Best Food Writing 2014 (27 page)

          
COOKIE FACT #12: MORE BREAD FLOUR = CHEWIER COOKIES, MORE CAKE FLOUR = SOFTER COOKIES

The infamous Jacques Torres recipe from the
New York Times
calls for a mixture of low-protein cake flour and high-protein bread flour in an attempt to balance the two. I found that by working carefully with the ratio of other ingredients, you can get away with using regular old all-purpose flour with no problem.

Since flour provides the bulk of the structure in a cookie, the amount you use can alter the texture of the cookie. A small amount of flour compared to butter (a ratio of 1 to 1 or less) will give you cookies that spread out into a wafer-like lace cookie. Extra flour (a ratio of 1.3 to 1 or higher) will give you cookies that barely spread at all as they bake, with centers that stay dense and dough-like, even after being almost fully cooked.

This may be a good thing for some folks, but I like my cookies to
have a nice balance between the two. I settled on a ratio of 10 ounces flour to 8 ounces of butter.

          
COOKIE FACT #13: LESS FLOUR = LACIER COOKIES, MORE FLOUR = DOUGHIER COOKIES

Turns out that how you incorporate that butter also makes a difference (are you sensing a theme here? When it comes to cookies, apparently EVERYTHING MATTERS).

I tried really working the flour into the butter and egg mixture before subsequently folding in the chocolate chips. It comes out very smooth and it bakes into correspondingly smooth cookies. Because extra kneading creates a stronger gluten network, the cookies also end up rather tough.

Much better is to barely work the flour in, folding it or mixing it with a stand mixer until it just pulls together into a dough. I incorporate the chocolate half way through this process, so that I don't accidentally overmix the dough while trying to fold the chocolate in.

          
COOKIE FACT #14: LESS KNEADING = CRAGGIER COOKIES AND BETTER TEXTURE

The resultant scoops of dough should have a natural cragginess to them even before baking.

The Chocolate

When I first started testing, I figured that the only real question when it came to chocolate would be what brand and what cacao percentage. Turns out that how the chocolate is incorporated can
also
affect texture.

Chocolate chips
produce the most regular cookies, with small, melty pockets of chocolate.
Chocolate discs and chunks
will cause some degree of layering in the dough, creating a flakier cookie with larger sections of molten chocolate.
Chopped chocolate
produces the most contrast—the small bits of debris and chocolate shavings get dispersed throughout the cookie dough, disrupting its texture and giving a nice chocolatey flavor to the whole affair, while larger
chunks still melt into large gooey pockets. The only way to get this effect is to hand-chop whole chocolate bars with a knife.

          
COOKIE FACT #15: HAND-CHOPPED CHOCOLATE = MOST INTENSE FLAVOR AND INTERESTING TEXTURE

Hand chopping also gives you control over the exact size of your chocolate chunks. I quickly discovered that I like quite a bit of chocolate (a full 8 ounces), and I like it in large, ½- to ¼-inch chunks.

Fixing Flavor

Ok, we've been at this for a while.
Time for a quick recap
. So far we've covered butter, sugar, eggs, leavening, flour, and chocolate. As far as covering the major chemical and physical players in the cookies' final outcome, we're done.

Here's what we're working with so far
: White sugar is beaten into whole eggs until it dissolves. Butter is browned and chilled with an ice cube to add back lost moisture and hasten its cooling, before being beaten into the egg mixture, along with brown sugar and. Flour and baking soda are folded in very gently, along with chocolate.

Salt (and quite a bit of it) is essential to balance the flavor of caramelized sugars, and a good amount of vanilla is a must (though, as our recent taste test has shown, even imitation vanilla flavoring will do just fine).

          
COOKIE FACT #16: COOKIES NEED MORE SALT THAN YOU THINK

          
COOKIE FACT #17: INEXPENSIVE VANILLA IS INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM FANCY

Even with regular salt mixed into the dough, I like adding a little sprinkle of coarse sea salt to the tops of the cookies, gently pressing it in right as they come out of the oven for little crunchy bursts of salt that pop with each bite.

With flavor and ratios out of the way, it's time to talk thermodynamics.

Taking Temperature

We've already seen how the temperature of the dough can affect how chocolate is incorporated, but it can also affect how it bakes. Both the starting temperature of the dough and the oven temperature have an impact.

I baked cookies at various temperatures in 25°F increments ranging from 250°F up to 450°F. When baked at a lower temperature, the dough has more of a chance to spread out, leading to flatter, wider cookies. Conversely, cookies baked at higher temperatures spread less. Even a difference of as little as 50°F makes a big difference.

Moreover, the lower the oven temperature, the more evenly the cookie bakes, with less of a contrast between the edges and the center. In fact, when the oven temperature gets low enough (around 275°F and below), you completely lose any contrast, producing a cookie that's more or less homogenous across the board.

          
COOKIE FACT #18: COOLER OVEN = WIDE COOKIES. HOTTER OVEN = COMPACT COOKIES

Beyond oven temperature, starting temperature of dough also affects the outcome.

Cookies cooked straight from the fridge will stay a little more compact, while those that are allowed to warm will spread more. By adjusting the starting temperature of the cookie dough and the temperature of the oven, you can create a wide variety of textures and contrasts.

          
COOKIE FACT #19: WARMER DOUGH = WIDE COOKIES, COOLER DOUGH = COMPACT COOKIES

I like the flexibility that being able to cook cookie dough straight from the fridge lends you, so my recipe is designed to make cookies from dough that starts at 40°F. I found that baking in a 325°F oven
until the edges are nice and toasty brown will leave you with a cookie that's still plenty soft and chewy in the center.

Giving It a Rest

You still here? I haven't bored you with cookie talk yet? Good, because we're coming round third base and into the home stretch here. But not so fast. We gotta take our time with this one. Literally.

Back when the
New York Times
published that Jacques Torres recipe in 2008, I'd never heard of the concept of resting a cookie dough, yet Mr. Chocolate himself insisted that it was the secret to better flavor. Since then, I've talked to several pastry chefs and cookie experts who all agree: letting your cookie dough sit overnight in the refrigerator produces better tasting cookies.

It seems a bit finicky (and honestly, who wants to wait for cookies?), but after trying it dozens of times, the results are absolutely undeniable.

If there's one single thing you can do to improve the flavor of your cookies, it's to let the dough rest. They bake up darker and more flavorful. That butterscotch note that was barely hinted at when you baked the dough right after mixing? It'll blow you away with its intensity and complexity by the second day.

So how does it work? Harold McGee explains it in
Keys to Good Cooking
. Turns out that during the resting process, both flour proteins and starches break down a bit. How does this help improve flavor?

It helps to think of proteins and starches as large LEGO structures. During the process of browning, those large structure are broken down into smaller parts and individual pieces and subsequently rearranged. Sort of like destroying that LEGO castle so you can build a dozen spaceships. Now, both of these phases—the breaking down and the reconstruction—take time.

By resting the dough, you give the deconstruction phase a head start. It's as if you left your LEGO castle sitting out over night and your annoying little sister came by and smashed it all, King of Tokyo-style. With the pieces separated, building your spaceships is much faster.

It's really the same thing, except instead of LEGOs, you've got proteins and flour. Instead of an annoying sister, you've got enzymes. And instead of awesome spaceships, you get awesome cookies. How awesome? We're talking, oh, a million puppies on the moon wearing
superhero underpants under their little doggie spacesuits levels of awesome.

          
COOKIE FACT #20: AN OVERNIGHT REST YIELDS SUPERIOR FLAVOR

And while it's tough to be patient, awesomeness is something worth waiting for in my book.

When all is said and done, my final recipe has ended up combining some unique techniques from a couple of my favorite recipes—the browned butter from Charles Kelsey's
Cook's Illustrated
recipe and the resting from Jacques Torres'
New York Times
recipe—along with a couple of my own novel twists—dissolving half the sugar in the eggs and chilling the melted butter with ice before incorporating—to produce a cookie that hits all the right notes. A deep, rich, butterscotch-and-toffee flavor, crisp edges, and a soft, chewy center, an irregular crumb structure with a craggy top, and a mix of chocolate dispersed through the cookie in fine threads and big gooey pockets, all with a nice sweet-and-salty balance.

Are they the simplest cookies in the world? No way. Are they worth the extra time and effort?
I
certainly think so.

“This is the last batch, I promise,” is what I told my wife about a week ago. Since then I've gone through another 10 pounds of flour. Heck, if you want to know the truth, I've baked four batches of cookies
while I was writing this article
, which means that even as I hit that “publish” button, this recipe is already obsolete, a work in progress. My wife went to bed over 5 hours ago and left by giving me a gentle hug from behind and a soft whisper in my ear: “
Please
stop making cookies.”

The beauty of understanding how ingredients interact with each other is that even if my definition of the “best” chocolate cookie isn't in line with yours, if you've come along this far, then you know what you need to do to adjust my recipe to suit your own tastes. Like your cookies chewier? Substitute some of that all-purpose flour for bread flour. Want your cookies to rise up a little taller? Add a touch of baking powder or replace the yolk of one of those eggs with an extra white. You like your chocolate in distinct pockets? Just use chocolate chips instead of hand-chopped. Want your
cookies more flexible and chewy? Just replace some sugar with a touch of corn syrup.

You get the idea. Doesn't that make you feel all empowered and stuff?

“STOP MAKING COOKIES!”

I promise I will, dear
. . .
After this batch.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie

Ingredients

              
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter

              
1 standard ice cube (about 2 tablespoons frozen water)

              
10 ounces (about 2 cups) all-purpose flour

              
3/4 teaspoon baking soda

              
2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt or 1 teaspoon table salt

              
5 ounces (about 3/4 cup) granulated sugar

              
2 large eggs

              
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

              
5 ounces (about 1/2 tightly packed cup plus 2 tablespoons) dark brown sugar

              
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, roughly chopped with a knife into 1/2-to 1/4-inch chunks

              
Coarse sea salt for granish

Directions

Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, gently swirling pan constantly, until particles begin to turn golden brown and butter smells nutty, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and continue swirling the pan until the butter is a rich brown, about 15 seconds longer. Transfer to a medium bowl, whisk in ice cube, transfer to refrigerator, and allow to cool completely, about 20 minutes, whisking occasionally. (Alternatively, whisk over an ice bath to hasten process).

Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Place granulated sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract
in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk on medium high speed until mixture is pale brownish-yellow and falls off the whisk in thick ribbons when lifted, about 5 minutes.

Fit paddle attachment onto mixer. When brown butter mixture has cooled (it should be just starting to turn opaque again and firm around the edges), add brown sugar and cooled brown butter to egg mixture in stand mixer. Mix on medium speed to combine, about 15 seconds. Add flour mixture and mix on low speed until just barely combined but some dry flour still remains, about 15 seconds. Add chocolate and mix on low until dough comes together, about 15 seconds longer. Transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate dough at least overnight and up to three days.