Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe #9 – Cooks Illustrated
Recipe: Cooks Illustrated Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: www.cooksillustrated.com (Unfortunately, you need a membership to view recipes on Cooks Illustrated’s website, but below is the recipe for their Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.) Cooks Illustrated tested 40 chocolate chip cookie recipes and this is their version of the ultimate recipe.
Ingredients:
2 1/8 cups bleached all-purpose flour (about 10 1/2 ounces)
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), melted and cooled slightly
1 cup brown sugar (light or dark), 7 ounces
1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 -2 cups chocolate chips or chunks (semi or bittersweet)
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 325ยบ. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower middle positions. Mix flour, salt, and baking soda together in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Either by hand or with electric mixer, mix butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Mix in egg, yolk, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients; mix until just combined. Stir in chips.
3. Form scant 1/4 cup dough into ball. Holding dough ball using fingertips of both hands, pull into two equal halves. Rotate halves ninety degrees, and with jagged surfaces exposed, join halves together at their base, again forming a single cookie, being careful not to smooth dough’s uneven surface. Place formed dough onto one of two parchment lined lipless cookie sheets, about 9 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.
Total Taste-Testers: 20
Average Scores: on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest score
Taste: 4
Texture: 4.2
Amount of chocolate chips: 4.3
Quality of chocolate: 4.2
Overall: 4.1
My review: I loved this cookie! It is becoming difficult to pinpoint a “BEST” recipe, because while some recipes just aren’t good, others produce amazing cookies each with a specific perfect quality. This one for example, produced the best thick and chewy cookie I have ever tasted. It had a nice crisp edge with a thick and chewy center, which is created by the forming of the dough technique used. This recipe also calls for bleached flour, which in my baking experience, tends to yield thicker fluffier textures. This is the first recipe that directs you to melt the butter instead of creaming it, which also gives the cookie it’s chewy texture. In my opinion this cookie had the perfect dough to chocolate ratio. The one bad things is that after the cookies sit around for a day or two, they harden and lose their out of the oven texture. I will definitely make this recipe again; however, I will try it using unbleached four, because I don’t like to use bleached flour due to the chemical process it goes through.
Taste-Tester comments:
* “Chocolate chips seemed really sugary to me. Maybe just too many for my taste. Liked the crisp crunch to the cookie.”
* “I loved this cookie!”
* “I liked the slight crunchiness to the texture.”
* “These are almost perfect. The chips taste a bit strange though.”
* “This cookie was too greasy.”
