I've always best enjoyed chocolate chip cookies that were chewy instead of crisp. Many regular recipes produce a dryer, crisper cookie, so it was time to do some research and develop a better recipe.

I started with a chewy recipe from Alton Brown and modified the ingredients to achieve my goal ... more chewy and with interesting taste undertones. Using some gluten flour is one sure way to increase the chewy factor. Adding cardamom to the recipe produces a very pleasant taste undertone. Also, skip the white sugar and use only light brown sugar. The final improvement is to use high quality dark chocolate callets (buttons) that are used for making chocolate candy. I use Callebaut® No. 811 callets.

You do want to try this recipe as my sweetheart Peggy and I give it two thumbs up!

Ingredients: (makes 24 large cookies)

2 quarter pound sticks of cold butter

1 1/4 cups of all purpose flour

1/4 cup of gluten flour

1 teaspoon of sea salt

1 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda

1 tablespoon of ground cardamom

1 1/4 cups of light brown sugar

1 jumbo egg

1 jumbo egg yolk

2 tablespoons of whole milk

1 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

12 ounces of high quality dark chocolate buttons (callets) used for making candy

1 cup of chopped walnuts

Directions:

Heat the oven to 360 degrees F and place the rack in the top third of the oven.

Partially melt the cold butter in a bowl in the microwave oven for about one minute and let it cool for a few minutes.

Put together both flours, the cardamom, the salt and the baking soda into a two quart bowl and whisk them together briefly.

Pour the butter into your stand mixer bowl. Add the sugar and beat the mixture with the paddle attachment on medium speed for 2 minutes.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the whole egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla extract.

Set the mixer speed to low and work the egg mixture into the butter and sugar mixture. Mix until thoroughly combined, one to two minutes.

Gradually add the dry ingredients into the mixing bowl, mixing on medium low speed, and mix for three minutes. If necessary use a soft rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl and mix the batter for an additional minute.

Once the batter is uniform, reduce the speed to low and add the chocolate callets gradually and mix for one minute.

Add in the chopped walnuts and mix them into the batter for one minute on low speed.

Spoon half of the batter into golf ball size portions on an ungreased 12"x17" baking sheet, to make a total of 12 cookies.

Bake for ten minutes, rotating the baking sheet 180 degrees after the first five minutes of baking.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven, let the cookies cool for one minute, then use a hard thin spatula to remove them to a cooling rack.

Use the baking sheet a second time to make the remaining 12 cookies from the other half of the batter.

When the cookies have cooled serve some with glasses of cold milk or hot cups of coffee.

Enjoy!