Receta Bakery Style Supersized NY Times CHocolate Chip Cookies
Bill Yosses’s Chocolate Chip Cookie’s reign as my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe was short lived.Don’t get me wrong, it is a great recipe, and its usefulness is large batch make-ahead situations (because it can be frozen and sliced and baked in mid sized cookies) is not to be under-appreciated.But I, like everyone else, have fallen and fallen hard, for the NY Times chocolate chip recipe written about recently.
Some bloggers have hesitated to blog about these, since they have taken the foodie world by storm and are therefore becoming ubiquitous.I have chosen to do so for 2 reasons.I have already written about my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie, so some of you are probably wondering what I think about these.Second, just because all of us obsessed food blogger types are aware of these cookies, does not mean everyone else is. I am betting, for example, my mother has no idea the NY Times published an article containing the definitive chocolate chip cookie recipe.
And this recipe deserves to have the word gotten out.
These cookies were featured in an article in the NY Times about what goes into making the perfect chocolate chip cookie.They consulted quite a few bakers and kind of mished and mashed all of those words of wisdom, focusing on a Jacques Torres recipe, plus some testing, and came up with this recipe.On a side note, the article itself was great—I have had some friends ask me why I am not just happy with the Tollhouse recipe and I think the article really helped explain why for some of us a perfect chocolate chip cookie is an eternal quest.
But anyway, as to the recipe itself.It added one new and brilliant element: sea salt, suggested by Dorie Greenspan.It added one totally new technique: it requires the dough to chill for at least 36 and up to 72 hours (!!).It also strongly suggests making truly large cookies (I actually used my scale and I feel sure most people who did not use a scale did not make them big enough—3 ½ ounces of cookie dough is a lot of cookie dough, my friends).It also uses chocolate discs.A lot of people have bypassed this step, but I happen to have easy access to Guittard melting discs, and I gotta tell you, if you love chocolate chip cookies for the cookie AND the chocolate (versus, say, my sister who prefers the plain dough) using the discs is a great idea as it creates strata of chocolate running throughout the cookie, providing chocolate in every bite.In light of these 4 changes, I have to admit one question I have is how would the Tollhouse recipe turn out if it was chilled for 36 hours, was sprinkled with sea salt, used chocolate discs and was baked in giant balls?So with that caveat in mind—that I don’t know if it is the technique that is brilliant, the actual recipe (i.e., ingredients), or the combination of both, I gotta tell you: you must try this cookie.And in case you are wondering, it is as good the second day as it was the first.
It is a little sad for me because sometimes I think my love of chocolate chip cookies began with baking cookies on a Friday night when I was around 10 or so.In my family that was great fun—I can remember my brother Chris and I baking together.I think we even argued about why whoever’s came out better did come out better.OK apparently we were cooking dorks even then.
But this recipe pretty much ends that.It took me a full week to get around to making these cookies since I had to plan making the dough and then the actual baking 1-2 days later.I can live with this, since they are just that good and because there are other family favorites my kids can learn to whip up instead.But it does make me a little sad.
The recipe is below, cut and pasted exactly as is.I made no changes, except I ran out of cake flour, and so I used 4 ¼ ounces of AP flour, and 6 3/8 ounces of cake flour and 6 3/8 ounces of bread flour.But if you have the bread flour and cake flour, I would just use them as directed.Some people have been upset about the requiring of specialty flours, but honestly I have both flours around all the time anyway so I didn’t really even think about it.If you try it with all AP flour let me know what you think.
The dough was too stiff for my regular cookie dough scoop and instead required my hard ice cream scoop…
That is one honkin’ huge ball of cookie dough…
Only 6 cookies can bake per sheet, so you know these are serious cookies…
Baked and cooling…
NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Jacques Torres
Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling
- 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
- 1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
- 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolatedisks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note) (I used semisweet, 1 lbs discs and ¼ lbs chocolate chips since my discs came in a 1 lb box)
Sea salt.
1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.
Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.