A New Take on Chocolate Chip Cookies
Thousand-Layer Chocolate Chip Cookies
We received The Newlywed Cookbook as a wedding gift and so far it has been one of my favorites! When going through all of the recipes this one stood out above all the others (and this book has some amazing ideas). Here is a new take on an old favorite!
Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted room temperature butter (organic is best)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar (I like C&H Baker's Sugar)
4 egg yolks at room temperature (organic is best)
plus 1 whole egg lightly beaten for brushing the cookies before baking
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (the good stuff!)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I like using King Arthur Flour)
plus more for dusting
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt (I actually used Kosher)
9 oz high-quality bittersweet chocolate
1/4 tsp fleur de sel
*Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Make sure to use a separate oven thermometer to be exact. Not all ovens are created equal.... mine is regularly 25 degrees off!
*Cream the butter and sugar on medium/high until light and fluffy. In the book it actually recommends doing this for about 3 minutes
*Beat in the egg yolks two at a time and then the vanilla.
*Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir it into the butter mixture on low speed JUST until it is incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is well mixed.
This is what the fluffiness looked like.
*Divide the dough into 3 sections.
*Wrap these section in plastic wrap and flatten out to about a 4-by-6 rectangle. Refrigerate until well chilled.... about 30 minutes. I made mine on a pretty hot day so it took mine about 40 minutes to nicely chill.
*Meanwhile!! Coarsely chop your chocolate. I left some bigger pieces because that's how I would like it. I was very excited this recipe called for this kind of chocolate because it doesn't have stabilizers in it which makes for a much better product. I used
bittersweet chocolate. In the book they say to use a serrated knife, which I tried, but found using a regular chopping knife worked better for me.
*When the dough is chilled place one layer on a lightly floured surface.
*Cover it with half of the chopped chocolate.
*Place another layer on top of the chocolate and follow that up with the rest of the chocolate. Top it all with the final layer of dough.
*Using a floured rolling pin.... lightly roll this tower of amazingness to about a 9-by 6-inch rectangle that is about 1 1/2 in thick. (I know... crazy huh?)
*Using a 2 inch round cookie cutter or biscuit cutter, cut out however many cookies you can (the recipe said you get about 10.... I had more) and place onto a cookies sheet that is lined with parchment/baking paper.
*Then gather the left over scrapes and cut out more cookies until there is no more dough to gather. The recipe says that you get about 20 cookies altogether (I had a few more than that).
*When gathering the dough back together.... make sure to do it lightly so that you do not overwork the dough.
*When placing the cookies onto the sheet make sure you leave them enough room to spread. Lightly brush the tops with the beaten egg. This makes for a very nice top to the cookie AND gives the salt something to stick on.
*Lightly sprinkle a little fleur de sel over each cookie. This gives the cookies a wonderful balance of flavor and great crunch for texture when taking a bite.
*Bake at 375 degrees for about 12 minutes. These cookies have a slight crunch on the outside and are softer on the inside. If you like a really soft cookie then I recommend baking them at 350 degrees. I did try some at this temperature and they were great.... definitely a lot softer though.
*Let the cookies cool for about 3 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer onto a cooking rack. (Note: if you are using a the same baking sheet for another batch.... make sure that it cools completely. You do not want to start baking the dough on a sheet that is already hot.)
I really had fun making this recipe and I hope you do as well! I will be testing other recipes from this book and will provide a review on this cookbook...... so stay tuned for that!!