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My (Current) Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie
Of all the recipes I’ve made over and over in my life, trying to perfect the iconic chocolate chip cookie has been the most fun. About 1M batches later, I’m ready to share the version that is my current obsession! I’m talking crispy edges. Dense, chewy center. Ripples of golden-brown caramelization cascading over the surface. Perfect bursts of bittersweet chocolate studding the dough. The reality is, I’ll probably never stop tweaking and playing… why should I??
I want to acknowledge 3 very delicious other Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes that have inspired me over the years and from which I gleaned some important techniques: Tara O’Brady, who taught me to melt butter — slowly! Sarah Kieffer of The Vanilla Bean Blog, who taught me to add water to the batter and a little more granulated sugar for crispier edges, and J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats who taught me to tear each ball of cookie dough in half once it is set and stick the 2 halves back together, craggy sides facing out for a gloriously individual, crunchy edged, chewy center cookie!
My (Current) Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie
Servings:
12-15 Large Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 tsp water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg, beaten
2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt (or ½ tsp sea salt)
4oz dark chocolate bar, roughly chopped*
Flaky salt for garnish
*Chopping up a bar of chocolate rather than using chips allows for more thorough melting and beautiful layers of chocolate in every bite.
Instructions:
Melt butter over medium heat, avoiding as much evaporation as possible.
Add both sugars and hot melted butter to a bowl, then whisk until combined and sugar is starting to dissolve, 2 minutes. Set aside and allow to cool 5 minutes.
Add water, vanilla extract and beaten egg to the butter and sugar blend and whisk well to combine and aerate, 1 minute.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients to your wet mix and stir until combined. Fold in chopped chocolate and allow to rest 20 minutes.
Roll 3 tablespoons of dough into loose balls and arrange on a parchment lined baking sheet. Once all dough is rolled, wrap in another layer of parchment paper and allow to rest in the refrigerator overnight and up to 24 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325F. Arrange cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving enough room for each ball to spread to 3x diameter. Bake until cookies have risen and begun to spread, around 5 minutes. Use oven mitts to remove the cookie tray from the oven and drop it flatly on the open oven door to “bang” the cookies. This will deflate the initial rise and result in lovely surface ripples with a toffee sweet crisp edge and soft, gooey interior in the finished cookie – divine! Return cookies to the oven and continue to bake for a total of 15-18 minutes, banging again another 2-3 times.
Remove cookies from the oven just shy of desired doneness, usually around the 16 minute mark. Immediately garnish with a pinch of flaky sea salt. Cool on the baking tray 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack and allow to fully cool and crisp before serving or storing in an airtight container. Enjoy!
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