Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened (room temp)
• 1 3/4 cups dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature 
• 3-4 teaspoons vanilla extract, you can use just 2 but I love more
• 1/2 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 bag dark chocolate chips or chunks
• 1/2 bag Heath Milk chocolate toffee bits

Preheat oven to 375. 

Cream together butter, brown and granulated sugars until pale and fluffy. (I use a stand mixer with the paddle attachment for these cookies.) Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, then add vanilla, mix thoroughly. Add flour, salt, baking soda and powder, Mix slowly until the flour is incorporated. Add the chips/chunks and toffee bits and slowly mix again, but don’t over mix. Press plastic wrap directly on the dough in the mixing bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour or as long as possible before baking.

Line baking sheets with nonstick foil or parchment paper. Drop by the spoon size you prefer. I used a small ice cream scoop because I wanted these to make a lot. Sometimes I use the large ice cream scoop to make big cookies. Go with what you want! Drop about an inch apart for small cookies, 2 inches for large cookies. Bake for 5 minutes, take pans out, rotate them, drop them onto the stovetop to help flatten the cookies. Put back in the oven for 3 minutes, pull out, rotate, and bang pans again. Put back in for 1 minute and then remove, banging the pan 1 final time. Let sit for a couple of minutes and then remove them to a cooling rack. This helps make good wrinkles in the cookies!

**if you want to make them fancy, top with a square of dark chocolate when you take them out before the final minute of baking. Then sprinkle with flake sea salt when they are cooling.

These are also great to scoop and freeze in cookie dough balls. Then you can take them out whenever the craving strikes!! Bake as directed above.

Another fun thing is to make small ones, put ice cream in the center of 2 cookies for homemade ice cream sandwiches! Wrap those in plastic wrap and put them back into the freezer. 

Yum!