Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Friday, June 5, 2009

Thick & chewy chocolate chip cookies

Ever since my son was born four weeks ago, I've developed a full-blown chocolate chip cookie addiction. I'm not sure if it's because I need a jolt of sugary energy to counter the sleep deprivation, or because the taste is comforting and familiar at a time when everything seems very new and VERY challenging, or because they just taste good, but I've gotta have 'em!

Fresh out of the sling by Eve Fox, copyright 2009

I've specifically been lusting after thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies. There is a store near our house that makes some pretty tasty cookies but, unfortunately, said store also charges roughly a dollar a cookie - a slightly more expensive habit than I'm comfortable with. So I decided to do the frugal thing and bake a batch of my own cookies while my husband bounced and rocked our little boy who seems inclined to be kinda colicky. Luckily for me and my son, his dad has both patience and stamina.

A quick internet search yielded this recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Cook's Illustrated. According to the crazy over-the-top testers at Cook's Illustrated, the secret to making chewy cookies is brown sugar which apparently contains something called "invert sugar" - a mixture of fructose and glucose - which draws moisture from whatever is around it, (primarily, the air) unlike granulated white sugar.

Creaming the butter and sugar for the oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies by Eve Fox, The Garden of Eating, copyright 2015

Though I had never heard of "invert sugar" before, I tend to trust the mad kitchen scientist types at Cook's Illustrated and I can personally attest that these cookies are tasty. I hope you enjoy every chewy, decadent bite! I recommend eating them with a glass of cold milk if you're one of the lucky few who is not lactose intolerant.

Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

-- print recipe --Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies

Ingredients

* 2 1/8 cups flour
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1 large egg
* 1 egg yolk
* 2 tsps vanilla extract
* 1-2 cups chocolate chips or chunks
* 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips (and nuts if you decide to use those.)

3. Using a spoon or icecream scoop, form balls of dough and place them onto a heavy greased cookie sheet (you'll need at least two cookie sheets), roughly nine dough balls per sheet.

4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.

You might also like:
For more delicious recipes, gardening ideas, foraging tips, and food-related inspiration "like" the Garden of Eating on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

My childhood was marked by mixing endless cookie batches that spread too much in the oven into lacy, overly crisp messes that were impervious to the spatula. Still, they were always fun to make, and now I've figured it out the problem, we melted the butter. Now with microwaves this isn't as much of a problem, but back in the 80s we had to be ahead of the game enough to leave the butter out to soften for a few hours. Next time, I'll try this recipe. Most of the time, if I'm craving c.c. cookies I buy Pillsbury dough-- embarrassing, I know for a Woodstock child, but they're not bad at all.

Unknown said...

If you have a metal mixing bowl, it's pretty fast to soften the butter by cutting it into small pieces and putting them in the bowl while you gather the other ingredients and equipment. Unless your kitchen is cold, it'll be well on the way to softening in just a few minutes. If it is cold, put the metal bowl near something warm, or hold it in your hands, etc.

Even a glass bowl will work, tho it might be faster to put hot water in it for a couple minutes, dry thoroughly and then put the cut up butter in it. Not too hot, cause you don't want to melt the butter, just warm it up.

Lynn said...

I'm looking forward to trying these cookies. But first, converting the amounts to metric is in order. Since moving to France, I've grown fond of using a scale, not to mention I didn't bring measuring spoons or cups with me. Just a pitch here to include the option of choosing metric or Imperial (USCS) measurements! Many thanks!

Friday, June 5, 2009

Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Thick & chewy chocolate chip cookies

Ever since my son was born four weeks ago, I've developed a full-blown chocolate chip cookie addiction. I'm not sure if it's because I need a jolt of sugary energy to counter the sleep deprivation, or because the taste is comforting and familiar at a time when everything seems very new and VERY challenging, or because they just taste good, but I've gotta have 'em!

Fresh out of the sling by Eve Fox, copyright 2009

I've specifically been lusting after thick and chewy chocolate chip cookies. There is a store near our house that makes some pretty tasty cookies but, unfortunately, said store also charges roughly a dollar a cookie - a slightly more expensive habit than I'm comfortable with. So I decided to do the frugal thing and bake a batch of my own cookies while my husband bounced and rocked our little boy who seems inclined to be kinda colicky. Luckily for me and my son, his dad has both patience and stamina.

A quick internet search yielded this recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from Cook's Illustrated. According to the crazy over-the-top testers at Cook's Illustrated, the secret to making chewy cookies is brown sugar which apparently contains something called "invert sugar" - a mixture of fructose and glucose - which draws moisture from whatever is around it, (primarily, the air) unlike granulated white sugar.

Creaming the butter and sugar for the oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies by Eve Fox, The Garden of Eating, copyright 2015

Though I had never heard of "invert sugar" before, I tend to trust the mad kitchen scientist types at Cook's Illustrated and I can personally attest that these cookies are tasty. I hope you enjoy every chewy, decadent bite! I recommend eating them with a glass of cold milk if you're one of the lucky few who is not lactose intolerant.

Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

-- print recipe --Thick & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 1 1/2 dozen 3-inch cookies

Ingredients

* 2 1/8 cups flour
* 1/2 tsp salt
* 1/2 tsp baking soda
* 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1/2 cup granulated sugar
* 1 large egg
* 1 egg yolk
* 2 tsps vanilla extract
* 1-2 cups chocolate chips or chunks
* 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.

2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips (and nuts if you decide to use those.)

3. Using a spoon or icecream scoop, form balls of dough and place them onto a heavy greased cookie sheet (you'll need at least two cookie sheets), roughly nine dough balls per sheet.

4. Bake, reversing cookie sheets’ positions halfway through baking, until cookies are light golden brown and outer edges start to harden yet centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes (start checking at 13 minutes). Cool cookies on cookie sheets. Serve or store in airtight container.

You might also like:
For more delicious recipes, gardening ideas, foraging tips, and food-related inspiration "like" the Garden of Eating on Facebook, or follow me on Twitter and Pinterest.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

My childhood was marked by mixing endless cookie batches that spread too much in the oven into lacy, overly crisp messes that were impervious to the spatula. Still, they were always fun to make, and now I've figured it out the problem, we melted the butter. Now with microwaves this isn't as much of a problem, but back in the 80s we had to be ahead of the game enough to leave the butter out to soften for a few hours. Next time, I'll try this recipe. Most of the time, if I'm craving c.c. cookies I buy Pillsbury dough-- embarrassing, I know for a Woodstock child, but they're not bad at all.

Unknown said...

If you have a metal mixing bowl, it's pretty fast to soften the butter by cutting it into small pieces and putting them in the bowl while you gather the other ingredients and equipment. Unless your kitchen is cold, it'll be well on the way to softening in just a few minutes. If it is cold, put the metal bowl near something warm, or hold it in your hands, etc.

Even a glass bowl will work, tho it might be faster to put hot water in it for a couple minutes, dry thoroughly and then put the cut up butter in it. Not too hot, cause you don't want to melt the butter, just warm it up.

Lynn said...

I'm looking forward to trying these cookies. But first, converting the amounts to metric is in order. Since moving to France, I've grown fond of using a scale, not to mention I didn't bring measuring spoons or cups with me. Just a pitch here to include the option of choosing metric or Imperial (USCS) measurements! Many thanks!