Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: Tips and Tricks
Ben On Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 10:00AM Chocolate chip cookies are as American as apple pie. Sadly, they've been taken over by tubes, sheets, and tubs of pre-made cookie dough. Why? Do you have a stand or hand mixer? Then you're fine to make the dough yourself. I've even made it without a hand mixer once (I don't recommend it).
As for a recipe, I'm just going to use the traditional tollhouse recipe with a couple of little tweeks and explanations. But first, science!
When you make bread, you mix flour and water and knead to form gluten. The gluten then traps the carbon dioxide made by the yeast and makes the bread airy and chewy. Most people want their chocolate chip cookies to the light and chewy too. But the problem with this is that fat, butter in this recipe, interferes with gluten formation. So, the more butter you have, the less light and fluffy the cookie will be, and the more it will spread out when you cook, instead of puffing up.
There are a couple of ways that we can encourage gluten formation even with all the butter in the cookie dough. First, we're going to use bread flour, instead of all-purpose flour. Second, we're going to let the batter sit overnight, resting the dough will also let some more gluten form.
I dont' have an ingredient shot, so paint a picture in your mind of bread flour, baking soda, salt, butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla extract, eggs, and chocolate chips.
Before you start cooking, take the butter and eggs out and bring them up to room temperature. Mix the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.
Cut the softened butter up into chunks, and throw it in another bowl, or in your stand mixer, and start beating it on 8/10.
Once the butter gets light and fluffy, start adding the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, alternating between plain sugar and brown sugar. Now add the vanilla extract. This technique is called creaming the butter. It's not explicitly in the recipe, but I'm pulling out all the stops to keep these chocolate chip cookies from being flat.
Add the eggs, one at time, and beat for a full minute after each addition. Turn down the speed of the mixer, then add the flour mixture slowly. Do this carefully, unless you really like your kitchen to be covered in flour. Now add the chocolate chips.
Try not to eat all of it. Place it in a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and chill overnight. I like to push the plastic wrap on to the dough. it keeps any kind of crust from forming.
Now, it being the next day, pre-heat the oven to 375, and roll out the dough into little balls to place on a cookie sheet.
Bake for about 25 minutes, but wait until they're golden brown, and remove from the oven.
Golden brown, light and fluffy. Wait until they cool before you try to eat them.
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups of bread flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
Procedure:
1. Soften the butter, let the eggs warm up. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, or in your stand mixer, beat the butter until its fluffy, then add the sugar, one tablespoon at a time, alternating between brown and white sugar.
3. Mix in the vanilla extract, then beat in the eggs, one at a time, waiting one minute between eggs.
4. Reduce the speed of the mixer, and slowly beat in the flour mix.
5. Add the chocolate chips and beat slowly until they're well dispersed.
6. Chill and let sit overnight.
7. Preheat your oven to 375, and roll out the dough in little balls on a cookie sheet.
8. Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool, and serve.
Reader Comments (5)
If you have the right kind of hand mixer, it's not so bad. There are some pretty hefty ones out there that only cost $50-75 or so. If you don't have a stand mixer, and aren't likely to be able to get one any time soon, be sure to get a hand mixer that can handle a heavier load.
Where did you get that really evil-looking stand mixer paddle? Do you find it works better for creaming than the traditional one?
Meg,
It's called the side swipe, and you can get it from Amazon. (see also http://www.sideswipeblade.com/) I don't think it's particularly better at creaming butter, but it's great for batters. The silicone blades are constantly wiping down the sides, so you get a better mix.
I always use a hand mixer. I don't think it is that difficult.
I agree. Using a hand mixer isn't bad. Mixing by hand (without a hand mixer) is a pain. I used a spoon and a spatula. They came out fine, but my arm felt like it was going to fall off.