Chewy Cookie Quest

On Thursday I caught up with my friend in town and we went to Moustache, a milk and cookie bar that’s been, rightly, all the rage lately. I decided to try the Oreo and marshmallow cookie – chocolate cookie imbedded with bits of crunchy Oreo biscuit and gooey marshmallow pieces (I know, I’m drooling a little just thinking about it). Like many others, I love my cookies to be chewy on the inside and crispy on the edges like the ones you get from the bakery, rather than rock-hard like the ones you get from the supermarket; that cookie was chewy, gooey, crispy and oh so delicious. And so sparked my cravings for more irregularly-shaped perfections of sugar, flour and butter and the beginnings of my endeavour to try and discover the right recipe.

As per usual, I found a popular, highly-rated recipe online: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/best-big-fat-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookie/ and I made some minor adjustments. I made 14 cookies out of:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 150g unsalted butter, softened – less than the 170g required but I didn’t have quite enough butter left and couldn’t be bothered going out just to buy butter
• 1 cup loosely packed brown sugar – reflecting my preference for less sweetness
• 1/2 grated palm sugar – instead of white sugar. See my shameless endorsement of palm sugar in my carrot cake post
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• A pinch or two of cinnamon
• 1 cup Whittaker’s 72% cocoa Dark Ghana chocolate slab chopped up into rough 1-3cm bits – replacing semisweet chocolate chips, reduced amount of chocolate as suggested by reviewers

I more or less went by the method as per the recipe, following these recommendations from reviewers:

1. Beat in the egg and egg yolk one at a time, making sure the egg was more or less incorporated into the mix before adding in the yolk
2. Refrigerated the dough for 45-50 mins before baking
3. Baked exactly for 15 minutes and took each batch out just as the edges were slightly toasted
4. Left the cookies to cool on the tray before transferring to wire rack
5. Hand mixed ingredients rather than used an electric beater
   

The reason I highlight the last point is because, unbeknownst to a complete beginner like me, this would make a huge difference in result between my first and second attempts at this recipe. The first time I tried this I used my electric hand mixer and my cookies turned out very cake-like; they were essentially flat muffins in both look and texture:

The second time I made these, I mixed everything by hand and this resulted in more cookie-like cookies:

Taste-wise they were great but after a night stored in an air-tight container, I’m still not 100% satisfied with the result. To reiterate, my goal is to find a recipe for cookies that are chewy on the inside and slightly crunchy on the edges. These cookies were the tiniest bit crunchy on the outside and then soft everywhere else. I’m not sure if it’s the way I’m storing it or something I did during the baking process but they’re still very nice cookies, despite not turning out how I had hoped.

I guess more reading and practice is in order – if anyone has any tips, I would be happy to hear them!