The Best Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

Chocolate chip cookies are hard to photograph.

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 cups butter, softened

1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

2 (3.4 oz) pkgs instant vanilla pudding mix

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups semisweet chocolate chips

2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Sift together flour and baking soda; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Drop cookies by rounded spoonsful onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden brown.

Recipe from http://www.allrecipes.com/.  Search soft chocolate chip cookie recipe.

THINGS I CHANGED:

• Because this is from a recipe posting forum, I read some of the suggestions.  The first suggestion recommended adding 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 2 tbsp vanilla.  I did that.
• This is a huge recipe. Anyone who does any cookie baking at all who sees a recipe that begins with 4 1/2 cups of flour knows that the recipe will make a TON of cookies.  I didn't need that many, so I halved it.  I also halved the additional recommended ingredients above.  It still made about four dozen 1 tbsp-size cookies.
• I didn't need to bake them a full ten minutes.  Nine minutes was enough.
• As always, I did NOT add the optional nuts.  Ick.
• A recipe footnote says that you can use any flavor of pudding mix.  I used French vanilla because that's what I had.  It was good.  I wonder if banana would be good...
• I changed the name of the recipe.  These are seriously the best soft chocolate chip cookies I have ever made, so I wanted the title to reflect that.  I left them out all night on the cooling rack, and they were still as soft and delicious the next morning as when they came out of the oven.  Amazing.

WHAT I LEARNED:

• Pudding is the best baking softener ever.  I use it in cakes regularly to make them super soft and moist, but I've never used it in cookies.  It was actually the use of pudding mix that made me choose this recipe when I was searching for soft chocolate chip cookie recipes.  I knew it would work.
• Online forums are awesome.  Always read the comments.  The comments will tell you if there's anything missing or an easier way to do it or if the recipe is any good.  I might not read directions very carefully, but comments I always read.
• Even though the recipe makes an obscene number of cookies, I do believe that I'll be making the full recipe as often as I can.  The cookies were so good that we went through them all in two days.

OVERALL OPINIONS:

Everyone in the family liked these.  Loved them, really.  In fact, no one outside of the family got to try them because they were gone so fast.  The dough is excellent, too, so if you're a fan of cookie dough (and willing to risk whatever poisoning may occur from the raw eggs), you'll have a hard time keeping your hands out of the batter.  This is now my go-to cookie recipe.  Absolutely amazing.