I bake little to nothing other than cookies so I'm no baking expert but I finally got a recipe from a friend that works for me. Pillowy, chewy cookies vs. some previous pancake flat or rock hard recipes I've tried. I don't refrigerate the dough, I use butter and I bake using convection. What I have noticed after using this recipe many times is that the outcome in terms of plump vs. flat does seem to have something to do with how soft the butter is. Yesterday I made them and remembered to take the butter out early so it just softened on the counter. It wasn't all that soft when I made them and they turned out perfect in my opinion. Other times I've had to carefully soften the butter in the microwave. The softer the butter the flatter the cookies. And the harder the butter the more ball shaped the cookies end up. I can also tell the difference in the consistency of the dough - even though all the ingredients are the same. If the dough is "dry" enough that I can form the cookies into a ball then they turn out great (I do make them into balls rather than dropping by spoonful). If it's stickier they end up flatter. If my theory is true, then chilling the dough in the fridge makes sense as the fat would harden as it chills.

Hi Karl, use less butter / lard in the cookie mix next time. That's the usual cause of cookies going a bit flat and not keeping shape when baked. i first heard about chocolate chili cookies about 10 years ago, in a Discovery channel documentary about chili addicts & growers. The cookies were part of the buffet spread at a convention. Always wanted to try them.

Lizbeth, you are more than welcome. I hope this recipe is the "magic" one for you, but even if it's not, well, they're still cookies and how can that be bad? :-) plllog, normally I use butter, but this one called for half butter, half shortening. Normally I'd ignore that and use butter, but Grandma's Chewy Molasses cookies require half shortening or they don't turn out right, so I followed the recipe and used half shortening/half butter. I didn't flatten them at all, left them just as they came out of the cookie scoop, they would have been thin and crisp if I'd have flattened them, I think. I always use cane sugar, gave up beet sugar (although it's local and that hurt me) because of the GMOs. I also liked the little bit of flavor from the almond extract. I'm not a huge fan of CC cookies, but I used extra dark chips and they were better, plus the half-and-half ratio of brown sugar and white sugar helped keep them chewy. And, as you noted, I was very careful to not overbake, that's the most common reason cookies don't stay chewy. Ricky, those look pretty darned good. Mine are all gone, I suppose I should make some more..... Sheila, like you I always added about 1/4 cup of flour to the Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. AKgirl, have a cookie, you know you want one. They're great for breakfast. (grin) Annie

Thanks for the project. It gave this stay at home something to do for an afternoon. They are more cake like, and don't have the buttery brown sugar taste of the original Tollhouse recipe. So while they are definitely good, I prefer the Tollhouse version, to which I add a couple of extra tablespoons of flour.