August 29, 2024

My First Perfect Chocolate Chips Cookies

Cookies perfect chocolate chips cookies. Thick, super chewy inside, slightly underbaked. All butter, milk chocolate chips, real chocolate with cocoa butter baking

Sweet version

So, here’s the thing.

Many people search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, like those made by Pepperidge Farm, Mrs. Fields, St. Michael, Famous Amos, or perhaps a small café in the countryside of Liverpool or Tuscany. Including me. Especially the soft-baked kind: large in size, half-baked, soft and slightly chewy, loaded with fillings, the aroma of butter and vanilla, premium chocolate chips, and… the perfect wrinkles!

It seems that only in the world of archaeology and culinary arts are wrinkles so highly valued :)

Wandering from recipe to recipe, trial after trial led me to one conclusion. The perfect chocolate chip cookie requires using many ingredients that I prefer not to consume. Non-halal ingredients, trans fats, excessive sugar, flavor enhancers, colorings, leavening agents, and emulsifiers. It’s almost impossible to make them in a home kitchen while minimizing the use of artificial ingredients and trans fats.

Even though I’ve come to terms with this reality, two recipes are quite captivating, the closest to the perfect cookie image. Nigella’s recipe, which I’ve already posted here, and Ashley’s recipe, one of my favorite food bloggers, who will surely become your favorite too. These two recipes are quite similar, but for some reason, Ashley’s recipe produces a more beautiful texture and wrinkles. Or maybe it’s just my imagination as the full moon approaches. Eh.

My Conclusion

I slightly disagree with Ashley, who says that the secret to the perfect chewy chocolate chip cookie is cornstarch. In the Indonesian context, I believe sugar is the key factor. Remember, all the ingredients here are different. Sugar, butter, flour, they all have different compositions that make the cookie result slightly different from those using Western products. At the end of my search, I came to a few important conclusions:

Fat, thick, and soft cookies are achieved by melting the butter and chilling the dough for a few hours before shaping and baking.
Flat and crispy cookies are achieved by creaming the butter and baking the dough immediately after it’s ready.
Cookies with the perfect texture are achieved by using a lot of sugar. The cookies do become sweet, and not everyone likes this level of sweetness. But the high sugar content gives them a beautiful texture: crispy on the outside, moist and slightly chewy on the inside. The aroma of vanilla and butter is well accentuated. And… the perfect wrinkles, just like those in foreign magazines!
If you reduce the sugar, the texture becomes like a mini cake: the surface is not crispy, soft but not chewy, the inside is dry and crumbly. The butter aroma doesn’t come through well. And… no wrinkles sigh.

How to get around this? Is there still hope?

If you prefer sweet cookies with a beautiful texture, use dark chocolate chips to balance the bitterness. If you’d rather have cookies that aren’t too sweet, even if the texture is a bit disappointing, use milk chocolate chips to compensate for the reduced butter aroma. After trying both, I have to say I prefer the sweet cookies, with milk chocolate chips no less, haha… Texture is important, general! And because I’ve found that no matter how delicious the chocolate chips or other fillings are in the dough, if the texture isn’t moist, the cookies aren’t enjoyable to eat.

I’ve written down both recipes, the sweet version and the less sweet version. Feel free to choose whichever you like. Indeed, life is about choices.

PennyLane's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sweet Version:

330 grams of medium protein flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp fine salt
180 grams of butter, melted
200 grams of granulated sugar
60 grams of brown sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla paste
200 grams of milk or dark chocolate chips + 50 grams for garnish

Less Sweet Version:

330 grams of medium protein flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp fine salt
180 grams of butter, melted
130 grams of granulated sugar
30 grams of brown sugar
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla paste
200 grams of milk chocolate chips + 50 grams for garnish

Method:

Sift flour, baking soda, cornstarch, and salt into a mixing bowl. Mix well.
In another bowl, mix melted butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar, stirring until the sugar dissolves and blends with the butter. The mixture should resemble caramel dough.
Add the whole egg and egg yolk to the butter mixture, and mix well.
Add vanilla paste to the mixture, and mix well.
Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, and mix well with a wooden spoon.
Add chocolate chips to the mixture, and mix well.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and chill the dough in the fridge for at least 3 hours. If preferred, you can chill it overnight.
After chilling, take the dough out of the fridge and let it sit for 10 minutes to make it easier to shape.
Shape the dough into imperfect balls about the size of a ping-pong ball, or as desired. Place the balls on a baking sheet lined with a silpat or baking paper, leaving space between each ball.
Flatten the dough slightly with your fingers. There’s no need to create a perfect surface—let the dough have creases and folds to form beautiful wrinkles later.
Add some extra chocolate chips on top of the cookies, pressing them halfway into the dough.
Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 180 degrees Celsius for 11 minutes.
Remove the cookies from the oven, let them cool for 10 minutes, then transfer them to a rack to cool completely.
Once cooled, store the cookies in an airtight container.