THE. BEST. CHOCOLATE. CHIP. COOKIES. - Really,They are That Good

I have one sentence for you. It is really quite simple. No fuss, no muss, just one little sentence that may just change your life, or at least your baking. These are the best chocolate chip cookies ever. Yes, I said EVER.

The recipe hails from a New York Times article from 2008. Before you get all excited thinking I have the time to read the New York Times and how you must have my time management tips and secrets, I don’t. I was just lucky enough to stumble upon Orangette, who wasn’t reading the New York Times either, but has a news-reading friend who told her she needed to read this article.

If you care, at all, about cookies or baking or recipe development or Dorie Greenspan, who, along with David Lebovitz (I know I’m name dropping but I love them), is teaching me how to make perfect macarons, then you should read the original article by David Leite. If you care about them being really beautiful, and arranging the chocolate pieces, Jacques Torres uses made-especially-for-him fêves, chocolate disks that create layers of chocolate through the cookie, so that they are just so, you can do that to. All I know is that Torres clearly does not have twenty fingers reaching up from between him and the countertop trying to pinch his cookies while he arranges his fêves. I eliminated this challenge by using really good quality chocolate chips which tasted just fine.

Now, not all, but lots, maybe even most good things come with a caveat. Some make it a deal breaker and, to be honest, it almost was for me. I wasn’t sure we, pretty much meaning me, could cope with a bowl of cookie dough sitting in our fridge. Yes, that’s right, sitting in our fridge for thirty-six, that’s 3-6, hours. It may seem like an age, especially when you are waiting for cookies, but you can just push it to the back and come back a day and a half later. 

Do it. Don’t let the time defeat you. You will love them. They are delicious. They are crispy. They are chewy. They are salty sweet perfection.

As I mentioned, I used chocolate chips instead of disks. Try and use the best quality you can find or afford. I used fine sea salt instead of coarse salt in the dough, I couldn’t see that this would make a difference. I used Maldon sea salt for the tops. The original recipe is given in cups and in ounces. I used cups because I don’t have a scale here in San Diego. My cookies were a little smaller than the recipe wants.

The. Best. Chocolate. Chip. Cookies. adapted from Jacques Torres, David Leite, Orangette (makes about 28 4-inch cookies)

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour

1 2/3 cups bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract

3 1/4 cups good quality chocolate chips

Maldon sea salt

Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together.

Cream butter and sugars together for about five minutes, or until very light.

Add eggs, one at a time and mix well after each egg. Beat in the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. 

Mix the chocolate in. 

Press cling film against the dough and refrigerate for 36 hours, or up to 72 hours.

When you are ready to bake, preheat oven to 350º.

Scoop large golf balls of dough onto the baking sheet a couple of inches apart.

Sprinkle each with sea salt and bake until browned but still soft. It took about 16 minutes for me, you will want to keep checking.

Cool on baking sheet for ten minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack.

Repeat until you have baked all your dough. Eat, you may want to use a napkin.

Cornmeal Biscuits or, My Story of Late

Last week, I was bemoaning my recent lack of kitchen enthusiasm. I had made some biscuits, but I didn’t want to post about it because I had posted some other biscuits not so long ago. Then, today, the girls and I made some more biscuits, because we love them and Cook’s Illustrated said they were really good, so we had to. The whole time I was thinking that I should be making something I could write about without making you all think we eat nothing but butter and flour with a bit of stuff to hold it together.

Then, I started thinking about what Denae at The Back Ordered Life said on the weekend. She said you should always write about what you know, you should write your story. And, while I know that I am using this pretty literally, right now I know all about biscuits. All sorts of biscuits, all sorts of fluffy, light and airy little puffs of buttery carb. They are a part of my story. If you make these, they could be part of your story. And, a fine story it will be.

I rarely happen upon a cornmeal based recipe I think I would enjoy. I am not a cornbread lover, most are too sweet. For the same sugary reason, I don’t care for cornmeal muffins. If something looks savoury enough, I may give it a go, but usually not to wind up raving about it. This little number from Cook's Illustrated looked just like the thing I needed to change my mind about cornmeal bakery plus, they are biscuits.

It was raining here. In the rest of the world, one would put on a slicker and brave the elements. This is Southern California, and I was doing like the locals do and chose to act as though a category three hurricane was upon us. Or, you could argue, I had found the perfect excuse to stay in my pyjamas and not brush my hair, let alone actually get in the shower.

All this to say that the recipe calls for buttermilk, I didn’t have any and, although the nearest shop is 100 metres away, I wasn’t going there. I used the old tablespoon of lemon juice in the milk trick and it seems to have worked a treat.

The good person at Cook’s Illustrated, Cali Rich, says to knead the biscuit dough 8-10 times before patting it out. I did not do this, which was fine. However, I did notice that those last biscuits that I cut from the scraps that were smushed back together in a kneadish kind of manner were a little fluffier than the ones cut from the unsmushed dough. So, if you want to knead your dough a few times, I think it would be a good thing. If, like me today, you can’t spare the extra nine seconds it will take, then don’t knead. I leave it up to you.

The other thing the girls and I discovered about these little lovelies I was planning on having for supper is that warm from the oven and drizzled with honey, it is almost impossible not to want to make these a frequent part of your breakfast, lunch and tea time story.

Cornmeal Biscuits adapted from Spring Entertaining from Cook’s Illustrated (makes 12)

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 cup cornmeal (avoid coarsely ground)

1 tablespoon honey

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (3/4 cup) cold salted butter cut into 1/2-inch pieces

Preheat oven to 450º.

Whisk milk and lemon juice together in a large bowl. Let stand until thickened, about ten minutes. Add honey and cornmeal, whisk together. Let stand ten minutes again.

In the bowl of a food processor add flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda and pulse to combine. Add butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. 

Add the flour mixture to the cornmeal mixture. Stir until a dough forms.

Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and if you are kneading, knead. Otherwise, pat dough out to about 3/4-inch thickness. Cut into 2 1/2-inch rounds with a cutter or a floured glass or cup. Place on baking sheet.

Bake for 5 minutes, reduce heat to 400º and bake for a further 8-10 minutes.

Let cool for a few minutes on baking sheet before you devour them all.

Recipeless Wednesday

With extra sprinkles.

Hummingbird Cake

A little less than a year ago, the girls and I had the honour of attending a very special third birthday party. There were all the usual birthday party requirements including friends and family and games and a pinata. There was lots of party food including three cakes made by three generations of the birthday girl’s family.

One of the cakes had been made by her great grandmother, the traditional chocolate. One was made by her mom. And one, made by her grandmother, was her mom’s favourite. Coconut, not traditional as far as I know but I add it, and pineapple, bananas and nuts combine with cream cheese icing to make a cake far more delicious than the most perfect of carrot cakes or the moistest of humble banana muffins.

We said goodbye to this bright spark of a three year old recently on a grey day in a little church in a beautiful hamlet when I can only imagine the rainbows and sunshine and butterflies and fairy dust that were being sprinkled down on that space in the world; this little girl who has touched the lives and hearts of friends and family and so many people she didn’t even know. She has certainly caused me to cuddle my girls a little tighter and to give thanks for my blessings. Her mama has inspired me to be a stronger, more courageous person and to pack as much joy into every minute with my children as I can possibly muster.

I got back to San Diego and decided that I would make a Hummingbird Cake. I don’t have Mama B's recipe, nor could I even imagine mine would be as good but the thought of a certain little three year old eating it is food for the soul.

Hummingbird Cake (adapted from Joy of Baking)

1 cup toasted unsweetened shredded coconut (you can gently toast it in a pan over low heat, just keep an eye on it)

1 cup chopped pecans

3 cups all purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3 large eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups finely chopped fresh pineapple (yes, fresh, tinned pineapple gives me itchy hands)

2 cups mashed banana

Preheat oven to 350º. Butter and flour two 8 or 9-inch cake pans.

Mix dry ingredients together.

Beat wet ingredients together.

Mix wet and dry ingredients together and pour into pans.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until a tester inserted comes out dry. It may be a bit quicker for 9-inch pans, a bit longer for 8-inch.

Let cool on a cooling rack.

Split layers, if you feel like having four layers. I do because I like to pack a little more frosting in there. If not, just use the two. Trim the tops of the layers, before splitting, if they are uneven.

Frost with cream cheese frosting, recipe follows.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 1/2 cups soft, room temperature butter

1 pound (450 grams, 16 ounces, 2 blocks) room temperature full fat cream cheese - Don’t even try it with the light kind, not only will it not taste as good, it will be a runny mess. Really, just don’t do it.

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups icing sugar

1/4 - 1/3 cup milk

Cream butter. Add cream cheese and cream together until smooth. Add the sugar and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated. Add milk, by the tablespoonful, if the frosting is too stiff. Add just as much as you need to for the frosting to be a nice consistency for icing the cake, think buttercream.