Who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie? They are so specific, and when you want one, that desire doesn’t go away until you’re stuffing one into your mouth, enjoying the interplay of brown sugar-infused dough and pools of chocolate.
When I get the craving for a chocolate chip cookie, I don’t have the taste in my mouth for Chips Ahoy or that giant cookie that moves people to stand in line. Instead, I put on my apron and check that there is butter in the fridge. Somehow I’ve convinced myself it’s easier than driving to a local bakery, although we have no dearth of terrific options. The only one I can walk to has excellent cookies and a perennial line.
The great benefit to making your own chocolate chip cookie is that you can customize it to your taste. Most of us have particular preferences that fuel our yearning. Do you prefer a chewy or crisp cookie? Are the inclusions bitter, bittersweet, or milk chocolate? Are they discs of couverture chocolate or traditional chips? Do you like nuts in your chippers? Can you wait 24 to 36 hours for the dough to “age,” thus ensuring a more flavorful result, or do you need them now?
Recipe-wise, I usually go one of two ways. If I’m willing to wait just a little bit and work a tiny bit harder, my favorite is Kim Boyce’s Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies from her classic cookbook Good to the Grain. This is a cookie that is surprisingly savory, which may be a strange thing to say about a sweet. But the heartier flavor of whole wheat flour blunts the sugar’s sweetness just enough to make the eating experience extremely satisfying. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love these cookies once they’ve tried them. However, because whole wheat flour still has the germ, which is a source of oil, it goes rancid much more quickly than all-purpose flour. You really need to make sure your supply isn’t compromised. It’s why people opt to store it in the freezer or refrigerator, where whole wheat flour lasts well for up to six months.
But there are times I don’t want to worry about my supply of whole wheat flour. I just want cookies now. And that means I don’t even want to take the time to cream the butter and sugar together or take out my mixer. In those urgent cookie moments, I lean on Sally McKenney’s recipe for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies made with melted butter. Making them reminds me of making cookies as a child, stirring everything together in a bowl instead of using a mixer. The combination of melted butter, brown sugar, and a bit of cornstarch ensures the soft and chewy attributes of the cookie. I prefer using a mix of semi-sweet and milk chocolate couverture discs instead of chips. Couverture is a high-quality chocolate made with a denser concentration of cocoa butter, which gives you those seductive pools of chocolate in the cookie. And if I don’t have couverture in the house, I just chop up whatever emergency chocolate bar I may have. I usually buy my couverture locally at Surfas. But if you want to lose your mind with choice, here’s a good site.
If you’re a tinkerer and love a good story and recipe of a viral cookie, here is the story of the famed New York Times chocolate chip cookie created by pastry giant Jacques Torres and tinkered with by David Leite. It’s amongst the New York Times’ top 20 saved recipes. The surprise ingredient here is bread flour. This cookie is why you started to see salt garnishing cookies everywhere for a while. The recipe calls for aging the dough 36 hours to create complex flavor and greater variation in texture. The bread flour adds chewiness and bend.
