Part of my goals for increasing my baking skills are to find the best recipe for the cookies I love to eat and also to be able to make layer cakes, and one day to truly decorate them well – maybe not as fancy as fondant, but cute flowrs and borders and things, so that I can make something nice for a party or small get together that doesnt look like I took a butterknife to a tub of pre-made icing to a one layer or no layer cake pan creation.
So as part of my baking goals, I thought I would take a stab at chocolate chip cookies. Why? It’s the beloved “grandma’s best” and “my mother’s best,” classic comfort cookie and I have had only ONE chocolate chip cookie that I have LOVED. and couldnt eat enough of. And while I wont reveal which job at which I experienced this magical cookie, I can tell you that over the course of one shift, I ate – all by myself, mind you, MOST of the cookies brought to our little get together. I ate them in a closet, in my car, hid in different places around my job and ate them out of my pocket in small, amazing bites. Shameful! But it was delicious and caramel-y and the perfect small-ish size with melty bits of chocolate that were a little hard but mostly melted and perfect!
I finally managed to find a recipe that was different from the rest. One that promised to be close to the ones I secretly ate so many of, all by myself. And I have learned alot from making the recipe only twice so far. But the result has been the same – everyone loves them, cant eat enough of them, and they maintain a perfect crisp outer ring, melted chocolate bits throughout – days later and a soft, caramel crunch between the outer ring and the soft, gooey, center target.
In fact! I made another batch last night, and sit here, eating some and typing away while Patella whines to be let outside to chase the enormous chicken sized pigeons in the backyard and Mei lays next to me, glancing between the TV and Lulu in a Tutu while she is trying to figure out how to roll over.
Once armed with the recipe, a person needs to gather ingredients. Because I want to make the worlds best chocolate chip cokies, I headed out to Waitrose to collect the best of the necessary ingredients – starting with chocolate. The recipe requires 566 grams of 60% cacao chocolate bricks or coins, but not chips. Chips will not melt, or melt in a way that the end result will maintain a creamy, melty quality after the cookies ahve cooled out of the oven. I managed to find 70-84% bricks, and bought six bricks of a range, more 70% than 84% because the more cacao content in the chocolate, the more bitter the chocolate will be.
Flour. I just stood in front of the large display, half an aisle, looking at each bag of flour – looking for the most promising bag of bread flour and cake flour, so the cookies wont unnecessarily rise and become a cake cookie, and not too dense like a loaf of soda bread. Finally, with what I considered the best selection of the lot, I picked up some eggs (thank god the British dont refrigerate their eggs!), butter (Imperial, unsalted – the best for baking), light brown sugar and vanilla extract and headed back to the house.
Much of the recipe is doing things just to perfection and just until it is what it needs to be, but not “perfectly” mixed together. Making sure, of course, that the butter and eggs are perfectly room temperature. If they are even a little bit cold, they will not mix together the way they need to, to ensure the outcome of the cookie. That being said, lets move onto the recipe!
INGREDIENTS: from David Leite
- 2C minus 2 TBsp of cake flour
- 1 2/3 C bread flour
- 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 2 1/2 or 1 1/4C unsalted butter (283.5 g)
- 1 1/4 C light brown sugar
- 1C plus 2 TBsp granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/4 pounds or 566 g of 60% (or more) cacao content chocolate
- sea salt, coarse
First, sift the flours, baking soda, and baking powder into a bowl, quickly! Sifting them quickly ensures that the flours become very aerated and stay that way while you mix the other ingredients.
Then, using the paddle attatchment, cream the room temperature butter and sugars until very, very light. This takes between five and ten minutes on medium speed. you will notice a distinct change in the color and consistency as the butter and sugar begins to resemble meringue. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition before adding the next egg – then add the vanilla and mix until it is thoroughly incorporated in the batter.
Reduce the speed to low, and add the flour mixture, gradually until the flour mixture has just combined. You may notice a thin layer of flour around the bowl and the bottom of the bowl – but this is ok, this step – incorporating the flour mixture should take no more than ten seconds.
Take the bricks of chocolate and break them into the pre-portioned bits and then find a way you are comfortable with, to break them into bits, no larger than a regular chocolate chip. I like to drop the squares of chocolate and put them in a large ziploc bag, lay a kitchen towel over it, and then bang away with a hammer, checking to make sure each large bit of chocolate has been reduced to much smaller bits.
After this step, drop in the chocolate and incorporate the bits just barely, throughout the dough. Press a piece of plastic wrap over the dough, and stick the bowl in the refrigerator and let it rest there for at least 36 hours.
the dough after three days of rest
Now you must be thinking, “I want cookies now!” Especially since you did all that huting for perfect ingredients, lovingly bashed bricks of chocolate into submission, and carefully mixing t all together, crossing every finger and toe to ensure that no part of the dough has been over mixed or combined. So go ahead! Lay down some parchment paper and make out dough balls, roll them in some coarse sea salt, and bake until golden brown at 350F! But these instant gratification cookies wont taste their best, they wont be rich and caramel-y and amazing and become the “world’s best chocolate chip cookie!” “Why?” you ask?….
Simply because the dough has not rested for three days.
That is part of the magic of the cookie. But I encourage those of you that doubt the resting period to make a batch of cookies as a control for the three day result. By resting the dough in the fridge for three days, the egg and butter soak up the flours, vanilla and everything mixes to become the moist, rich dough required to make and maintain the perfect cookie, even days after they were baked. If you are patient enough to wait the three days, your cookies will have a crisp outer ring, then the richness of the butter and caramel flavors will intensify as the chocolate bits melt into paper thin layers of chocolate and dough until you get to the center target of the cookie that will be softest and gooey with plenty of chocolate goodness awaiting your salivating tastebuds!
Ok! Yes! I’m glad you have waited for three days! Now, preheat that oven to 350F and line cookie sheets with parchement paper. This makes it so you dont have to clean the cookie sheets between batches or have melted chocolate burning the undersides of your fresh cookies. Scoop out 3 1/2 inch mounds of cookie dough and roll into a ball. Roll one side of each ball in sea salt. Why sea salt? I am weary of the use of salt, and often omit the pinch or dash of salt most recipes request because I can taste those pinches and dont care for them – but in these cookies, they are necessary! The salt cuts the bitterness of the chocolate and brings out the rich, chocolate flavor and transforms it into the comforting familiarity of the semi-sweet chocolate chips your mother and grandmother use in their cookies, eleveating these cookies to new, unbelieveably delicious bites!
* If you use a melon baller or something else or make smaller balls, as I like to do, you will have to diligently watch the oven as the baking time will decrease.
perfectly salted balls of delicious dough!
Bake these beautiful, promising balls of chocolately goodness until golden brown, approximately 18-20 mins (thats if you are making the 3 1/2 in balls of dough (palm size or the size of a golf ball), which will flatten out to 6 in across cookies), then transfer them to a cooling rack for at least ten minutes.
Let me know how they turn out!!
The batch I made last night, I combined 300 grams of 74% cacao with 200 grams of regular chocolate chips and noticed that the bits of smashed up chocolate melted more uniformly throughout the cookies and made the alternating layers of chocolate and dough, whereas the chips melted some, but maintained their shape and toughness after the cookie had cooled – not ooey and gooey and caramel-y like the rest of the cookies. One of the best parts of the cookie, with the way the chocolate melts so evenly, are the pockets of chocoalte lava inside and on top of the cookie, that make it so when you handle the cookies even the next day, you get melted chocolate stuck to your fingers that you have to lovingly lick off your fingertips after you have eaten your delicious bite of chocolately heaven!
In the past, I have never come across a cookie that I have ever appreciated dunked in milk or needed to have milk to drink after eating a cookie, but these cookies demand milk! So really, this recipe has done a few things for me!
1. overcome my fear of the use of salt – I now, generously roll my happy little balls of chocolate dough in coarse sea salt!
2. I eat the cookies with a glass of milk nearby…
3. Rapping my fingers on the kitchen counter, I wait (patiently, obviously), three whole days before I bake the precious cookies. These cookies have single handedly increased my patience ….although caring for a puppy and baby also tend to make recipes like this easier to accomplish, since it takes all day to get the ingredients mixed and a whole ‘nother day to bake the dough.
4. It takes me on average, five trips to the grocery store to remember to buy the eggs AND set the butter out to get to room temperature before I can mix the dough and let it sit for an additional three days before I bake and partake! … oi!
I do hope you take the opportunity to try this recipe and keep it on hand for future use. Not one soul has rejected this cookie, although some would rather have a bitter chocolate cookie with no salt to sweeten it.