Wednesday
Feb102010
our favorite chocolate chunk cookies
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 9:21PM It's been a week. And it's only Wednesday.
We're snowed in. Not unhappily so. But three small children aren't going to tolerate it for long. And the little car that came in the Cheerios box will not keep a three year old happy forever.
And snow just seems to beckon comfort food.
So we're making chocolate chunk cookies. 
Because what else is there?
Because what else is there?We take chocolate chip cookies very seriously (I'll get to the chunks in a second). I shudder to think how many different recipes we've tried in search of the perfect version. We need the cookie to be soft, crisp, sweet, salty (not overly, but present), and oozing chocolate. To add another requirement, it needs to bake perfectly when pulled from the freezer (hold, please, we'll come back and visit the freezer soon). That's a lot to ask, but some quests are worth it. After 13 years, we found our recipe.
Alice over at Savory Sweet Life has created what she calls The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe EVER! That's not an overstatement. It deserves the all caps and the exclamation point. Maybe an extra exclamation point. Alice apparently finds herself in Twitter schoolyard "my cookie recipe is better than yours" smackdowns on a regular basis. Do not fight with her. Just walk away. She wins.
Here's how we've made Alice's recipe our own...
Remember I said we like our chocolate oozing. We get the ooze on by chopping our own chocolate instead of using chips. Ain't a thing wrong with chips. They're handy and inexpensive, and Alice, I am not fighting you. But if you find yourself near a Trader Joe's, get yourself a 17.6 ounce bar of dark Belgian chocolate for about $5. Slap it down on your cutting board, and using the biggest knife you've got, start chopping. Some of it will flake which streaks the dough with slivers of chocolate. The chunks are what you're after, because when you bite into them after they come out of the oven and sit for a few minutes, you've got an ooze of chocolate in almost every bite.
Alice's recipe freezes perfectly which is good, because we need one or two cookies almost every night (we joined a gym so that we could keep our cookie habit). Instead of making a half batch, we use an ice cream scoop with a release mechanism to fill a baking pan full of unbaked cookies. Freeze them overnight, and then throw them into a plastic storage bag in the freezer. Pull out however many you need. Our oven cooks them perfectly at 360 for 14.5 minutes.Cookies tonight. And tomorrow. And until this batch runs out and we need to make a new one.
Go visit Alice at Savory Sweet Life. And do not mess with her.
Reader Comments (14)
Finally!! The Thornton food blog. It's been far too long of a wait. Nice post...I'll be trying the recipe (or just coming over to get some batter out of your freezer!). I'll be back daily Chris and Karen...no pressure!
I'm with you on the taking "chocolate chip cookies very seriously" as too many people don't have a clue what a good cchip cookie tastes like. I suppose I should give in on your take on the chocolate chips themselves (as I rely on the bag of fun type). One of my major complaints is getting the temp correct: I feel like our oven is unreliable.
So, instead of rambling on here, I think Lori wants me to give this recipe a try. I will report the findings later.
Thanks for the post!
Chris
I am going to do this this weekend. Thanks!
Awesome, awesome, awesome!
Your post seriously made me laugh out loud. Glad you liked the cookies!
Alice
This blog is making me drool! Since our household also has a daily cookie quota, I will definitely be trying these out :)
I don't think I could fit a baking sheet in my freezer. Would it be possible to roll the dough into a tube shape and wrap it in parchment/wax paper and then do a "slice and bake" type of cookie, or is the dough to sticky for that?
Anyway, these look freaking delish!
@brandy101: The dough isn't overly wet or sticky, so the tube/wrap/slice/bake should work very well. Try it and let us know.
Yep: Simply the best recipe ever. We don't have Trader Joe's here, but WalMarts had a Belgian dark chocolate bar (14oz) for $5 and though I didn't like the chopping of the thing, the overall effect was great.
Thanks for sharing!
I made them last night and they were delicious! Definitely a unique texture experience with initial crunchy bite and the gooey interior. I may never be able to go back to chocolate chips - damn you, Thorntons! I ended up using light brown sugar because I was lazy and it was open, so the cookies were almost a cross between sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies. My husband loved them and I suspect the remaining dough in the freezer won't last long.
I'm so glad you enjoyed them! Next time I'm at TJ's I'm going to pick up the chocolate bar you suggested. One question, do you put them straight from the freezer to the oven? Or did you wait until they thawed out? If you don't mind, would you email me your thoughts?
Thanks!
Alice
alice@savorysweetlife.com
Hi, Alice! We all have a deep gratitude for your incredible recipe.
We pull them straight from the freezer. No thawing. I don't have that kind of patience.
We do use a scoop that's almost twice as big as you suggest in your recipe, so the 14.5 minutes works for us. Sometimes they need another minute to bake perfectly.
Thanks again for these cookies!
Sell these. To me. Deliver them to my mouth. Thank you. And lovely blog!
I want these cookies... NOW! May have to run to Trader Joe's just to get a block of chocolate.