If you don’t know this about me, I make cookies just to eat the dough. I found the food science explanation about cookie dough in this article from the NYT fascinating. It makes perfect sense and as you will read we have been ill advised by the recipe on the back of the Nestle House chocolate chip bag. The dough is even better after 36 hours of resting time.
From an article in the New York Times in search of the best chocolate chip cookie:
The first taste test for chocolate chip cookies started at City Bakery, on West 18th Street, owned by Maury Rubin.
Rubin said, he lets the dough rest for 36 hours before baking.
Shirley O. Corriher, author of “CookWise” (William Morrow, 1997), a book about science in the kitchen. “What he’s doing is brilliant.
He’s allowing the dough and other ingredients to fully soak up the liquid — in this case, the eggs — in order to get a drier and firmer dough, which bakes to a better consistency.”
A long hydration time is important because eggs, unlike, say, water, are gelatinous and slow-moving, she said. Making matters worse, the butter coats the flour, acting, she said, “like border patrol guards,” preventing the liquid from getting through to the dry ingredients. The extra time in the fridge dispatches that problem. The secret is hydration.
The author of the Toll House cookie recipe, as it turns out. “At Toll House, we chill this dough overnight,” she wrote in her “Toll House Cook Book” (Little, Brown, 1953). This crucial bit of information is left out of the version of her recipe that Nestlé printed on the back of its baking bars and, since in 1939, on bags of its chocolate morsels.
After 36 hours, these cookies baked up the most evenly and were a deeper shade of brown than their predecessors. Surprisingly, they had an even richer, more sophisticated taste, with stronger toffee hints and a definite brown sugar presence. At an informal tasting, made up of a panel of self-described chipper fanatics, these mature cookies won, hands down.
Ingredients:
8 ½ oz cake flour
8 ½ oz bread flour
1 ¼ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ tsp coarse salt
10 oz unsalted butter softened
12 oz dark brown sugar
6 oz white sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chocolate chips or bars of chocolate chopped
Directions:
Combine the cake flour, bread flour, baking soda, baking powder and coarse salt in a large bowl. Stir to combine and set aside.
In a large mixer add the butter and sugars and mix for 5 minutes until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing them in and be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl in between. Add the vanilla and combine.
Add the dry ingredients a little at a time and mix until just combined. Add the chocolate chips or chopped chocolate and fold them into the batter. Cover the dough and refrigerate dough for up to 72 hours.
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Scoop 1/4 cup sized cookie dough balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet, 4 cookies per sheet and sprinkle the tops with fleur de sel. Bake the cookies for 16-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. If the cookies are a little puffy, bang the pan on the counter to release any excess air pockets. Or use a spatula to flatten the cookies to make it dense