Monday, April 03, 2006

Perfect (for me) Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am very specific about chocolate chip cookies: I like crispy, buttery, brown sugary cookies with only a few chips. I like chocolate a lot, but with these cookies I want it to complement the crisp cookie rather act as the singular, overpowering, dominant flavor.

With thanks to my guru Jeffrey Steingarten, I have come pretty close to my ideal. His recipe was near perfect, but had too much chocolate for my tastes, and I used dark brown sugar to his light/dark mixture (I just love the molasses flavor). You can always add more chocolate chips to this recipe if you want.


For this batch I also baked a few cookies with no chips mixed in at all, testing my theory that I really like the cookie bit more than the chocolate. They were delicious, and would be wonderful with some ginger grated in. Next time.

Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies
makes 4 dozen

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
.75 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbsp. water
1 egg
.75 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, salt, and baking soda in a bowl, set aside. In a mixing bowl, cream the butter and both kinds of sugar. Add the vanilla, water, and egg, and beat together. Beat in flour mixture, then stir in chocolate chips by hand (if you want some non-chocolate cookies, now is the time to take some dough out).

Drop onto Silpat-lined baking sheets (or you can use non-stick aluminum foil) using a mini ice cream scooper for uniform cookies. Bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool for at least 5 minutes on the sheet before removing to a wire rack for further cooling--they will be soft, but will crisp up as they cool. Enjoy!

8 comments:

Kalyn Denny said...

Hi, I just tagged you for The Recipe Collection Meme

Anonymous said...

Christ on a bike, you are my cookie twin! I nearly always eat around the chocolate chips, particularly when I eat my mother's cookies, which are so buttery and crisp and rich that they leave my fingers glistening. I am going to make these for my new-apartment soiree, and certainly leave out the chips. I am sure that my friends will cease in their mockery of my chip aversion when they try these.

What do you think about adding finely chopped walnuts instead of chips?

LC

Marianne said...

Ha, thanks Kalyn.

Lauren, I was thinking chopped crystallized ginger and a nut along the lines of toasted hazelnut or almond. I knew I had a friend with the same cookie-tastes as me!

pfirsch said...

I found you via Seriously Good and I am so glad I did! I love crispy cookies (which made me an outcast growing up in our house), but now I know how to get just the type of cookies I want. God bless you for sharing!

Farmgirl Susan said...

It never ceases to amaze me how you can change the slightest thing in a chocolate chip cookie recipe and end up with a completely different cookie. Your recipe appears to be very similar to one of mine, but the cookies look completely different--and very wonderful. This has just leaped to the top of my Must Bake list.

I found your blog via Seriously Good. Between these cookies and your Cuban sandwiches, you've definitely hooked me. I'll be back! : )

TNelson said...

In a word -AMAZING!!- Made a double batch of these yesterday as kids and grandkids were coming over for dinner. Everyone loved the! They were great served with a big bowl of homemade vanilla ice cream. I think this has become our new cc recipe of choice. Thanks for sharing!!

Joe said...

where's the baking powder that steingarten uses in his recipe? i do like this recipe and yours is darn close; melting butter first yields an even thinner cookie

Anonymous said...

why no baking powder like steingarten's original? just curious