Amy's ultimate chocolate chip cookies (and ice cream sandwiches)

One of my mommy pals, Amy Lewis, sent me this recipe when I posted a request on Facebook asking for my friends' favourite chocolate chip cookie recipes. She says it's a combination of two or three recipes that she came up with while she was on the quest to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie.

"Looking back at it, it seems like a weird recipe but I do remember that these cookies were out of this world. It makes A LOT of big cookies, so you can always freeze some dough," she told me.


She wasn't kidding, I ended up making something like 60 cookies. And there wasn't a bad batch in them.


In fact, I ended up with so many cookies that I decided to make my own homemade ice cream sandwiches just in time for my baby boy's first birthday. They were a BIG hit. So big, in fact, that most of my guests didn't have enough room for the other sweets I had prepared.  (Read to the end to find out how I made the ice cream sandwiches and see pictures of them too).

You'll note this recipe is starkly different from David Lebovitz's chocolate chip cookie recipe.
In David's recipe, you will use room temperature unsalted butter. In this one, it's melted salted butter. In David's recipe, you chill the dough. In this one, it goes straight into the oven. In David's recipe you stick to one kind of chocolate chip, in this one, you use three kinds.

David's recipe creates the perfect kind of cookie for the gourmande who wants to savour a sweet treat alongside espresso boasting an inch of crema. David's cookies look like you brought them straight home from the bakery downtown, well shaped and oozing with chocolate chunks. On the other hand, this cookie is begging to be piled on top of a large platter alongside a pitcher of milk. It's the kind of cookie you imagine 1950s housewives made for their children for when they came home from school. It is more buttery, more sweet, more chewy.

It encompasses a whole lotta goodness. While I preferred the flavour and denser texture of David's chocolate chip cookie recipe, I will probably be making this one more often because it was more satisfactory and sated my chocolate chip cookie craving on a more primitive level. And to be perfectly honest, I think it earned me more compliments.
INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 cup salted butter, melted, cooled
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup white sugar

102 g box instant vanilla pudding mix

2 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 egg yolk

4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cup dark chocolate chips
1 cup milk chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips


DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

In large mixing bowl, using wooden spoon, mix butter and sugars until creamy. Stir in pudding mix and milk, then eggs and vanilla. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; stir into the sugar mixture until the batter is just blended. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop cookie dough in 1/8 cup mounds onto the prepared cookie sheets and press down a bit. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart to allow for spreading.

Bake for 9 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. Store in airtight container.

Makes a very big batch. Cookies will be slightly crispy on the outside and soft, slightly underbaked inside.


DIRECTIONS for making ice cream sandwiches:

Place vanilla ice cream in the fridge so that it softens and it's easier to work with. Once cooled, match up the cookies so that they two sides are about the same size. Working as quickly as possible, take a heaping tablespoon of ice cream and place it in the middle of one cookie.

Press the matching cookie down so that the ice cream spreads. If you choose you can roll the sides of the ice cream sandwiches in chocolate chips.


Freeze ice cream sandwiches until firm, at least two hours, and then wrap individually in plastic wrap.
 
Substitutions: None. But if you only have unsalted butter, I don't see a problem in using that instead of the salted kind.
 
Would I make this again? Most definitely. These ice cream sandwiches reached my friends and family members on some core level that reminded them of their childhood, I think. And the fact that the cookies were homemade meant they tasted even better than our childhood memories.
 
Grade: Five stars out of five. I'm a sucker for an iconic dessert.