Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (with variations)

This is the best and most versatile dough I have found for your basic cooky. Sorry, but I don't remember where I got it originally. Add anything you like. I have made them with white chocolate and macadamias, dark chocolate and dried cranberries, and traditional semi-sweet chocolate chips and chopped walnuts. Always good; slightly chewy, crisp on the edges, full of flavor.
Bet you can't eat just one!


Ingredients:
    2 cups all-purpose flour
    
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
    
1/2 teaspoon salt

    3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled somewhat

    1 cup packed brown sugar 

    Scant 1/2 cup white sugar

    1 large egg

    1 egg yolk

    1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or sub 1 packet vanilla sugar)

    1 1/2 cups (chopped, if needed) walnuts, macadamia nuts
 or cranberries
    2 cups chocolate chips, or chunks from white chocolate bars

How to make them:
Preheat the oven to 325° F/170° C.
In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt and set aside.
Beat together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar with a hand mixer until creamy.
Beat in the egg until well combined, then beat in the egg yolk and beat until fluffy; then beat in the vanilla.
Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture by hand (wooden spoon) until just moistened. Stir in the nuts (or cranberries) and chocolate also by hand. (I do this by stirring the flour mixture only partly before I add the solids and then it doesn't get over-combined.)
Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased and/or lined baking sheet, and press down on the cookies with your palm a bit to flatten (not too much!). Leave quite a bit of space on the pans between them as they spread a lot.
Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges start to look golden brown. They are rather fragile when they are hot and need to cool on the baking sheet, so even if they don’t look quite set, it’s okay because they continue to cook after you remove them from the oven. Much better to underbake these than to overbake them, or they lose their chewiness.
After 5 minutes you can remove them and allow to finish cooling on a rack or on a different surface.
Makes about 50-60 cookies if you use a smaller spoon, 20-25 if you make monster cookies.