chocolate chip cookie–take 2

This Christmas I received the 2009 Cook’s Illustrated cookbook.  Cook’s Illustrated is always a magazine that I forget that I love until I read it.   I always learn so much just reading a couple of pages of any given magazine and the test kitchen does all the hard work.  Love it.

So, when their test kitchen took on the Jacque Torres/New York Times chocolate chip cookie recipe, I was intrigued.  I figured this was a fool’s errand. This was, after all, the holy grail of cookies. And then I read the line about him testing 43 batches of cookies before getting to this recipe.  FORTY-THREE!

I also noticed that they had reviewed chocolate chips in parallel to creating this recipe and declared the Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chip king.  Having just brought back 2 bags of this very chocolate chip from our brief holiday stay in the States, I realized that the fates had spoken.  This recipe needed to be made.

The recipe called for a few things that made it stand out.

• Brown butter.  Haven’t really seen any chocolate chip cookie recipes with this, but I belong to the “brown butter makes everything better” club (I’m even head of the Swiss chapter), so I got over that quickly.
• Allowing the sugar to dissolve in the butter over 10 minutes.  3 rounds of stirring to get it all mixed in?  Sure, that sounds like it makes sense.
• Higher brown sugar:white sugar ratio.  Leaves a deeper toffee flavor that leaves me asking “Jacques who?”
• No waiting 36 hours.  I hate waiting and admit it, so do you.

I won’t declare it the perfect cookie, the holy grail or the cookie that will end global warming.  But I sure was glad they didn’t stop at batch 42, this recipe was the keeper.

“Take-Jacques-Torres-Out-Back” Chocolate Chip Cookie
Cook’s Illustrated 2009 Cookbook (May and June 2009 issue)

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cps unbleached ap flour (8 1/4 ounces or 250 grams)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 14 tbsps unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks or 200 grams)
• 1/2 cup white sugar (3 1/2 ounces or 100 grams)
• 3/4 cup dark brown sugar (5 1/4 ounces or 150 grams)
• 1 tsp table salt
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 1/4 cps good quality chocolate chips
• 3/4 cp chopped pecans (optional)

Directions

1. Adjust oven rack to the middle and pre-heat oven to 375F degrees (191C)
2. Whisk flour and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside
3. Heat 10 tbsps (140 grams) butter in a 10-inch skillet over medium-high heat until melted.  Continue cooking, swirling constantly until butter is dark brown and has nutty aroma. 
4. Remove butter from heat and place in a heat proof bowl.
5. Add remaining butter (60 grams or 4 tbsps).
6. Once butter has melted completely, add sugars, sat and vanilla to bowl.  I made good use of my new Rancho Gordo vanilla extract.  It’s borderline unhealthy how much I love their products.  I’m guessing it’s the packaging.  What’s not to love about this?
7. Stir everything together.  You’ll notice it’s rather grainy and the butter wants little to do with its new friends.
8. That’s okay, now add the egg and egg yolk.  It will help them all get along.  Stir together to ensure there aren’t any sugar lumps.
9. Allow mixture to sit for 3 minutes.  Come back, stir again.  Starting to get along now, right?
10. Allow to sit again for another 3 minutes.  Come back, stir again.  You should now have a lovely, relatively smooth mixture.
    
11. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the flour mixture.
12. Add chocolate chips.  Yup, those are measuring cups.   Merry Christmas to me, from me.
    
13. KC note:  I wish I had lightly coated the chocolate chips with flour as I noticed they seemed to be having a hard time incorporating into the dough.  They finally gave in, but you’ll notice quite a few rogue guys on the outside.
    
14. Divide dough into 16 portions (3tbsps each).  I found these to be rather big cookies, but they baked beautifully (perfectly crunchy on the outside and nice and soft on the inside)
15. Bake one tray at a time for 10-14 minutes.  My first tray baked for only 10 minutes and it was almost too long.  The next batch was 9 minutes and came out perfectly.  Lesson learned?  Set your timer for 8 minutes just to check in.
16. Enjoy, but make sure you have leftovers.  They only get better the next day!