Chocolate Chip Cookies

Give me soft cookies or give me no cookies at all.

This has been my quest- my Atlantis- my Loch Ness Monster.

You gotta have a goal, right?

For years, in vain, I've tried to create bakery style cookies at home. But that thick, dense, yielding texture has eluded me.

And finally, the secret was revealed by the New York Times. This article exposed the simple bakery magic that created the best cookies: refrigerate the dough & let it rest.

Finally, an answer! Deciding to put this knowledge to the test, I whipped up a batch of Martha Stewart's Soft & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies on Friday afternoon. And I did not bake them.

This was the hard part- as any sweets lover can tell you, taking the time to mix up a dough and then NOT bake it is close to sacrilege.

I satiated my craving with a bit of raw dough (I know, I'm a rebel!) and popped the rest into a covered bowl & then the fridge.

There it sat for 24 hours. Then I baked off 12.

Better- the structure was denser. They didn't spread as much. But I knew that a bit more time would yield yet a tastier result.

24 more hours passed. The two-day mark arrived. I preheated to 350. I shaped 12 2-inch cookies. I baked. I waited for 13 minutes. Well, technically 48 hours & 13 minutes.

But who's counting?




Hallelujah! Patience is a virtue that is rewarded with deliciousness. These cookies were perfect. Letting them cool on the cookie sheet for 2-3 minutes is key. A final cooling on a cookie rack sets the perfection.

Chewy, but soft. Just the slightest hint of a crisp on the edge.

I'm not going to give all the credit to the recipe- I feel strongly that if you held even a mediocre recipe in the fridge for a day or two a better cookie would be born.

I urge all of you to try this test of self-control just once.