The Classic Cookie: A Reinvented Wheel

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “don’t reinvent the wheel.” I’ve heard it countless times, typically with undertones of frustration and likely, teasing. I’m assuming the reason this cliche has been tossed in my direction so many times is because I simply don’t understand it. Never will.

Do you know how many times the wheel has been reinvented? I’ll put this into perspective for you, the first wheel was invented in approximately 3500 B.C. (BEE STINKEN SEA). Since then, it has been CONSTANTLY reinvented. It wasn’t until 300 years after its original invention that someone, who was ‘reinventing the wheel’, figured out that they could use it for chariots. Chariots are now cars, guys. Look how far cars have come.

Point is, the wheel has been reinvented a gazillion-billion times. At the same time, the concept of the wheel is a classic one (sadly enough the hoverboard isn’t widely used just yet, Marty McFly is hogging that one, thanks buddy). Now parallel the idea of the wheel to the classic chocolate chip cookie.

At this point you know that I married a salsa snob. He’s also a cookie snob. There are no support groups for either. I’ve gone through so many recipes and tweaks to find the perfect cookie on the Seth scale. This is it. I made a promise to Kera, from Target, that I would share this recipe on the blog. Kera, if you’re out there, this one’s for you. (You can thank David Leite and the New York Times for this one).

Prep time for this is anywhere from 15 minutes to 6 days with 267, 45-minute intermissions (15 if you bake without your toddler and allowing your toddler to run the show on the opposite side of the spectrum).

Ingredients

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
• 1 ⅔ cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
• 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 ½ sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
• 1 ¼ cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 1 ¼ pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content or a bag of chocolate chips (10-12oz, depends on your sweet tooth)
• Sea salt

Directions

Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. Make sure you measure before you sift. When you sift flour, it measures a little more than it did originally, but that’s alright. I sift mine twice then set it aside.

Using a mixer with your paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until they’re very light, about 5 minutes. Add your eggs, one at a time. Make sure to mix well after each egg. Last, stir in the vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients, set it to low speed, and mix until just combined which is 10 to 15 seconds. Toss in your chocolate chips. If you’re using disks, drop them in and incorporate them without breaking them.

After you’ve mixed up your dough, you need to provide it with an adequate cool-off period (crim law joke, for you. I know it’s a bad one). I like to separate my dough with my cookie scoop, then I wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for 24 to 36 hours. The dough may be used in batches and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours. Because dough can be freezed for much, much longer than that, I like to pop the plastic-wrapped cookie scoops into a freezer bag/container and leave them in the freezer to be used on an ‘as-needed’ basis.

When you’re ready ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or use a nonstick baking mat if you don’t have a nonstick cookie sheet.

Roll some golf balls and place them onto the baking sheet, chocolate chip clumps, facing up. If you want a larger cookie (which face it, we all do), I stack a second scoop right on top of the first, pressing down lightly. Sprinkle a tad of sea salt on top and bake until golden brown but still soft, which is about 12-14 minutes for smaller golf balls and 14-18 for the larger ones (some ovens will take you up to 20). Transfer cookies to a wire rack for 10 minutes, or pull a Jessica and pop them right into your mouth. It’s worth the burns.

I’ve made more than 75 cookies today. I will not tell you how much cookie dough I’ve consumed. I’m perfectly content with not counting.

PS. Santa told me these were his favorite.