I’ve typed and deleted and retyped the first line of this post maybe ten times. But no, I am going to own this. These are the best cookies I’ve ever made.

They’re based on this smitten kitchen slice-and-bake cookie recipe, which I made a few months ago, although in different flavors. In retrospect, I wish I had been more careful in writing down the ingredient amounts.

The recipe isn’t particularly hard, but it does involve two stages of chilling. Also, I don’t have a stand mixer, which I imagine would make this easier, but is not necessary. I use a handheld electric mixer and a spoon.

• 2 sticks (8 ounces; 230 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips, chopped or buzzed in the food processor*
• 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
• 1/2 cup unsalted pistachios, ground in a food processor
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (you might use a tiny bit less)

Prepare the dough:

This is much easier if the butter is actually at room temperature. If it’s not, cut it up into little cubes and very very carefully microwave it for maybe 10 seconds at a time. After each round, toss the butter cubes around so they heat more evenly. Don’t let it melt.

Beat the butter and confectioner’s sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time, and beat to mix.

Add the vanilla, chocolate chips, apricots, and pistachios and beat until just mixed.

Fold in the flour. The recommendation I always hear is to use a rubber spatula, but I used a wooden angled spatula/stirrer type deal. The dough is pretty thick, and I find it easier to use a spatula that doesn’t bend around. It looks kind of like this:

You want to avoid over-mixing here, but if you’re doing this by hand you will likely become sick of folding the flour in before things get over-mixed, so don’t worry too much about it. If you use a mixer, be more careful.

Chill:

Once it’s basically mixed together, turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Wrap each dough in plastic wrap and chill. The recipe says to chill for at least half an hour, but I think it’s still too warm to be workable at that point. I think it takes a few hours.

Roll and Chill Again:

On a smooth surface, roll the dough into a log about 1 1/4” thick. If you want to make hearts instead, roll the dough out to about 1/3” thickness. It’s very sticky, so roll it out between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper or something being careful to occasionally peel off and readjust the plastic wrap so the plastic wrap doesn’t tear. Either way, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least a few hours, up to three  days. You can also pop it into the freezer from here.

Bake:

Preheat oven to 350F. Arrange the racks in your oven either in the upper and lower thirds (if you’re baking two sheets of cookies at a time) or in the middle (if you’re baking one sheet of cookies at a time). Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silpat.

Slice the dough log into discs 1/3” thick and arrange them on the cookie sheet. If you’re making heart-shaped cookies (and thus rolled out the dough flat rather than into logs), cut out the cookies with a cookie cutter. Combine the scrapes and roll them into a log that you can chill and then make into even more cookies.

Bake for 12 - 14 minutes.

* This is important— whole, regular-sized chocolate chips would be too big for these cookies which would mess up the whole flavor/texture balance but also make them hard to slice.