When I woke up this past weekend, these cookies are what I wanted to see. What I actually saw was this:
Why did I see a sky full of snow on March 29th, 9 days after spring was supposed to start? Because Chicago hates me, that’s why. So when the happy, sunny yellow-covered Cook’s Illustrated (May/June 2009) arrived in the mail, I took it as a sign. If you cook or bake it, spring will come…or at least you will be distracted long enough to not notice that spring starts in June now. Score. How did C.I reinvent the chocolate chip cookie? They created a cookie that is chewy in the middle and crisp on the edges, with strong tones of butterscotch and toffee that cut through the sweetness. To do this, they used more brown sugar, melted beurre noisette (browned butter), less egg white, let the sugar and liquid ingredients rest so the sugar dissolved thoroughly, and used more dough per cookie. As suggested, I used Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chips.
The recipe itself was easy enough to follow, and really wasn’t much more complicated than the traditional recipe that creams the butter and sugar together like cake. I typically appreciate the detail in C.I. recipes because they explain everything clearly and tell you exactly what occurs when you do it. The article that accompanied the recipe even explained why it is better to bake one tray of cookies at a time instead of two (leads to uneven cooking).
The cookies ended up just as promised: crisp on the outside, chewy in the center, and a deep butterscotch flavor throughout. So was this the perfect chocolate chip cookie, as the recipe was titled? To me, no. I enjoy more emphasis on the chocolate chips and texture as opposed to more flavor in the dough. Was it a good reinvention of the chocolate chip cookie? Totally. I love butterscotch and toffee, and these cookies definitely have a strong butterscotch/toffee taste to them. The texture is perfect, really my ideal chocolate chip cookie texture.
And as my cookies cooled, the temperature outside warmed up. Seriously! The snow was melting so fast, huge chunks of it pelted down from the tree tops onto cars and people below. Sure, it was a bit dangerous, but when it comes to weather, I’ll do just about anything for a nice day in Chicago. ~LTG!
