#CookieChronicles
Updated: Oct 30, 2018
Wednesdays are reserved for baking in my kitchen. I chose Wednesday because it’s usually the day I take off from working, clients, errands, any and everything. If you are reading this and don’t know, I am not a pastry chef. I want to school to learn the savory side of the food spectrum but I want to be great so I practice what I am not really skilled at. Today, is all about chocolate chip cookies .. nothing fancy, just traditional chocolate chip cookies.
I have literally made them over and over and over and over repeatedly to the point where I created a social media tag #CookieChronicles on my instagram stories. My faithful followers have stuck with me through the entire fiasco of cookie batches and I love them for it. Today they deserve the most perfect, thick, but flat, moist, and soft but crispy edge cookies. The process of creating these cookies was quite frustrating. Either my dough was too wet, my butter too warm, eggs not cold enough, temperature all wrong or my ratios were off. Anything that you could have possibly went wrong, DID! These cookies are exactly why I am not a pastry chef. I don’t have the kind of patience it requires and I HATED science in school, and half of baking is science. On the savory side, I can fumble and recover 10 times and you’d never know. If I fumble in baking, then throw the whole fucking dish away and who has time for that?! My cookies kept coming out more like cake cookies and they were dry. The flavor was there but the technique and texture was messed up. Through the first trial series one of my chef instructor assistants from school name Jamie told me to decrease my leavening agent a bit (baking powder) and reminded me to NOT over mix which I had been doing. I watched a few YouTube videos, did some online research, studied other recipes tip sections but still couldn’t quite get them right. So yesterday I was scrolling through my Instagram and noticed a girl I went to school with named Natalie (and is a pastry chef @getbakedwithnatalie on IG she’s a beast), posted the most beautful set of nice flat cookies I had ever seen. I messaged her to ask her what she had done to get her cookies so flat and she suggested cold eggs, room temperature butter and chilling the dough for 24 hours. I also swapped out the baking powder from the original recipe for baking soda per the Food Network.
Here we are 36 hours later and I am as happy as a kid on Christmas that my cookies have finally come to life. I doubled the original recipe, switched up the sugar game and boom, we got action. I feel every chef should be able to bake at least a basic traditional style chocolate chip cookie. Here's mine, take a bite! Let’s get straight to it! Ingredients: 3 cups AP Flour (all purpose) 1 tsp pink Himalayan sea salt 1 tsp baking soda 2 sticks (I cup) ROOM TEMPERATURE butter 2 COLD eggs 2 caps full of vanilla 1/2 cup granulated (white) sugar 1 1/4 cup brown sugar Hellllaaaaaa chocolate chips, nuts, etc. Instructions: 1.) Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper 2.) Cream together BOTH brown and white sugars with BOTH sticks of butter until fluffy, about 2 mins 20 secs 3.) Next add vanilla and gently mix with a rubber spatula 4.) Add eggs and mix until fully incorporated *NOTE: Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula* 5.) Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt 6.) Next add the flour mixture to the sugar/butter mixture and combine until all ingredients are full incorporated
7.) Add as many chocolate chips, nuts etc as YOU want
8.) CHILL THE DOUGH for 2 hours if you are making them same day 24 hours if you have time. The colder the dough the better the cookies (TRUST ME!) 9.) With a large cookie scoop, (or small) scoop cookies and arrange cookies on lined cookie sheet with parchment paper 10.) Place cookies in the oven for 15 mins on 350 and let them cool for about 12 minutes *NOTE: If you have a smaller cookie scoop, bake the cookies for 12 minutes, the smaller the cookie the less time they need. This recipe is for about 10-11 LARGE cookies but you can make about 25-30 smaller cookies depending on you and your cookie scoop. When you take them out of the oven don't worry if they still look soft or light brown. The heat from the cookie sheet will still cook them (carry over heat).