Okay, in general, a sequel is never as good as the original, right? I mean, raise your hand if you are a fan of Caddyshack II. Anyone? Jaws 3-D? Rocky V? C'mon, somebody's gotta love these movies, right? No?
Yeah, me neither. Sequels pretty much suck. BUT! That's in Hollywood, where they also think that Jessica Simpson is fat. Come. On.
In the real world, I would kill to be as fat as Jessica Simpson, and sequels don't suck, at least if they are sequels to the world's best chocolate chip cookie recipe. Could I make it even better? (Ooh, sorry. Slipped into Cook's-Illustrated-Speak there.)
I made another batch of these cookies; a double batch, in fact, but this time I subbed out the AP flour for bread flour, didn't bother with the fussy reshaping step, and per the New York Times, stuck it in my fridge for 36 hours, and tried to forget they were in there. Actually, I was so successful at this that they stayed in the fridge for more like 48 hours, because I, um, forgot they were in there.
The results were seriously, amazingly, orgasmically good. The cookie stayed thicker than my first batch, had an interior texture that was unbelievable - how can a cookie be perfectly chewy and yet utterly melt in your mouth at the same time? I dunno, but these bad boys managed it. The flavor was, like the NYT predicted, more complex and caramelly than the average chocolate chipper, without taking away from the essence of what a CCC is supposed to taste like.
All I can say is, if I keep making these cookies, I have zero chance of ever looking like Jessica Simpson. It's a tradeoff I'm willing to make.
Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie Sequel
(double batch)
4 1/4 cups bread flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs plus 2 egg yolks
4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line several large baking sheets with parchment paper or spray them with nonstick cooking spray.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl; set aside.
With an electric mixer, mix the butter and sugars until thoroughly blended. Beat in the egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed just until combined. Stir in the chips to taste.
Put dough into a sealed container (I used a gallon sized zipper bag) and refrigerate for 36 hours. (Dough will stiffen. Freak out not.)
Roll a scant 1/4 cup of the dough into a ball.
Place the formed dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, spacing them 2 1/2 inches apart.
Bake until the cookies are light golden brown and the outer edges just start to harden yet the centers are still soft and puffy, 15 to 18 minutes, rotating the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time.
Pull the cookies out of the oven while they still seem a little underbaked, and let them cool completely on the sheets.
Yield: About 36 - 40 large cookies.
Interesting sub with the bread flour. I was going to do a flour sub too, but with wheat flour to make the CCC remotely healthy. That never happened after I had the world's most hockey-puck-like whole wheat chocolate chip cookie that someone made for Christmas(although it could have also been a bad recipe). Are you stopping here or will there be an even better sequel (if it exists!). There are just way too many variations, sometimes I just want to make 5 or 6 batches to compare. I think I'm going to remake the original CI's CCC again just to be sure I'm not going way off with the variations. It would've been nice if I was doing this in high school, when calories did not convert to fat..haha
Did these change texturally the next day?
Steph - I don't know how much further I'll take this recipe; I guess I'll just wait until inspiration strikes me. ;-) To be honest, I don't know how these changed the next day, because of the entire recipe, I only baked up one sheet pan worth (9 cookies), and they were wolfed down in one afternoon; the rest were made into balls and put in the freezer. I CAN say that I made a batch straight out of the freezer and didn't like them; I had to bake them longer, obviously, and that seemed to dry them out a lot.
Still thinking about the baking soda vs. baking powder thing. Not even tempted to try WW flour, heh. If I'm trying to be healthy, first thing on the list will be to stop eating chocolate chip cookies.
Ah, interesting idea. I just tried CI's CCC last week and I agree, it needs something to be truly chewy. I'll have to try your modifications because there is nothing as good as a really chewy cookie.
And thank you, Jessica Simpson is not fat!
I'm so over baking powder v baking soda. It's all about baking soda for this particular cookie!
Actually, another reason I was planning on using WW flour was for flavour. I know these cookies are loaded with brown sugar, but something feels missing even when I refrigerate the dough for 36 hrs. Maybe it's the cheap club house artificial vanilla I'm using..haha
These look really good, I've heard about this recipe. I always have bread flour in the house, I should try making them soon.