Decadent, crispy on the outside and chewy inside chocolate chip cookies are any chocoholic’s dream. The bad news is there is no absolute formula available to make the perfect chocolate chip cookies each time. All recipes you browse through contain the same ingredients: butter, brown and white sugars, flour, baking soda and baking powder, eggs and chocolate chips.
Why then each recipe yields different shaped and textured cookies…..?
Is there really no solution to the problem….?
What makes your cookies go flat, unappealingly thin and expand way too much?
What makes your cookies stay thick, too fat and not expand into the desired shape and size?
What makes your cookies too cakey?
Well the answers to all these questions are pretty simple.
1-The right ratio and proportion of all the ingredients.
2-Temperature of the ingredients at the beginning of the recipe.
3-Wrong number of eggs and unnecessary addition of yolks.
4-The right amount and type of leavening agent.
5-Temperature difference in various cookie portions while going in the oven.
Too crucial is the temperature of ingredients to start off with. Make sure your butter, eggs and flour are at room temperature.
I prefer using salted butter for my cookies for they bring out a more pronounced flavour. Thus no extra salt added.
Next up, you do not have to use your electric beater to aerate the cookie batter. A rubber spatula is good enough. The right amount of brown sugar brings that nice chewy caramelised effect to the inside of your cookies. We are using baking soda that too under a teaspoon. Baking powder won’t work in this recipe.
To add some flavour and aroma to my fudgy chewy cookies I added a bit of butterscotch essence. This is purely optional but it gives a kick to your cookies and compliments the semisweet melting chocolate chunks well.
Finally as you scoop out the cookie dough on the baking tray make sure you leave an inch space all around each cookie ball so they don’t touch each other as they expand.
Once the cookie balls are scooped out on the tray, YOU MUST REFRIGERATE IT FOR AN HOUR. This is important to make sure your cookies bake off evenly. Once you chill them and the butter sets the cookie balls are nice and stiff, the temperature throughout the cookie portions will be uniform which will produce perfectly sized and shaped cookies. Not too thin and flat, not too thick and fat. Right out of the fridge pop the tray into the oven.
So what’s the wait for…? You have got a perfect recipe to enjoy your next cup of coffee with….Let’s get cracking!
- 100 grams butter, salted, softened at room temperature.
- 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1/4 teaspoon butterscotch essence (Optional)
- 1-1/4 cups flour
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chunks ( you may use chocolate chips, or bittersweet chocolate chunks)
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Cream together butter, brown and white sugars, using a rubber spatula. Mix in an egg and both vanilla and butterscotch essences.
- Now sift in the flour, cornstarch and baking soda into the butter mixture bowl. Finally fold in the chopped chocolate chunks.
- Scoop out cookie dough balls on the lined baking tray spaced an inch apart from all sides.
- Place the tray in the fridge for an hour and place it in a preheated oven right after the fridge, to bake at 150 degrees Celsius for 15-20 minutes.
- Leave the cookies to cool on the tray for 10 minutes. Then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
these are really awesome tips for choco chip cookies. thanks nazeeha khan.