Verdict: NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies

I, like so many cooks, do not enjoy baking.  It is too damned fussy and precise and requires too much attention.  Who wants to spend time measuring out ingredients? I just want to throw stuff into a pot, dump it on a plate, and eat it.

But then, when I have something as tasty as these cookies, I get it.  I understand why people love to bake. When I saw this NYT chocolate chip cookie recipe posted on Ezra Pound Cake, I knew I needed to try it.  My husband is a huge sweet freak and every time I’ve tried to make cookies for him in the past, it hasn’t really worked out too well. (See this pan of cookies? that’s what happened when I didn’t measure ingredients and just threw a bunch of stuff that sounded good together into the oven, the way I like to cook but the way you CANNOT bake).

These were awesome, and I did not even follow the recipe exactly.  The sea salt sprinkled on top of them was a revelation; I know some of you out there are shaking your head and thinking I’m crazy for desecrating a perfectly good chocolate chip cookie with salt, but believe me, you want to do this.  If you don’t think you do, then just put salt on one of the first batch.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
from Ezra Pound Cake
Adapted from The New York Times, David Leite and Jacques Torres

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.

• 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 chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)
• 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 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (about 1/3 cup) 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.

My thoughts:

- Two different types of flour, and neither of them all-purpose?  DAMMIT.  Fortunately, we needed to go to the Bulk Barn, so I picked up cake flour & bread flour there.  Unfortunately, I picked up juuuuust less than I needed, and ended up having to add 1/3c of all-purpose flour. C’est la vie.
- I also did not have as much white sugar as I thought I did, which ended up meaning I didn’t have enough white sugar for this recipe.  I had, however, bought more than enough brown sugar, so ended up using 1.75c of that and .5c + 2tbsp white sugar.
- Annnnnd following the trend of the first two steps, I ALSO did not have 1.25c of butter.  Did you know that one of those massive blocks of butter that you buy at the grocery store is only 1c?  I sure as hell didn’t realize it, until I stood there in my kitchen with half a block of it.  I used 3/4c of margarine to make up the difference.  I know, I know.  Somewhere, a baker just shot themselves.  I think that using the margarine, since it has more water than fat (whereas butter has more fat than water) contributed to making my cookies way flatter than EZP’s.
- I bought generic brand chocolate chips.  I don’t like big chocolate chunks.  And did you realize HOW MUCH chocolate 1.25 lbs is?  Good grief.  It’s a ton.
- That picture was taken after making one dozen cookies.  This recipe ended up yielding FIVE AND A HALF DOZEN cookies for me, each of them approximately 1.5 tbsp of dough, six per baking sheet.  I had to give some away.
- I do not have parchment paper, nor do I have a non-stick baking mat.  My “cookie sheet” is my all-purpose cooking tray; it’s had everything from cookies to meatloaf to potatoes on it.  It’s dark; ideally, baking sheets are light.  I asked on Twitter what I should do to cope with this, and people suggested that I turn the oven down 25 degrees, and that I’d possibly need to shorten the cooking time.  This worked really well and my cookies did not stick.
- Regarding the cooking time, I did not keep track but I think it was around 10 minutes a batch.  Cookies are done when they’re golden around the edges, NOT golden on the top.  Mine looked gooey on the top when I took them out, but this meant they had a beautifully soft but set centre.  The batch that I let cook longer ended up getting very crispy.  If crispy cookies are your thing, then ignore the above advice.
- I do not have a cooling rack.  I KNOW, but I told myself I’m not buying any more kitchen gadgets and dishes until we get a house, because we barely have room for what we own now nor do we have a dishwasher.  So, these were left on the sheet tray until it was cool enough to handle.  I read that it’s actually better to put cookies on a cool sheet tray anyhow when you’re cooking; putting them on a hot surface can scald the bottom.
- DO NOT SKIP the salt.  Seriously.  It’s the perfect accent to finish your cookies off.

All in all, these will be made in these parts again.  They were delicious, even with my seventeen thousand deviations from the recipe as written.  And hey, at least you know that you can make all these mistakes and end up with yummy cookies too!