I'm not really a chocolate person, or a cookies person, but I do like cholate chip cookies every once in a while. This 2008 Orangette blog post version of a David Leite & Jacques Torres NYT cookie recipe is my favorite. It's one of those recipes that involves a lot of wait time (I've gotten so into this with sourdough) and you rest the dough in the fridge for a day or a day and a half before baking.
Of course, being not so into chocolate, I've made my some adaptations over the years -- mostly WAY less chocolate, & less sugar -- and wanted to record my own version [1] of the recipe to have handy to send to friends.
First, get out 2 1/2 sticks of butter so it can start to soften. Get out a stand mixer, if you have one, a bowl, a whisk, a scale, a knife, and all the ingredients.
Combine & Whisk
- 17 oz flour (can do half and half of all purpose and bread flour)
- 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp coarse salt (I use diamond crystal)
Set that bowl aside.
Cream butter and sugar
- 2 1/2 sticks of butter, softened, cut into chunks
- 8 oz light brown sugar
- 6 oz granulated sugar
Weigh the sugars into the mixing bowl, tare-ing between additions.
With the mixer, cream butter and sugars until fluffy, a few minutes. (You can also do this by hand, the cookies are different, but very good!)
Mix in vanilla, eggs, flour, chocolate
Into the mixer with the butter and sugar, add:
- 2 eggs, one at a time
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Now, slowly, with the mixer on low, add in the dry ingredients that you whisked together earlier. I like to add about half, then mix a tiny bit before adding the rest to keep it from getting too messy.
As soon as all the dry ingredients are mixed together, add:
- 6 oz chocolate chips
I usually eyeball about half of a 12 oz bag into the mixer without weighing it.
Rest the dough
At this point, I cover the dough in the mixing bowl with plastic wrap and put the entire bowl in the fridge.
Chill in the fridge for at least a day -- 24-36 hours ideally, but you can wait up to 6 days.
Bake
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Scoop the cookies out using an ice cream scoop onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I usually make two sheets of 12 cookies each in a 3 x 4 grid, and then wrap the rest of the dough up and put it in the freezer for whenever we need cookies next.
Bake for 12-20 minutes. I generally set a 6 min timer, and swap the trays on the racks for even baking.
The original recipes say to let cool on the baking sheet on top of a wire rack for 10 minutes, then transfer the parchment paper + cookies to the wire rack to cool more. I do this sometimes, but often I just slide the cookies off the sheet and onto the wire rack right away.
[1] The original recipe calls for 1 1/4 pounds of chocolate (20 oz!) which makes quite a different cookie. I make it with less sugar (the original recipe calls for 10 oz brown sugar and 8 oz granulated). I scoop out smaller cookies. And Orangette removed the bread flour, but I put it back in because I always have tons of it on hand (I buy it by the 25 lb bag for sourdough). I don't think it matters too much, it's just the cheapest flour on hand so I like using it in things where I can. I also skip the salt on top. Both original recipes linked above are worth reading if you are interested in more options!