Chocolate Chip Cookie Test No. 4: The Consummate One

February 12, 2019

Way back in 2008, The New York Times released a chocolate cookie recipe that quickly became viral. After extensive research with well-known bakers and pastry chefs, they created a new archetypal chocolate cookie recipe based on a Jacques Torres recipe.
The main takeaways from this recipe are:
  • resting the dough for 24-72 hours
  • using a combination of bread and cake flours
  • using high quality baking wafers or discs.
They became so legendary because they were perfectly chewy, covered in gooey, melted chocolate and had a depth of flavor. 

Recipe Highlights:
  • I couldn't get myself to spend $50 on Valrhona chocolate feves so I opted for Guittard Bittersweet Baking Wafers from Target ($8)
  • luckily I had bread flour sitting around but made my own cake flour by adding in cornstarch to all purpose flour. find out how here
  • I had some trouble mixing the dough since I believe I added too much chocolate (as if that's a real problem) but in my defense, there was barely any cookie dough in my dough balls. So mix in a pound at first and see if you need the extra 1/3lbs of the chocolate wafers. 
  • recipe advises to flatten the chocolate wafers so they don't poke out of the dough--this achieves a more handsome cookie (but also makes it more high maintenance). 
  • calls for light brown sugar
  • need time to have butter come to room temperature to cream it 
  • topped cookies with fleur de sel (fancy salt) before baking
Overall: These felt fancy with the intense melted chocolate throughout the cookie. I loved how the cookies looked visually, with its ripples and chocolate gooey blobs throughout the surface. These are stinking good cookies: crispy, chewy with an almost overwhelming amount of chocolate. There is a depth of flavor but I was kind of craving a brown butter flavor that I had been baking with recently. 🍪🍪🍪

Current rankings:
  1. BraveTart
  2. America's Test Kitchen
  3. Jacque Torres
  4. NY Times Thick and Gooey

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