Chocolate chip cookies are probably the most classic American dessert after apple pie.  You can get them at any grocery store, coffee shop, or even freshly baked at a bakery, but the best chocolate cookies are the ones you make at home.  In part, it’s because it’s a recipe anyone can do with minimum equipment and little investment.  I’m sure you’ve tried the ubiquitous Toll House recipe printed on the back of the chocolate chip bag, and those are good, if only because it means people are getting back into the kitchen and baking real cookies.  As you grow up, though, maybe you want a cookie that’s a touch more refined.

Enter Thomas Keller, chef and restauranteur of such three-Michelin-star restaurants as the French Laundry and per se.  He’s written a few cookbooks in the past, with recipes coming from the menus of those restaurants.  He has another cookbook coming out in November based on his family-style comfort food restaurant, ad hoc.  This book, he promises, is geared toward the home cook.  It has recipes that you’ve had, maybe even made, before–biscuits, pot pie, beef Stroganoff.  I don’t have any inside info on all the contents, since I don’t have a press kit, but Food Gal Carolyn Jung got one.  Lucky for us, she shared a few recipes, including one for grown up chocolate chip cookies.  Go to her site for the full recipe for Thomas Keller’s chocolate chip cookies.

There are a few big differences to this recipe from most chocolate chip cookie recipes.  First is in the ingredient list–there’s no vanilla!  Now, you could certainly add some, but the large amount of brown sugar in this recipe gives the cookies a more grown-up molasses flavor rather than the more in-your-face vanilla kick most cookies have.

Next is the chocolate.  The recipe calls for chopping up two different types of good chocolate.  I did this the first time I made these and the different flavors from the chocolate make the cookies much more interesting.  This may add a few dollars to your cookie budget, but it is well worth it.  You could use chips as I did this time, but I really recommend trying it with good chocolate as the recipe recommends.  Please, don’t use milk chocolate, and if you’re going with chips, don’t use the Nestle morsels.  Use at least a half-way decent chocolate, like 60% Ghirardelli chips.

At a glance, the mixing instructions are a little different, telling you to add the butter in stages and beating it very thoroughly.  I think the intent here is to make sure that you cream it enough, beating enough tiny bubbles into the butter that will expand later as they bake.  Other than that, the rest of the ingredients and the procedure are really the same as any other cookie recipe.

When I make cookies, I like to chill the dough a bit until it’s firm, but not completely hard.  Taking a tip from Alton Brown, I use a scooper to dish out my dough evenly.  Even scooping means they cook evenly and end up about the same size.

I made a double batch and handed some out to some friendly food fans.  After all, who can resist home baked cookies (especially when you’re not doing the work)?  I got a lot of positive comments on them.  In my family, these are our new favorite chocolate chip cookie.