From Sunaina’s Kitchen
Today, I attempted to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie again. I’m looking for something thin and crispy, and thin and crispy all the way through. I tried the Martha Stewart’s recipe from her website (original recipe here). I really liked it, and the cookies meet my qualifications, but I’m not sure if I would call them perfect. I’m still thinking about Alton Brown’s thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies, which I tried last week. Even though his cookies weren’t crispy all the way through, they really tasted good. I’m attributing this to the milk in the recipe. I think it added a vanilla, and perhaps even floral, note. Usually, cookies don’t have milk, but sometimes recipes call for it or water to make the cookies flatter. I’ve read that milk makes cookies soft, however, and these cookies were indeed quite soft. Later, I might try to invent a recipe with this nice vanilla flavor but remains crispy all the way through….
The cookies I made today were quite good too. Because of the increased amount of sugar and perhaps butter (in relation to Alton Brown’s recipe), they had a really nice caramel flavor. In order to bring this flavor out, you have to make sure to bake them long enough. Otherwise, the taste falls a little flat (har har). They need to be well-browned, not just golden brown. Don’t go by the pictures, as I’ve brightened and filtered the hell out of them.
Martha Stewart’s Thin and Crisp Chocolate Chip Cookies
(with notes and additions from me)
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/4 cups (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
- 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cups brown sugar (I used light but you can use dark)
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups (12 oz.) chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet)
Bring all ingredients to room temperature (65-75 degrees F) before starting!
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Thoroughly mix together the flour and baking soda in a medium bowl. In a small bowl, combine the water, eggs, salt, and vanilla. In a large bowl, mix the butter and sugars until just combined. Then, cream this until light and fluffy, which should take about 2-3 minutes on high speed with a hand mixer or about 1 minute on medium speed with a stand mixer.
(Here is my light and fluffy creamed butter and sugars. It’s much less fluffy than last week’s because I read that creaming for cookies is much less intense than creaming for cakes. I am more practiced with baking cakes than cookies, so I went by my cakey instincts. Overcreaming can make cookies tough, chewy, or perhaps ruin the rise. Rise doesn’t really matter here because the cookies are flat, but toughness and chewiness are potential pitfalls!)
Slowly beat in the egg mixture. Slowly beat in the flour mixture, until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Scoop out tablespoon-sized portions of dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until well-browned. Remove from the oven, let set on pans for about a minute, and then place on cooling racks. Cool to room temperature before eating (otherwise, they’re not crisp!).
Eating My Words 