The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie?

In an earlier post, I wrote about my quest for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe on the planet. For the good of my fellow humans and in the name of Science I have unselfishly continued to tinker with the recipe – and consume the results. 

Recently, I decided to try using Guittard Semisweet Chocolate Mini Chips in the recipe instead of regular-sized chips. Eureka! The result was a cookie that has bits of melted chocolate throughout, balancing nicely with the crispy, lightly salted cookie base. Could this finally be the Holy Grail of chocolate chip cookie recipes? Only time, further testing–and your comments–will tell. Here’s the updated recipe:

Possibly the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies on the Planet

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup solid vegetable shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
¼ teaspoon sea salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup top quality semisweet chocolate mini chips 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter, shortening and sugars together. On low speed, slowly add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, use a whisk to combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter mixture and mix until well combined. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until the chocolate is incorporated thoughout the mixture. Form the dough into 1 ½-inch balls and arrange on a Silpat-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. Bake for about 12 to 13 minutes, turning the pan once at the halfway point. (Note: oven temperatures vary, so watch the first batch carefully. You want the edges to be just barely, barely light brown; remove the cookies the second they reach that stage.)  Remove the tray from oven and cool the cookies for a minute on the tray, than transfer immediately to a wire rack so they don’t cook any further and harden. Store in an airtight jar for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to a month. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

You have to pity my mother for the day she first served me a slice of her favorite Chocolate Pecan Torte. I was 7 or 8 at the time, and after one bite I declared that this was the cake I wanted for my birthday, always. But her glorious cake isn’t made from a box mix or even a basic from-scratch recipe. No, the famous cake batter is made from ground pecans instead of flour, and preparing the recipe is guaranteed to trash your kitchen and get a minimum of seven bowls, saucepans and baking dishes dirty.

Alas, generations are destined to repeat the mistakes of their elders. And so it was that as soon as my baby daughter had graduated from pablum I fed her a bite of my birthday cake and she declared that this was the cake she wanted for her birthday, too, from that year forward always and forever.

 The cake itself is tender and amazing; the ground pecans are held together with the tiniest bit of flour and the batter is flavored with fresh orange juice and lightened with whipped egg whites. Between the layers is a soft whipped cream flavored with grated orange peel. The topping is a dark chocolate ganache. The sum of the parts is just off-the-scale good.

Here’s the recipe, handed down by the best birthday cake baker and sweetest mom on the whole planet, Betty Crosslen.

CHOCOLATE PECAN TORTE

For the cake:

4 eggs, separated
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon orange juice (Note:  I just buy one orange and grate the rind for the filling below and squeeze the juice for the cake)
2 Tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 cups finely ground pecans

For the filling:

1 teaspoon grated orange rind
½ cup whipping cream, whipped

For the frosting:

1 cup top-quality semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup sour cream
¼ teaspoon salt

To make the cake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees Celsius). In a medium bowl, beat the egg yolks with ½ cup of the sugar and the orange juice. In a small bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir the flour mixture into the egg yolk mixture. In another bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry. Beat in the remaining ½ cup of sugar gradually. Use a spatula to fold this mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Then, fold the ground pecans in gradually. Spoon this mixture into two greased 8 x 8 pans (you can also use round cake pans) and bake for about 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack, then gently loosen the cake from the pans onto plates lined with foil or plastic wrap.

To make the filling, combine the whipped cream with the grated orange rind. This filling gets spread on top of one of the two cooled cake layers. Use the plastic wrap or foil to remove the other cake from the plate and gently place it on top of the first cake layer.

To make the frosting, melt the chocolate chips and stir in the sour cream and salt. Spread the frosting on top of the cake. Chill the cake in the refrigerator for an hour and serve. (I garnished the cake in the photo above with semisweet chocolate curls, but that really is guilding the lily and not necessary.) Store any uneaten cake in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

One of my life’s missions is to find the very best chocolate chip cookie recipe. I expect a lot from this cookie; it has to be soft and chewy in the middle, and yet somehow also be crispy around the edges. It has to have just the right proportion of chocolate to dough. And speaking of the dough, that has to be good in and of itself – buttery, sweet but not too sweet, with just the tiniest hint of saltiness to provide balance.

This recipe gets pretty darned close to my ideal. The dough includes a mixture of butter and shortening to provide both flavor and structure. I used Sharffen Berger 62% Cacao semisweet chocolate, which is one of my favorite chocolates for cooking and baking (I find the bittersweet a little too bitter, but that’s a matter of personal preference). Chopping some of the chocolate into large pieces and some into very fine pieces means that there are little flecks of melted chocolate running throughout the dough along with some big, melty chunks:

 This recipe has a little extra vanilla (I use a special vanilla bean extract ‘crush’ from Sonoma Syrup Company that my sister gave me; it combines Madagascar Bourbon with Tahitian Vanilla) and the result is that you really taste the vanilla notes in the cookie. A pinch of sea salt adds that wonderful, subtle salty element we love. Just watch the cookies carefully when you bake them; you want them to just barely brown around the edges. Whisk them out of the oven immediately, cool them briefly on the baking sheet and transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling. If you leave them on the baking sheet too long, they’ll keep cooking and harden.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies
 
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup solid vegetable shortening
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
¼ teaspoon sea salt
2 eggs
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup randomly hand-chopped semisweet chocolate 

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter, shortening and sugars together. On low speed, slowly add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, use a whisk to combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to the butter mixture and mix until well combined. Add the chopped chocolate and stir until the chocolate is incorporated thoughout the mixture. Form the dough into 1 ½-inch balls and arrange on a Silpat-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. Bake for about 12 to 13 minutes, turning the pan once at the halfway point. (Note: oven temperatures vary, so watch the first batch carefully. You want the edges to be just barely, barely light brown; remove the cookies the second they reach that stage.)  Remove the tray from oven and cool the cookies for a minute on the tray, than transfer immediately to a wire rack so they don’t cook any further and harden. Store in an airtight jar for up to 5 days, or freeze for up to a month. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

I’ll probably never cease my search for the chocolate chip cookie Holy Grail (what would be the fun in that?), so if you have a favorite recipe you’d like to share please do send it in!