Subscribe to Rita's AboutEating.com Newsletter
 
Web abouteating.com
inherbs.com

Max and Erma's Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

JUMBO BAKERY STYLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES WITH VARIATIONS

For Holly and others who wanted a chocolate chip cookie similar to what is served at restaurants like Max & Erma’s, Panera and our better bakeries. FYI my son brought me some of Max & Erma’s cookies and they stayed chewy for several days, lightly wrapped on the counter.

The recipe I’m sharing today is as close as I can get to this delicious cookie. This is an adaptation from one sent by another loyal reader who received it from a friend. That’s what is so great about sharing recipes – it doesn’t matter where they begin but where they continue to go!

3-1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, melted and cooled
1-1/4 cups firmly packed brown sugar, light or dark
1/2 cup regular sugar
2 egg yolks, large, room temperature
2 large eggs, room tempe4rature
4 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups semi sweet chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate or peanut butter chips or chunks
Optional but good: a handful of chopped nuts, coconut, dried cranberries, raisins, currants or cherries, etc.

Preheat oven to 325.

In a big bowl, mix together the flour, soda and salt. Set aside. Beat both sugars and melted and cooled butter until combined well. Beat in the egg yolks, egg and vanilla just until mixed. Slowly add flour mixture and mix. Mix in chips and anything else you want.

Take about 1/4 cup at a time and roll into nice balls. Lay on greased, sprayed or parchment lined cookie sheets and give them plenty of room, about 3” apart. Bake until edges look light gold but centers are puffy looking and still soft, about 17 to 20 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes on baking sheets and then put on rack to finish cooling.

Tips from Rita’s kitchen:
• Normally, baking with butter instead of shortening will produce a crisp cookie but when the butter is melted this keeps the cookie chewy. The reader told me that the extra egg yolks help keep it tender, as well. This makes sense, since egg yolk is fat and fat makes a cookie tender.
• All brown sugar starts out the same: it’s merely white sugar with molasses added. Light brown sugar has less molasses than dark.
• If you leave the cookies on a hot baking sheet after removing from the oven, the residual heat in the pans allows the cookies to continue to bake, keeping the cookies chewy.

Email Us Your Comments

 

Max and Erma's Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

©2007 Rita Heikenfeld and AboutEating.com