Our Favorite Baking Recipe for Chocolate Chip and Pecan Cookies

A few years ago, my youngest daughter, Celine, discovered an online recipe that uses cream cheese as one of the ingredients in the batter for chocolate chip cookies. After a few additions and tweaks, this has become our family's favorite baking recipe for cookies. Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups plain, all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, softened until pliable, at room temperature

1/4 cup of cream cheese, softened until pliable, at room temperature

2/3 cup granulated sugar, natural cane sugar is best

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs, beaten

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup finely chopped pecan pieces

Two medium sized mixing bowls

Mixing spoon

Greased baking sheet

Instructions

In one medium bowl, mix the flour, salt and baking soda together.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter, cream cheese, sugars and vanilla extract.

Slowly add the beaten eggs to this mixture and continue mixing.

Once this batter is light and fluffy, add the flour mixture.

Once combined, sprinkle the chocolate chips and pecan pieces over the batter and stir them in.

Refrigerate this batter until you are ready to bake the cookies. Chill for a minimum of 3 hours, but the batter will still be good to use 2-3 days after it is placed in the refrigerator. It is very important that you do not skip this step before baking.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Drop small mounds of dough onto your greased baking sheets, about 2 tablespoonfuls of dough to each cookie. Leave 2 to 3 inches of space between the cookies.

Bake until the cookies are a light, golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes. Take the baking sheet out of the oven and let the cookies rest on the sheet for a minute or two before transferring them to a plate or wire rack to finish cooling.

Once cool, you can store the cookies in a cookie jar or other container. Our family usually can't resist the temptation and we eat most of them while they are still warm and gooey! These are perfect with a glass of milk or some vanilla ice cream!

Do you like chocolate chip cookies? Let our readers know your favorite baking recipe for chocolate chip cookies or similar desserts in the comments section.