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ClaireMere
This is not heresy! I have posted my current recipe for the Chocolate Chip Cookie in my Kitchen since I seek only to bring new horizons to other devotees of the art. I thought I'd mention it here since it's worth your time to look at the Times article that really got me to codify the thing. I got this down to a science in the last weeks of my pregnancy and want to share the wealth.
I feel like the new recipe I have reflects how much my tastes have changed as an adult: bittersweet chocolate, organic sugar, two kinds of flour (both unbleached!) and so forth. The resulting cookie is much more complex, darker in flavor than the original. My mom brought us some original recipe cookies a few months ago and I found them wanting! (But then again, her baking is a haphazard thing!)
Does anyone else do variations on this cookie? Suggestions? Comments? Imprecations? Threats? Paeans?
I must tell you that I follow the Tollhouse recipe to the letter like a twisted devotee. There is an episode of Friends in which Phoebe embarks on a desperate mission to recover her grandmother's lost cookie recipe. You can probably guess the end: it is the Tollhouse recipe.
HOWEVER. I am familiar with the Times article you reference, and while inspired, I did not act. Now methinks I will. I like the idea of the mixed flour. Very interesting. I also like the idea of making reserve logs—this has never occurred to me and has been a persistent problem. I always make 1/4 batch, which is a royal pain to do the division. And of course it never comes out quite right. But now I will FREEZE the remainder!
Also. Why must I beat one egg in at a time?
Yes, the frozen log - so simple, so elegant a solution. I imagine it's like being an Inuit and heaving a frozen whale carcass on the rood - you just hack at it all winter. Voila - fresh delicious goodness.
Kim has been experimenting with flours for a few years (since she made the connexion between her psoriasis and bleached products - a common issue). I'm just getting started and it's really neat. King Arthur sells little 2 pound sacks of most of their products so I take advantage!
Re: beating in eggs one at a time. One secret to really good cookies (and certain other baked goods - not all, though) is proper incorporation of ingredients. Beating the ROOM TEMPERATURE butter with the sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy makes a big difference in the quality of the cookie. Adding one egg at a time makes certain that the mixture is completely infused with all of the components. Small details, it turns out, make for a superior baked good!
About the butter. If you admit to yourself that you're going to make a batch of cookies, you'll be more likely to get the butter out ahead of time and go about your day, returning to properly soft butter (and two eggs if you can swing that, too). The guerrilla "I'm suddenly and desperately making SIX cookies!" method obviously precludes this. Confession is good for the soul.
"I'm suddenly and desperately making SIX cookies!"
Have you been listening to my thoughts??
Because I have been you and thought that exact thought many MA winters.