“The humble chocolate chip cookie is the baker’s crucible.”
Indeed. So it’s a good thing I have a knack (and I’m humble!) and I have help…mmhmm, from here via here.
You see, a few years ago, David Leite (of Leite’s Culinaria fame) went in search of the perfect chocolate chip cookie. And as it turns out, the journey is a long and winding one. But after much consultation and much taste-testing, David learned the secrets to this perfect cookie. He learned them, and then he shared them with the masses. Lucky us!
And it all boils down to following a few simple, if time consuming, rules. Without further ado…
The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie Rules to Live By:
1. You must use big, big chunks of chocolate with at least 60% cacao, and you must use a lot of it. I will call this the Splurge Rule.
2. You must. You absolutely must. Use salt. It’s the Salt Rule.
3. You must prepare your dough and then let it rest for 36 hours before baking. It allows the dough to soak up the egg, making for a drier dough that bakes up better. I’m going to call this the Patience Rule.
4. When shaping your cookies, you must make them large to allow for three distinct textures – a crunchy outside, a soft center, and the magic that happens between the two. This is the Rule of Thirds.
5. You must eat your chocolate chip cookie warm. It’s the Warm Rule.
Now that you know the rules (and you are going to follow them, RIGHT?), you need the recipe. And I’m happy to oblige. Oh, and for the record, this is the FIRST willrunforcupcakes recipe that merited 5 stars from myself AND hubby.
David Leite’s Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookies (printer-friendly version below)
Adapted from David Leite in The New York Times
My Rating: * * * * *
Hubby’s Rating: * * * * *
Yield: 18 5-inch cookies
For the cookies:
8 ½ ounces (2 cups minus 2 tablespoons) cake flour (I couldn’t find any, so (gasp), I used unbleached all purpose flour, with no adjustment to the measurement, and they still turned out beautiful)
8 ½ ounces (1 2/3 cups) bread flour
1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt (or other coarse salt)
2 ½ sticks (1 ¼ cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
10 ounces (1 ¼ cups) light (or dark) brown sugar
8 ounces (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 ¼ pounds big bittersweet chocolate chunks (*see note, below), at least 60% cacao content
Sea salt
To prepare:
Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or in a large bowl, if using a hand mixer), cream the butter and sugars together (on medium/high speed) until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Reduce speed to low and stir in the vanilla. With the mixer still on low, add the dry ingredients, all at once, and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop the chocolate chunks into the mixture and incorporate with a rubber spatula. Keeping the dough in the bowl, press plastic wrap against the dough and refrigerate for 36 hours (and up to 72 hours – you can bake these in smaller batches if you like).
When you are ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet (or two, if you have two) with parchment paper.
Scoop six 3 ½ ounce mounds of dough (larger than a golf ball, smaller than a racquet ball…a food scale is extremely useful here) onto the baking sheet (I had to mold them a bit with my hands because the dough was slightly crumbly), making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up (it will make the cookie prettier). Make sure your baking sheet is large enough to leave spaces between the cookies, as they will spread some in the oven. Sprinkle the cookies lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, about 18 to 20 minutes.
Transfer your baking sheet to a wire rack to cool for about 10 minutes. Then remove the cookies from the sheet and continue to cool on a rack for another 10 minutes or so.
Repeat with the remaining dough or reserve the dough for a later batch, keeping the dough covered in the refrigerator if you do so.
Serve warm (you can nuke them for a few seconds in the microwave once they are completely cool) with a big napkin and a big glass of milk.
*A note on the chocolate: Do your best to use big hunks of chocolate rather than chips. Leite’s recipe calls for Valrhona fèves (gorgeous and delicious oval-shaped chocolate), which you can find at Whole Foods or at The Fresh Market. Unfortunately, Valrhona chocolate is pricey. So I went with a high-ish quality 70% cacao baking chocolate that I found for half the price of the Valrhona at The Fresh Market. It was relatively easy to break into big chunks.
For a printer-friendly version of this recipe, click here: David Leite’s Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookies
