The New York Times Cookie

These cookies have been making the blog rounds for a few weeks now, so I decided they were worth a shot. While they aren't terribly different from my standard recipe for classic chocolate chip cookie, the sugar content is markedly higher. I also decided to make these at 2am the night before leaving for a long weekend at a friend's cottage and so wasn't as patient as I could have been. Regardless, the rather long resting period did not make quite the difference other bloggers reported it did in that the supposedly caramelized/rich toffee notes didn't quite emerge.

Overall, I found the cookies a bit dry upon baking, but they do retain a remarkably shelf stable quality and taste a bit like a particular brand name store bought cookie up to a week after. I don't know that I will ever make them again, but they were fun to make the first time. Plus, I finally broke out my ice cream scoop to shape them and was highly amused at the fact that they retained their scoop shape.

Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from the New York Times recipe, in turn adapted from Jacques Torres

Yield: Approximately 30 1.5" cookies.
Active Prep Time: 30 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 36 hours ( to chill in the refrigerator)
Total Prep Time: 36.5 hours

Ingredients:
7 oz of all purpose flour
7 oz of whole wheat flour
3 oz of corn starch
1.25 teaspoons of baking soda
1.25 teaspoons of baking powder
8 oz of salted butter at room temperature
8 oz of brown sugar
8 oz of granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 lb of bittersweet chocolate chips

Process:
1. Combine the flours, corn starch, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a bowl or measuring jug and whisk well to combine.

2. In a large bowl, combine the room temperature butter and the two sugars. Using an electric beater cream until fluffy and very pale in color. It should look like this. Once the mixture has reached this ethereal stage beat in the eggs one at a time. Following the eggs beat in the vanilla until completely amalgamated.

3. Switching from your hand held electric beaters to a wooden or metal spoon, gently mix in the flour. Be careful not to begin too vigorously or you will cover both yourself and the counter top in lovely white dust. The finished product should look something like this.

4. Stir in the chocolate chips and cover the dough tightly. Leave to rest in your refrigerator for anywhere from a minimum of 24 hours to a maximum of 72 hours. I suppose if you would like to leave it for longer than that, shape the aged dough into logs, which you can then wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze.

5. After your dough has aged, bring it to almost room temperature. You do not want to use it straight out of the fridge as the butter will be far too cold and the dough will be unworkable. Also, pre heat your oven to 350 degrees F.

6. Using an ice cream scoop to portion the slightly warmed dough, mound 6 scoops onto a parchment or tin foil lined baking sheet. Bake the scoops for approximately 15 to 18 minutes, checking every 30 seconds after the 15 minute mark. I found the cookies didn't spread very far and so judged level of doneness primarily by smell.

7. Cool the cookies on their baking trays for at least 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.

8. Consume any which way you'd like ( I'm thinking crumbled into some vanilla fro-yo). These cookies keep well in airtight containers for up to a week.