The Sauce
The Sauce
Make the perfect
gooey-in-the-middle, crispy-on-the-edges, bittersweet chocolate , vanilla salted-flaked
cookies.
that took over two decades to get right.
ingredients:
2 ¼ cups / 220g all purpose flour or pastry flour
1 ⅔ cups / 200g bread flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon crystal diamond kosher salt
1 ¼ cups / 283g salted grass-fed butter
1 cup / 220g dark brown sugar
1 cup / 200g sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 oz / 250g bittersweet chocolate discs (think 65% or higher)
8 oz / 250g bittersweet chocolate chips (think 65% or higher)
sea salt flakes for sprinkling on the dough balls
before we begin:
Read the entire recipe, including all the baker’s notes before you start.
Don't skip the "chill your dough" part and make sure you space your cookies far enough apart so they have room to bake. These cookies spread.
You can't JUST use all purpose flour for these - you need to use a combination of flours. It can be cake and bread flour, or all purpose flour and bread flour. If you use JUST all purpose flour, your cookies will not have the perfect chocolate chip cookie structure (crisp edges on the outside, gooey on the inside).
Pastry flour + bread flour = slightly thinner cookie
All purpose four + bread flour = slightly thicker cookie (this is my fav combo)
Pastry flour + all purpose flour = a thinner, almost delicate cookie
special equipment:
electric mixer with paddle attachment, rimmed cookie sheets, parchment paper (if you have a handheld mixer - that will work too)
for the dough.
Preheat oven to 360° F / 182° C. Grab a cookie sheet and line it with parchment paper. (If you don’t have parchment, you really need some, it makes all the difference in how your cookies will bake and come off the cookie sheet.)
bakers notes: try to use unbleached parchment.
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Whisk together and then set aside.
Beat butter and both sugars on a medium-high speed in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment until the sugar combines with the butter. It should look very fluffy. Beat for about 5 - 7 minutes. Scrape down the bowl a few times in the process.
Add vanilla extract and mix in.
Add eggs, one at a time; adding the other only after the first has been incorporated.
Slowly scoop the dry ingredients (aka the flour mixture) into the butter + sugar + egg mixture. Mix on a medium slow speed until combined. Scrape the bowl down once or twice to make sure everything is incorporated. (Really! Pause and scrape down the bowl a few times in the process - especially the bottom!)
bakers notes: in terms of chocolate, the world is your oyster here: you can use a mix of chips + disks / all chips / all disks / or chopped chocolate. The most important thing is splurge on high quality chocolate.
Add chocolate chunks and mix until just combined. I usually finish mixing in the chocolate in by hand.
Using a spring-back ice cream scoop, scoop the dough onto a parchment lined cookie sheet, putting the dough scoops as close together as possible. Top scoops with another piece of parchment paper, wrap with plastic wrap and foil and chill for at least an hour and up to overnight or even several days.
If you don’t chill your dough very long (ie an hour, or not at all), you’ll most likely get cracks in your cookies. (Which is the #1 question I get asked on instagram!)
The refrigeration of the dough allows for a more deep caramely flavor. I hardly have patience to refrigerate dough - but chilling it even for an hour is lends to a more deeply flavored cookie.
Chilling allows the flour in the dough to soak up all the flavors of the brown sugar and buttery goodness. The edges are crispier and the center more gooey, with the refrigeration of the dough.
to bake.
bakers note:
The bake time of your cookies will vary depending on the size of your dough scoops, and your oven.
Bigger dough balls take longer to bake.
Smaller dough balls take less time to bake.
Arrange you dough balls at least 2” - 3” apart on a parchment lined baking sheet (for scale, I get about 6 big dough balls on a cookie sheet.)
Bigger dough balls make for a really perfect cookie. Let me explain: You’re guaranteed to get a gooey middle. The gooey middle is almost impossible to achieve when using really small dough balls. Medium dough balls you can kind of achieve the gooey middle? But really, if you want the perfect cookie, I encourage you to make big cookies.
After you’ve placed your desired number of dough balls on the parchment lined cookie sheet, press a few chocolate chips or disks or chopped chocolate on top to get that perfect looking cookie.
Sprinkle with vanilla sea salt flakes.
Bake for 12-18 minutes in a 360° F / 182° C oven, turning the baking sheet around about half way through the bake time.
Remember if you’re using big dough balls AND your dough is very cold, might need a few more minutes.
Bake until the edges are a deep golden brown, and the center of the cookie looks like a mix of deep brown cracks but underneath it’s pale, shiny and slightly wet. You WANT to under-bake these babies just slightly if you want a gooey center (the middle will keep baking a little bit once you pull them out of the oven), but make sure the edges of the cookie are golden brown.
bakers note: The colder your dough, the longer your cookies will bake. For example: If your dough is coming from an overnight or several day chill, it will be on the longer side of the baking time. If your dough balls only chilled for an hour or so, it will take less time to bake them. Remember that dough that hasn’t chilled for very long is less likely to have a gooey middle. So if the gooey middle is something you must have (like me haha) bake cold dough.
Serve warm with Strauss vanilla bean ice cream.
Go spread the love.
And happy eating.
