National Chocolate Chip Day: Overnight chocolate chip cookies

May 15 is National Chocolate Chip Day. Celebrate by baking a batch of chewy chocolate chip cookies.

Previously, I had experimented with a chocolate chip cookie recipe and its chilling and freezing times. With that recipe, I chilled half the batter in the refrigerator overnight before baking and the other half I frozen immediately after making the dough then also baked it off the next day. With this recipe, I experimented with baking times. It does call for chilling overnight and I did that dutifully although once the 24-hour chilling period was over, I did hustle the dough balls into a freezer bag and put them in my freezer to wait for when I needed them. (Like for tomorrow because I'm meeting my friend, Chocolate Chip Cookie Todd, for lunch and I had to have chocolate chip cookies for his cookie bag.)

It's no secret I prefer underbaked chocolate chip cookies. They're chewy and just have a better texture to me. It's how I've always baked my cookies for years. But I thought I'd try baking until "done" to see if I was missing anything. I've captioned each cookie as to whether it was the fully baked or underbaked one. As you can tell, there's very little different between the two on the outside. That's likely due to the recipe itself – this is just how the cookies turn out on the outside.

On the inside is where the difference is the most obvious. With the properly underbaked one, you can see a more dense and moist texture. The outer edges look more fully baked and a little cakey but the middle is definitely more on the chewy side than the cakey end.

When baked until done, you can see the cakey texture of the inside of the cookie. This will also dry out sooner as the cookie ages and stales since it doesn't have as much moisture as the underbaked one. In terms of taste, they tasted similar since they're from the exact same dough after all. But since a cookie is about both the taste and the texture for me, the underbaked one proves I've been (under)baking chocolate chip cookies properly all this time. I simply prefer the moist, chewy texture of a good underbaked chocolate chip cookie. By the way, unlike with the other experiment where the chilled-overnight cookie tasted better than the freeze immediately cookie, I really couldn't tell a discernible difference in taste with these. They were just good chocolate chip cookies.

Overnight chocolate chip cookies
From Chocolate, Chocolate and More

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips

1. Cream butter in a large mixing bowl. Add sugars and mix for 5 minutes until creamy. Add in vanilla and eggs and mix well.

2. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture slowly, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Fold in chocolate chips. 

3. Portion into golf-ball-sized dough balls and store dough in an airtight container for 24 hours in the refrigerator. After the 24-hour period, you can freeze the dough or else bake the cookies.

4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place cookie dough balls on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. 

5. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 1-2 minutes before removing to rack to cool completely.

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