Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Chocolate chip cookies were the first baked goods I made from scratch. I found a recipe in my mom's well-loved edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook and immediately got busy. The Silver Palate recipe yields "25 giant cookies, or about 80 regular cookies." It took me a few bakes to realize that - through the power of ratios - I could easily make fewer than 80 cookies at a time. Luckily, my teenage brother made quick work of my efforts, and my mom generously restocked the pantry with sugar and flour. I always think of that original recipe - and of my younger self hard at work in my parents' kitchen - when I make chocolate chip cookies. This recipe, in addition to yielding a more manageable 28 cookies, incorporates pecans and bittersweet chocolate chips (instead of semi-sweet) for a richer, more decadent flavor. 

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• 14 tablespoons butter, softened at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, tightly packed
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups chopped pecans
• 1 3/4 cups bittersweet chocolate chips

1. Cream butter, granulated sugar, and and brown sugar together until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract, mixing well. (I like to use my KitchenAid stand mixer, but have also made these with a hand mixer to similar results.)
2. Combine the dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, salt, pecans, and bittersweet chocolate chips - together in a large bowl.
3. Add the dry ingredients to the to the creamed mixture, mixing continuously at a low speed until the dough is thoroughly combined. 
4. Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and freeze for 30 minutes. 
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
6. Remove dough from the freezer. Using your hands, roll the dough into 28 evenly-sized balls. (If you're like me, you've probably sampled the dough by this point and may end up with only 27 balls of dough that are ready for the oven...) Place them on a parchment-paper lined cookie sheet. Bake for 13 minutes, rotating the cookie sheet halfway through. 
7. Let the cookies sit for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before transferring to a wire cooling rack.