Chip on my shoulder (chocolate chip ones!) 15 May 2007

Remember those cookies I said I’d make? Well, they’ve been made and they turned out better than expected! This is my first time making cookies, so naturally I was apprehensive. So I turned to this recipe for your “ultimate chocolate chip cookie” (arguable, depending on who’s eating cookie). So I liked the fact that based on this one recipe, with just a bit of tweaking here and there, I can pick how I wanted my cookie to turn out: (a) soft and chewy, (b) thin and crisp, or (c) cakelike and airy.

I’m biased to the soft and chewy, at least for choco chip cookies. As usual, I used our favorite butter Lurpak, and we especially bought some organic unbleached white flour (Arrow Mills) at Healthy Options. We still had a whole block of semi-sweet chocolate at home (from Santi’s), so I decided we would just go for chunks (and shaves) of chocolate instead of chips. I also substituted about 2 tablespoons of homemade vanilla sugar for the vanilla extract.

Worked out quite a sweat as I don’t have an electric mixer (all the better to burn off what I’ll be gaining!) I also had a bit of a struggle figuring how much batter I should ladle out for a cookie, and how much space between cookies. So, the earlier cookies sort of melted into a huge rectangular cookie which easily separated with a spatula.

The cookies turned out soft and chewy, as promised. They were a tad sweet for me, so maybe next time I will lessen the sugar a little. It’s a good thing I used semi-sweet chocolate, as this was a nice contrast. I’ll try the other two variants one of these days and experiment with the add-ins too.

Now we have a stash of cookies nestled in a paper bag in the fridge, ready to eat with a cold glass of milk or some hot tea! Sayonara, Mrs. Fields! We’re making our cookies at home now.

With no modifications, here is the recipe from Martha Stewart’s Living, October 2003, p. 68-75

Soft and chewy chocolate chip/chunk cookies
Makes about 3 dozen

You need:
All purpose flour, 2 ¼ cup
Baking soda, ½ teaspoon
Unsalted butter, 1 cup (2 sticks), room temperature
Granulated sugar, ½ cup
Light brown sugar, 1 cup, packed
Pure vanilla extract, 2 teaspoons
Eggs, 2 large pieces
Semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips (or chunks), 2 cups (about 12 oz)

What to do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about a minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
2. Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
3. Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center (8-10 minutes). Remove from the oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1-2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to a week.

For thin and crisp cookies: follow the recipe for soft and chewy (above), increasing the amount of butter to 1¼ cups (2½ sticks) and the quantity of granulated sugar to 1¼ cups, and decreasing the amount of light brown sugar to ¾ cup. Add ¼ cup water to the recipe with the other wet ingredients. Bake until cookies are golden brown, 12-15 minutes.

For cakey chocolate chip cookies: follow the recipe for soft and chewy (above), decreasing the quantity of unsalted butter to 14 tablespoons (1¾ sticks); increase granulated sugar to ¾ cup, and use only ¼ cup light brown sugar. Bake until cookie are golden brown around the edges and set in the center, 10-12 minutes.

Add-ins! Create additional variations on chocolate chip cookies by using one or two, or several:

• Nuts – add 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, macadamias) provides extra crunch
• Espresso – for an adult palate, add 2 tablespoons instant espresso powder to dry ingredients; replace 1 cup flour with unsweetened cocoa powder for a mocha flavor
• Shredded coconut – stirring in 1½ cups shredded coconut with the chips gives cookies texture and milky sweetness
• Cocoa – replace 1 cup flour with unsweetened cocoa powder to make double chocolate chip cookies
• Dried fruit – combine 1 cup chopped dried cherries or other dried fruit with the chips to add fragrance and flavor
• Ginger – if you want spiced chocolate chip cookies, mix ½ cup finely chopped candied ginger (or cinnamon) into dry ingredients
• Candy bits – substitute 1 cup chips with chopped chocolate candies, such as malt balls, to make cookies kids will love
• Oatmeal – for hearty cookies, stir in 1½ cups old fashioned rolled oats along with the chips
• Peanut butter – to make a chocolate peanut butter combo, reduce butter to ¾ cup and mix in ½ cup smooth peanut butter with butter and sugars