Wow. I finally found myself a pocket of time and my head was swimming with ideas of what to bake. I’m sure you are thinking, with all these ideas, why did she end up making chocolate chip cookies? Well, to be honest, I just really had a taste for them. When I was flipping through The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook, of course, the chocolate truffle cookies caught my eye first. But, the chocolate chunk cookies were a close second. There isn’t much better than a big, chewy chocolate chip cookie and a tall glass of ice cold milk. And these looked like my kind of cookie.
Most chocolate chip cookies have essentially the same ingredients, just in different proportions. If you are looking for a special ingredient, I hope you aren’t disappointed that there isn’t one in these cookies. Why are they so good then? It must be that the ratios are just right. The cookie tastes just as it should, of butter and brown sugar. It has a very slight crispness to the edges, but is perfectly chewy throughout, and they stayed chewy for three days. At Dahlia, Tom Douglas uses a mixture of milk and bittersweet chocolates. I used all semisweet cut from a Callebaut bar, as unbelievably, I was out of milk chocolate. I also used only 14 oz of chocolate (only??), instead of the 19 oz called for in the recipe. As much as I love chocolate, with too much, I believe you can’t taste the deliciousness of the cookie.
As you probably know, I don’t make many recipes more than once. But this one is a keeper. I’m looking forward to trying the two chocolates next time or M & Ms or Reese’s cups or……
Dahlia Bakery’s All-American Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Yield: 24 to 26 cookies (I got 24 big cookies)
3 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla
3 1/2 cups (482 grams) all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 cup plus 5 tablespoons (10.5 ounces/298 grams) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (25o grams) packed, moist brown sugar
1 1/4 cups (250 grams) granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups (9 ounces/255 grams) milk chocolate chunks
1 1/2 cups (9 ounces/255 grams) bittersweet chocolate chunks
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line your cookie sheet(s) with parchment.
In a small bowl, break the 3 eggs, add the vanilla and whisk to combine. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and kosher salt. Set aside.
Into the bowl of your Kitchen-Aid, add the butter and both sugars. Cream on medium-high, with the paddle, until very light in color and fluffy, ~ 4-5 minutes. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Beating on medium, pour in half of the egg-vanilla mixture and beat until incorporated. Scrape down the sides again and add the rest of the egg-vanilla mixture. Beat briefly to combine.
Add the dry ingredients to the bowl of the electric mixer, beating on low until evenly distributed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and mix just 10 more seconds. Don’t overmix. Add the chocolate chunks and mix just until combined. Remove the bowl from the stand and using a spatula scrape the bottom of the bowl to make sure all the flour is mixed in.
Use an ice cream scoop to portion the cookies in 2.5 ounce portions (~ 1/4 cup), placing them evenly apart, 6 cookies per cookie sheet.
Bake until mostly golden brown on the edges but still pale in the middle, ~ 16 to 18 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking time. If you are baking 2 cookie sheets at a time, also rotate them between racks. Do not overbake.
Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before using a spatula to remove the cookies from the sheets.
