First things first: I like cookies. I mean, I really like cookies. I can (and have) eaten an entire package of Oreos in a single sitting. However, not all cookies are created equally—not by a long shot. There are a whole lot of cookies out there which suck, and it doesn’t matter who makes them or what techniques are used because the suckage of those cookies is inherent to their being. Looking at you, shortbread, macaroons, and meringue cookies. What makes an excellent cookie? Well, chocolate isn’t necessarily a requirement, but it’s a damned good head start. These cookies have chocolate in spades.
A caveat before we get started: The recipe calls for toffee chips, but I had a bunch of mini Heath bars that needed to be disposed of, so I just put them in a freezer bag and smashed them with a meat tenderizer. It also calls for chocolate bars, but I had a bunch of Hershey’s Nuggets with Almonds. Sue me.
Here’s what you’ll need:
2 Cups Flour
1 tsp. Baking Soda
½ tsp. Salt
½ Cup Butter, very soft
1 Cup Brown Sugar, packed
½ Cup White Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 Eggs
1 Pkg. Chocolate Chips
1 Pkg. Toffee Chips
2 Lg. Chocolate Bars, cut into ½” chunks
Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream the butter while adding the white sugar first in a steady stream. Do not, do not, DO NOT just dump the sugar in there. This shit matters and it has a huge impact on the texture. After the white sugar has been added, add the brown sugar a tablespoon at a time until fully incorporated.
Add the eggs to the creamed butter mixture, one at a time. Then add the vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Turn down the mixer to low speed and gently add the flour mixture, the chocolate chips, toffee chips and cut up chocolate bars. The dough should be quite stiff, but not overmixed.
Drop the dough by the heaping tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet, or a cookie sheet with parchment. Generally speaking, when it comes to most cookie recipes, they have enough fat content in them to make greasing the cookie sheet unnecessary—and any extra grease will also scorch in the oven and alter the taste of the cookies, so just don’t do it.
Bake for roughly 11 minutes at 350 degrees, depending on how your oven bakes. The cookies should be lightly browned, but not completely browned. Pro tip: As with most baked items, they continue to cook even when they come out of the oven. This is due to a boring physics property called “heat lag”, but all it really means is that if you bake something until it “looks” done, you will have actually overbaked it. When you’re talking about a 4-pound roast, it’s important, but when you’re talking about a 2-ounce cookie, it’s critical. So, while there may be areas of cookies that look too light, if there are ridges and edges of the cookie that look golden to light brown, then you’re in good shape.
Let the cookies sit on the cookie sheet for 2-4 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack. This is so that the cookies can set so you don’t tear them apart when transferring them to the cooling rack, but also so they can finish cooking while sitting on the hot cookie sheet.
There is enough dough to require 3-4 baking cycles, so while the 2nd pan of cookies is baking, test ONE of the baked cookies for doneness. If it feels too crunchy, then back off your cooking time by a minute or two. If it feels, and tastes, too doughy, then bake them for an extra minute or two. Please don’t tell me you couldn’t figure out after that first test cookie whether it was good or not. As the Dread Pirate Roberts once said, “we are men of action—lies do not become us.”
Serve with milk, of course.
Oh my – don’t they just look delicious. And not to be made in the Blacksmith household, unless hidden and parceled out in small increments. So this: Do not, do not, DO NOT just dump the sugar in there – gracious sakes alive, I am so guilty of that. I will, hence forth, adhere to the Butcher baking rule.
There will be a noticeable difference in the texture of the dough and the cookies when you add the sugar that way. It allows the sugar to more thoroughly and evenly absorb the sugar, which then has an impact on how the sugar caramelizes in the oven, which has an impact on the color of the cookies. You might even find that your baking times change a wee bit compared to the ol’ dump-it-in-who-gives-a-fuck method.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker ahem, the tried and true ol’ dump-it-in-who-gives-a-fuck method. Le sigh – I will do your way from now on – because I listen to the pros!
Huh. I knew about creaming butter and sugar, but I didn’t know to add sugar slowly. Noted.
The best thing about this recipe is that it’s a delicious cookie recipe. But the second-best thing is you reiterated the “heat lag” phenomenon. This is why many recipes, including my own, tell you to take something out of the oven or off the stove and “let it rest” or “let it cool for a few minutes”. It’s not resting, and it is cooling somewhat, but it’s continuing to cook a little bit and if it’s liquid-y will firm up. This is not widely understood, I don’t think. It is a very valuable cooking principle to know.
I’m one of those people who can’t simply accept a suggestion, or follow a rule, unless I know there is a real reason behind it. Otherwise, it just seems arbitrary and therefore not worth following–which has probably landed me on the wrong side of an argument more than is healthy. So, I explain stuff like that mostly due to my own goofy compulsion.
These look delicious but I don’t trust your judgment considering you said shortbread, macaroons, and meringues suck! All three are wonderful cookies. I guess I’ll have to make these myself to be sure.
There are certain immutable truths in this universe. Water will always seek its level. Death is inevitable. The Earth revolves around the Sun. Shortbread, macaroons and meringue cookies suck. I didn’t write the rules–I only follow them.
@butcherbakertoiletrymaker What about amaretti cookies? They’re sort of a combination of a macaroon and a meringue and incredible!
Touting the dubious qualities of a combination of a macaroon and a meringue, is like saying that combining horse shit and pig shit makes a more palatable form of shit.
Oh I hope Stanley Tucci discusses the joys of Amaretti! Maybe he can convince you.
@Hannibal, there are not one, but two, French Patisseries in our small town, which bake beautiful macaroons (one of the pastry chefs was awarded the Chevalier de l’Ordre du Merite Agricole). Macaroons are good, but my low-brow tastes lean more toward a Toll House cookie anytime, anyway.
@Elliecoo Do you mean French macarons? I was talking about coconut macaroons. I like macarons but they are a bit precious.
@Hannibal, duh, I did mean the French, colorful cookie! I like coconut macaroons…
I am going to side with Butcher somewhat, as a producer and a consumer. I mentioned somewhere that meringue is seldom worth making, the effort pays so few dividends, so best avoided. Macaroons are a huge pain in the ass to make, plus a few years ago they acquired this trendy, twee following (“macarons,” the French spelling and pronunciation is key), that has only gotten worse as the pandemic set in and bored people decided that when they took a break from learning how to make their own bread they should attempt macarons. I like to eat them, though, and will seldom turn one down. I’ve never attempted shortbread, and encounter it rarely, because I do not patronize “William the Bruce’s Bakery Shoppe,” or whatever. I have made scones, though, and those can be fairly easy.
Macarons are the French cookie. Macaroons are the coconut cookie at every Jewish holiday gathering. I enjoy both, though macarons are usually too expensive for what they are (enjoyable, but not like the best cookie ever).
Whoops, I somehow didn’t see Hannibal’s clarification before posting. Excuse my superfluous post.
I’m with you. That’s a bad opinion. I love all three of those. However, these cookies do look delightful.
Thank you!
@ MatthewCrawley As I mentioned to @Elliecoo I was referring to coconut macaroons, not the French macarons. They are two completely different cookies. It surprises me that you don’t think meringue is worth the effort, I think as a pie topping , and lemon pie without it isn’t the same, and a cookie both are very easy. The latter could be considered more of a confection than a cookie though.
I apologize, I worded my response in a very ambiguous way. Yes, the macaroon and the more freewheeling macaron are different. I effortlessly and without warning slid from macaroons to pandemic-induced macaron obsession.
As far as meringue goes: have you ever made a Baked Alaska? I have, two or three times, but I gave up on meringue and now top with a chocolate sauce (and chill) instead. Here’s the first recipe that google gifted me with:
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/food-network-kitchen/baked-alaska-recipe-2125603
I used to make Baked Alaskas when I worked at a hotel at Denali National Park. We had a bunch of Everclear on hand so we could light them on fire for the servers to take out to the tables. One of the guys I worked with would always do a “one for the dessert and one for me” bit with the Everclear. By the end of each shift he was toast.
I have made Baked Alaska but not for many years. I’m not crazy about ice cream, a fact that often makes people gasp.
I hope you could hear my gasp though your screen.
Lol, everyone reacts that way.
Wait, so you like garbage cookies, AND you’re not wild about ice cream?! It’s like I don’t even know you.
It’s okay, I don’t hate it but I never got the appeal, even as a child I preferred popsicles to ice cream cones. I could go the rest of my life never having it again and I wouldn’t miss it. Oddly enough tomorrow’s Happy Hour is about ice cream.
I will say that Dreamsicles are proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
So this looks really similar to a recipe my grandma made when I was a kid but never got from her before she passed away years ago.
However – she used crushed up Skor bars instead of Heath bars and I think that’s a crucial improvement.
You know how I feel about people who hate the foods I love?
MORE
FOR
ME
BITCHES