Chocolate (2008)

[Vangele Ioannidis]

Withthe above criteria in mind, this recipe is the closest I've come to experiencing CCC perfection. It's the "not so secret" secret recipe from Jacque Torres, and I'm sure many of you have read about this or already tried this at home. I've been making this recipe countless times, and have found that the following tips make this cookie absolutely perfect:

- Don't substitute the pastry and bread flours w. AP flour. I really believe that the combination of the pastry and bread flours give the cookie a nice slightly crunchy exterior giving way to a really tender middle.

- Hand chopped chocolate chunks, NOT premade chips - I will purchase a hunk of the best bittersweet chocolate that I can afford and hand cut them into chunks. The easiest method to chop a block of chocolate: nuke the block at 50% power for a few seconds, no more. It softens the chocolate just enough. Then take a large kitchen knife and chop away! Your effort will be rewarded with really nice ribbons of melted chocolate throughout the cookie.

- Chill the cookie dough at least 24 hours (I let my dough sit anywhere from 2-3 days) before baking. This is not for taste reasons that were recently written about in an article from NY Times (god forbid we're aging cookie dough...let's leave that for wine and cheese). IMHO, refrigeration makes a difference with the look and texture. I think the dough sets in a way so when you bake the cookies, you end up with the lovely wrinkles and folds as the balls of dough spread and bake. Until I encounter another recipe that will move mountains, I think have finally found my perfect chocolate chip cookie!

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats; set aside.

- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars.

- Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

- Reduce speed to low and add both flours, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, and chocolate; mix until well combined.

- Using a 4-ounce scoop for larger cookies or a 1-ounce scoop for smaller cookies, scoop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2 inches apart.

- Bake until lightly browned, but still soft, about 20 minutes for larger cookies and about 15 minutes for smaller cookies.

- Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

this is totally my favorite ccc recipe as well but i have been lazy, substituting the AP flour in place of the pastry and cake flour. i will take your advice and make it how they were intended to be, i can't imagine them any better but i'm willing to try :)

Wow, I'm usually into a higher cookie to chocolate chip ratio, but those look fabulous! I know you said to follow the recipe without subbing in all purpose flour, but have you tried the substitution and tasted a difference?

My current favourite CCC recipe is cook's illustrated thick and chewy. The only change I make is reduce the white sugar by half so that the cookies are less hard and dry. I don't think I can resist making these, but I wonder if it's ok to halve the recipe. I can't wait til the holidays when I can get into cookie baking modde!

Hi Steph -

This recipe is really easy to cut in half. I usually make the whole recipe, and freeze half of the dough when the CCC urge strikes!

I used AP flour the first time I made this, then subsequently tried the pastry/bread flours. It doesn't make a difference with taste; on the texture side, a whole different story --- the pastry/bread flours lends to a more tender cookie...I definitely noticed a difference. Hope this helps! :)

Linda

Looks like a great recipe but there is no way that CCC dough would last 2 - 3 days in our refrigerator! It would get eaten until I had MAYBE enough dough to make 1/2 dozen. I'll try this and see if it 'beats' my current favorite recipe. What a great competition!

Browsing foodgawker so late at night is always a bad idea...especially when you find something like these cookies! I have a sudden urge to go down to the kitchen, right now, and make them. I guess I'll wait till tomorrow though. They look great!!

Love how you broke down the criteria, hilarious. And the aging of the dough, seriously, funny. But yes, I too have noticed that you must refrigerate but 3 days?? How do you wait that long? I can barely stand an hour -and I put in the freezer to get the results faster.

Holy cow that is a lot of butter, how can it not be good with that much butter.

I've recently found that I love whipping the dough for 5 minutes, making it chewy which is what I'm after as well. Also love bittersweet choc, get the milk away from me before I drop kick you!

i made these cookies and they turned out spectacular. i used two pounds of semi sweet chocolate chips but they were good enough. use caution though, i have a kitchen aid mixer and the ingredients did not fit in the bowl by the end and i had to use a larger bowl and mix by hand. these cookies are monstrous and are defiantly worth the effort

These are the BEST chocolate cookies EVER!!! Believe me, I've tried A LOT of recipes over the years. The use of bread flour is inspired as it really makes the texture of these. Using the best bittersweet chocolate you can afford will make a huge difference as well. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH!!!

I made these cookies, they are absolutely the best cookies ever. It is a must to use the 2 different types of flour and let the dough sit over night. I did try a couple of cookies before letting the dough sit overnight and the texture is so much better when you do. I am constantly fighting the urge to make them again and again, they definitely have a delicious.

Thanks so much for the recipe.

I have read so much about these cookies, and I actually have the new red New York Times Cookbook that has the recipe. It's been on my list of recipes to try for some time. Your photos have made me jump it up even higher on the list! :) Your cookies are just gorgeous.

Hi thanks for this recipe, I really want to make it, but is it possible for you to give the measurements in Metrics or anything else than cups. In europe we don't use cups, and i find it very difficult to make anything out of an american recipe :(

Thanks a million, my e-mail : diana...@yahoo.fr

I've made these several times and they are delicious. But has anyone else thought there's too much salt? Every time I make them I keep decreasing the salt amount and they are still too salty. (The first batch was absolutely ruined by the salt.)

This sounds Amazing! I so agree with your preferences! My favorite recipe so far is pretty standard BUT calls for cornstarch! Something I had Never used or thought of before! It is amazing the difference!! I am lazy and use premade chips and chunks... I make a double batch (sometimes quadruple and freeze half... I put it in a freezer ziploc and flatten, then When ready I just cut the bag off and cut into squares and bake 1 minute longer... haven't tasted a difference in fresh and frozen!) and use a whole bag of milk chocolate chips and a whole bag of chocolate chunks per double batch! :) Love lots of chocolate!

Im surprised. I though you would use crisco instead of butter to make fluffy, chewy cookies. Every time I use butter they are flatter and crispier than the crisco version. Just curious if you've tried them this way.

Made the dough for these cookies about 2 days ago, and its been sitting in my fridge calling my name.

Had a hard time finding regular pastry flour but did find whole wheat pastry flour at a health food store.

Some are in the oven as I type and I just took a pan out a few minutes ago... they smell absolutely heavenly.

Going to put them on a cooling rack now and then have one...

Unfortunately the whole wheat flour made a difference taste wise. The cookies are great otherwise. Next time, I'll HAVE to use regular pastry flour. Love the texture, ALL of the chocolate and will be making these again.

Hey there -- thanks for sharing. Maybe it's just me, but in the directions, I didn't see when to add the salt? I went back up to make sure salt was in the recipe, but just wanted to let you know! Thanks for sharing. This is a great recipe!!

Yum! Just made these and they are fantastic. I did use AP flour because I didn't have any pastry flour on hand, and I subbed apple sauce for about half the butter. They are still moist and incredibly rich with the apple sauce, so I'm pleased with that decision. I wasn't patient enough to chill mine overnight, but I think I will next time. Mine definitely didn't turn out as pretty as yours, but they are still deeeeelicious. Thanks! :)

We cut this recipe in half and followed the recipe except we used AP instead of pastry flour. They were good but not the best we ever had. They were only ok. The recipe on the back of choc chip package is better except the freshly-cut chocolate is much better than the choc chips. Where did we go wrong? We used jumbo eggs instead of large but I don't think that's the problem. Our expectations were set so high but I would not make these again.

Ive made these wonderful cookies about a month ago and I call them my Gourmet cookies. I bought more bittersweet wafer or disc shaped chocolate from Whole Foods and have Ghiradelli block of chocolate that I need to chop. These are the best cookies ever:)

Wasn't impressed with these cookies. I cooked a first batch for 15 minutes on my stoneware, they were hard but still edible. I cooked the 2nd and 3rd batch on a cookie sheet at 12 minutes and they were brunt to a crisp! I cooked the 4th batch at 10 minutes and they were still soft and the middle were gooey. I have cookie dough coming out of my pours. I will probably not make these again. Plus my cookies looked nothing like the picture.

Followed the recipe exactly (with just one minor change)- came out looking exactly like the picture.

But the taste is TERRIBLE. Well, not terribly BAD, but the bittersweet overpowers the cookie and makes for a very unpleasant after taste on the larger chunks.

The only change that I made was that I didn't have 24hours to refridgerate - needed to get them made. But I can't see that changing the taste of the chocolate.

What's the deal?? Are they SUPPOSED to be that bitter???

I am debating about throwing away an entire batch of already cooked cookies as I won't give these to friends and my kids (or I) won't eat them.

?????????? Suggestions???

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