1. Use good chocolate. For a long time, I refused to splurge on good chocolate chips, but a good rule of thumb is to never bake with chocolate you wouldn’t eat alone. I am particularly fond of Callebaut, which is not too pricy.
2. Rotate your cookie sheets halfway through baking.
3. For chewy cookies: when you transfer your cookies to the cooling rack, they should still be a little liquid, almost to the point where you can’t lift them up from the sheet without them falling apart.
4. For exceptionally chewy cookies: In his class at Central Market, David Lebovitz mentioned that tapping the tops of cookies with a spatula halfway through baking makes for extra chewiness.
5. If you like nuts in your cookies, try toasted hazelnuts.
6. Most importantly: refrigerate your dough overnight. This allows the flavors to marry and increases chewiness. In Ready for Dessert, David Lebovitz recommends dividing the dough, rolling it into logs of 9 inches long, and wrapping them in saran wrap.
(Source: pocketfulofchocolate.com)
