You know you want to try these.
Photo: Nina Lincoff
Blame the cookie. In fact, let’s be more specific: blame the chocolate chip cookies. Those perfectly golden rounds with a crisped, chewy, caramelized exterior that gives way to a cake-like, doughy center. Fill it with chocolate discs and there you have it: the guilty party.
Yes, it was the chocolate chip cookies that started it all. Six years ago I decided to go on a dangerous and daring quest for the ultimate chocolate chip cookie, and since then have never looked back at those boxed baked goods and their tubes of Pillsbury icing. Enter the world of home-baked goods and say goodbye to everything else because after that first perfect chocolate chip cookie made from scratch, anything less-than-homemade is inadequate. It’s a sweet, sweet universe full of every sugar, spice and everything nice.
The quest for the perfectly nutty, simple chocolate chip cookie with just the right amount of give to crisp, of chocolate to dough proved longer than one might expect. Starting with the basic Nestle Tollhouse recipe (what I consider to be the true form of the Bible), I baked numerous batches of delicious cookies varying the amount of flour, leavening, refrigeration and bake time. I wasn’t the most disdainful of bakers—a cookie never went to waste. But what I found was that with an increase of flour, eggs and leavening—in addition to the use of larger chunks of chocolate—was that I could make those perfectly domed, tanned chocolate chip cookies of bakery windows and pastry cases. With that, I thought I had finished my bakery journey.
And then I was upstaged by the New York Times. Go figure.
Not wanting to admit defeat, I held off baking what NYT claimed to be the absolute Chocolate Chip Cookie…
But then I gave in. A quick skim of the recipe revealed that it wasn’t all too different from mine, in fact the major difference was the inclusion of gigantic chocolate discs which, hey, I could admit was only a great, phenomenal (albeit ingenious) idea. However, the recipe insisted on a 36-hour refrigeration period to allow all flavors to mellow and gel together, for the wet ingredients to completely coat the flour. Preposterous, I said. Ridiculous. Not to mention completely unrealistic. There is no way that cookie dough could last 36 hours in my fridge. A batch of dough 36 hours later would be a much diminished batch of dough. A sad little batch of dough. However it had to be done, whatever hardships would arise along the way, I would just have to persevere and be the upstanding baker.
36 hours later, plus a little bake time, God graced my oven with a little miracle. (Of the cookie variety.)
It’s the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Wait those 36 hours and you’ll see.
Chocolate-Chip Cookies
Loosely adapted from the New York Times
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar, pack
¾ cup white sugar
½ teaspoon salt
3 eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
12 oz. bittersweet chocolate discs, or callets
1. Cream together the butter, sugars and salt in a large bowl until completely combined. Stir in the eggs and vanilla extract, until mixed thoroughly. Sprinkle the flour, baking soda and powder over the butter mixture and stir until not quite incorporated. Take the chocolate discs and roughly break some of the pieces so there is a mix of broken and whole discs. Add the chocolate to the batter and stir until completely combined. Cover dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 36 hours.
2. After dough has rested for one and a half days, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Shape ¼ cup portions of dough into balls and place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, if available, about 3 inches apart from each other. Flatten the balls into thick rounds. Bake for 15-22 minutes or until the cookies are lightly golden. Eat.
Where can you buy chocolate discs?