Sorry I haven’t put anything up in awhile. Between the new job and wedding planning I feel like I haven’t had much time to think. But I have been baking (just not blogging). So this is a recipe I tried a couple weeks ago. (Beware: This post feels really long but it has some great helpful cookie baking hints from cooks illustrated so at least take a look at those. They can be used in any baking situation and helps explain why we do the things we do!)
I decided to take a shot at chocolate chip cookies again. This time I went to a trusty source… Cooks Illustrated. I got Adam a subscription a couple years ago and we have been hooked ever since. They have fun, helpful cooking/baking tips and even a section on what the best chocolate chips are to use. This recipe was called, “The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie.” If it’s perfect, then it’s the cookie for me! In the article they discussed the famous 24-hour NY Times cookie. I have made this one before, and while it’s good I must admit 24 hours is a long time to wait for a cookie. Cooks Illustrated agreed with my point of view – people want instant gratification but still great taste. This is why they started playing around with the ingredients and this is what I learned:
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| This is what browned butter should look like. Isn't my new tea caddy cute!? |
New helpful cookie facts from Cooks Illustrated:
- Melting butter leads to a chewier cookie. This is because as butter melts, its constituents (fat, water, and milk solids) all separate, allowing for easier incorporation of flour.
- Browning butter does the same thing as melting it, but it also adds a nuttier taste. Just don’t brown too much because it will burn off some of the moisture.
- white sugar makes crispy cookies whereas brown sugar makes chewy cookies. The best ratio is usually 60% brown, 40% white.
- cake flour makes a crunchy, crumbly cookie because of its low protein content
- bread flour has a high protein content which makes cookies dense and bread-like.
- that’s why all purpose flour is the best for baking cookies. But cutting back on all-purpose flour by ½ cup increases moistness (but only if you decrease the butter a bit to keep the cookies from becoming too greasy)
- eliminating one egg white boosts chewiness
- whisking sugar into the liquid ingredients and then waiting 10 minutes allows more of it to dissolve and caramelize, adding to a better flavor and texture. If you bake right after mixing the sugar doesn’t have time to dissolve fully.
- MORE DOUGH in your cookies increases the crispiness to chewiness ratio.
So after all this learning I was ready to bake. And bake I did. I had Adam help me with the browning… mainly because I only had a dark non-stick sauce pan and I couldn’t tell when the browning was done. Since Adam browns butter all the time for sauces I used his expertise. If you don’t have a light bottomed pan, just take a spoonful out when you it starts to bubble and put it on something white to see if it is the right color.
The only other thing I changed was the brown sugar type. Dark brown sugar gives a richer taste, but because all I had in the house was light brown sugar I went with that. I also didn’t make my cookies as big. If I could do it all over again I would make them much bigger (8 to a sheet) but because I was bringing them somewhere I needed more than 16 cookies.
The final product was great! It was very caramelly tasting because of the browned butter and had a great chewy/crunchy ratio. The only reason I’m not jumping up and down yelling “I found the perfect cookie” is because I want the cookie to be a little easier to make. I don’t want to have to brown butter and get more utensils dirty or carefully break an egg to make sure the white doesn’t mix with the yolk. But then again, my quick and easy chocolate chip cookies just aren’t cutting it so maybe I need to suck it up, roll up my sleeves and bake. Let’s just say I will be making these again.
Cooks Illustrated Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies
(Makes 16 large cookies or 3 dozen small cookies)
1 ¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking soda
1 ¾ stick unsalted butter (14 tablespoons)
½ cup white sugar
¾ cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk
1 cup chocolate chips
Heat oven to 375 degrees.
Whisk flour and baking soda together and set aside.
Heat 10 tablespoons butter in a skillet over medium-high heat until melted (about 2 minutes). Continue to cook, swirling butter until it turns a dark golden brown and smells like caramel (1-3 min). DO NOT BURN! Transfer browned butter to a heatproof bowl and stir the remaining 4 tbsp butter into the hot butter until completely melted.
Add sugar, salt and vanilla to butter and whisk. Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth. Let mixtures stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 3 seconds. Repeat process of whisking and resting one more time (it said do it 2 times but I got impatient). With a spatula stir in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
Divide into 16 portions (about 3 tbsps) and bake for 10-14 minutes (again I made mine much smaller and they still turned out good. Mine also got a little crisp around the edges so lean towards the shorter amount of time). Let cool on a cooling rack and enjoy!
P.S. Cooks Illustrated says that Ghirardelli is the best chocolate chip to use (no surprise) but for now I’m sticking with my big bags of Nestle that I get from Costco.
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