Chocolate Chunk and Chip Cookies (for Maeydelynn)

This recipe is from the Bouchon Bakery. I’ve baked and eaten quite a few cookies and these are the Best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever eaten. I use a different recipe for the chocolate chip cookies I bake for festivals. The photo below is of a few festival chocolate chip cookies with pecans. If you look you'll see that I added extra chocolate chips (always a good idea). 

Ingredients

All-purpose flour                          238 gm (1½ cups + 3 T)

Baking soda                                2.3 gm (½ tsp)

Kosher salt                                 3 gm (1 tsp)

Dark brown sugar                        134 gm (½ C + 2 T lightly packed)

Unsulfured blackstrap molasses)    12 gm (1 ¾ tsp)

Granulated sugar                         104 gm (½ C + 1 tsp)

70-79% dark chocolate broken      107 gm (2/3 C)

into 3/8” chunks*

Chocolate chips                           107 gm (½ C)

Unsalted butter room temp           167 gm (5.9 oz)

Eggs room temp                          60 gm (slightly less than 4 T)

Toasted pecans**                        ½-1 C               

*Use good quality chocolate for the dark. Hershey’s, etc. not the best for this recipe. For the chocolate chips I like Nestle. The dark chocolate melts more than the chocolate chips, so everyone gets chocolate on their fingers.

**Toasted nuts are generally much better for baking than raw nuts. Toast on cookie sheet @ 350 for 2-3 minutes, mix ‘em up and toast another 2-3 minutes – do this 4-5 times a few minutes past the time when you’re getting the fragrance of toasting nuts. I keep a freezer baggie with about 1# toasted pecans and another of walnuts in the refrigerator.

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Preheat oven to 325.

Measure flour into bowl. Sift in baking soda. Add salt (the pastry chef at Eatzi’s told me for a better cookie to not skimp on salt). Whisk together.

Place dark brown sugar in separate bowl and stir in molasses and granulated sugar – break up lumps (won’t be completely smooth though).

Break up the chocolate bar and eat any choc dust (if the dust is left in the cookies will be messier). Mix chunks with chocolate chips.

Use a hand or stand mixer to cream the butter for several minutes until it’s like mayonnaise and holds peaks. Add the molasses/sugar mixture and mix for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Add eggs and mix for 15-30 seconds. Over-mixing eggs can cause them to over-expand and then deflate. Mixture may look broken, which is no problem.

Add dry ingredients (in two additions – I do it in the sink to minimize flour everywhere) and mix on low speed for 15-30 seconds until just combined.

Add chocolates and nuts and mix with wooden spoon. The original recipe calls for refrigerating the dough for 30 minutes and then letting it come to room temp, but I never have.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper. (If you’re not already using parchment paper for baking it’s time to start. Clean-up is much easier.)

I put the dough on in about golf-ball or slightly smaller size portions (12 cookies/sheet). This recipe makes ~30 cookies ~2.5” diameter. Bake for 12-13 minutes for soft cookies, 13-14 for chewy, and 14-16 for crispy (rotate sheet ~1/2 way through because most ovens have uneven heat in different areas).

You’ll learn a lot with the first few sheets, like the actual baking times you like. I bake them one sheet at a time on the middle rack – even when I’m baking several hundred cookies for a festie. Doing it with Love. Although I bake these one sheet at a time, I use two sheets with one in the oven and one ready to go.

Let the cookies cool for ~5 minutes on the cookie sheet, then move to your cooling racks. Now the cold cold milk.