Half Chocolate Chip and Half Chocolate With White Chip Cookies
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The incredibly kind people over at The Harvard Common Press must have known I was on a self imposed cookbook purchasing hiatus because they offered to send me four cookbooks, all part of the “Baker’s Field Guide” series. They even have a pull quote from David Lebovitz on the covers. I was sold.
Side note: I’ll be giving away a set of these cookbooks soon, so stay tuned for a chance to win!
One of the books was all chocolate chip cookie recipes, and my eyes immediately went to the “half and half cookies,” perfect for those of us who have trouble making up our minds when it comes to cookie flavors! The cookie is half chocolate chip, half rich chocolate with white chocolate chips and is chewy and absolutely delicious. My coworkers ate them up in no time, and everyone keep saying how good they are. They’re definitely worth the extra time it took to roll all the dough balls.
Ingredients
2 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
3 tablespoons Dutch-processed unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
1 cup white chocolate morsels
Photos of the process here.
Preparation
Whisk 2 cups of the flour, the baking soda, and salt together in a medium-size bowl.
In a large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar gradually, beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, and scraping down bowl once or twice. Beat in vanilla, then eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl. Add about one-third of flour mixture and mix on low speed. Gradually add remaining flour mixture, mixing just until blended.
Divide mixture in half. To one half, beat in remaining 3 tablespoons flour and the semisweet chocolate morsels. To the other half, beat in sifted cocoa and white chocolate morsels. Cover with plastic wrap and chill doughs separately at least 2 hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 375 F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Take rounded teaspoons of each type of chilled dough and roll it into a ball. (My dough was a little sticky so I measured out the first dough one teaspoon at a time, made balls from it, put the dough balls back in the fridge, then measured out the second dough the same way.)
Press the balls together, side by side, so you can see both colored doughs. Gently form this cookie into a ball. Place on prepared cookie sheets 2 inches apart so that doughs remain side by side. Bake until edges and tops just begin to turn light golden brown, about 12 minutes. Place sheets on racks to cool for 5 minutes, then remove cookies from sheets and place directly on racks to cool completely.
Yields 52 cookies. (Or more, if you make them smaller like I did.)
Recipe from A Baker’s Field Guide to Chocolate Chip Cookies by Dede Wilson.
Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
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I think the first time I ever baked with fleur de sel was when I made Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies, and I was immediately hooked. Since then, I’ve made a slew of other salty-sweet recipes, including the super popular NY Times chocolate chip cookie recipe.
Then David Lebovitz‘s salted butter chocolate chip cookie recipe showed up in my Google Reader, and I knew it had to be made. David’s recipe uses ingredients you already have on hand–no need for special flour or gigantic chocolate pieces–and since the fleur de sel is mixed in rather than sprinkled on top, you get little bites with a salty crunch. Mmmm! If you’re a fan of fleur de sel in sweets, this is a must-make recipe!
Photos of the process.
Ingredients
4 ounces (115g) salted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup packed (110g) dark or light brown sugar
1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cup (180g) flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt or kosher salt
1 1/3 cups (200g) coarsely chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate (I used milk chocolate chips)
1 cup toasted nuts, coarsely chopped (I omitted these)
Preparation
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, or by hand, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar just until smooth and creamy.
- Beat in the egg and the vanilla.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
- Stir the flour mixture into the beaten butter until combined, then mix in the chopped chocolate (including any chocolate dust) and the chopped nuts.
- Cover and chill the batter until firm. (David suggest letting it chill overnight, but I only waited a few hours.)
- To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Form the cookie dough into rounds about the size of a large unshelled walnut. Place the mounds evenly spaced apart on the baking sheets, and press down the tops to flatten them so they are no longer domed and the dough is even.
- Bake the cookies for ten minutes, rotating the baking sheet midway during baking, until the cookies look about set, but are not browned.
- Remove from the oven and quickly tap the top of each with a spatula, then return to the oven for two to five more minutes, until the tops of the cookies are light golden brown.
- Remove from oven and let cookies cool.
Recipe from David Lebovitz.
