middle. The cookies will fall as they cool. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
