Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Island Style Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

 
 
I love chocolate chip cookie dough.    Seldom do I make chocolate chip cookies.    Primarily because I want to put the dough in a bowl in the microwave until melty and then shovel it in my mouth with a spoon.    
 
There's another issue.     I've pretty much always been a chocolate chip cookie failure.     The cookies always spread real thin.  Or look overcooked.   Or look undercooked.    In Colorado I also blamed it on the altitude...even when I tried high altitude recipes.
 
Now that I'm at sea level I don't have that excuse.    I've also noticed a trend on the food blogs that I follow and that's of using corn starch to create "soft batch" style cookies.     And since labeling myself as a chocolate chip cookie quitter is NOT something I'm willing to do - it was time to try again.      I used the base recipe from Averie Cooks for her Chocolate Chip and Chunk Cookies.  The recipe (and her blog in general) is awesome.  Lots of chocolate is key - you want your friends to say "Are you sure you put enough chocolate chips in these?"  I island-styled these by adding coconut and chopped mac nuts as well.   
 
I have now moved from chocolate chip cookie failure to success!
 
What You Need
 
3/4 cup of butter/margarine (I used margarine), softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 12oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup of dry roasted macadamia nuts with sea salt, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup shredded, sweetened coconut
 
What You Do
 
Combine the flour, starch and soda in a medium bowl and whisk with a fork.   
In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter until fluffy.    Keep that fluffy trend going by adding the sugars and beating for 3 minutes (I actually timed myself since I figured my odds of success were greater if I really did follow the recipe).    Add in egg and vanilla. 
 
Add in the flour mixture and beat for one more minute.     Stir in the chocolate chips, mac nuts and coconut.    I think one of the keys to success in Averie's recipe is scooping the cookies and the chilling them for at least 2 hours.   It really helped to keep the cookies in a nice dense shape rather than spreading all over the place.   I used a small cookie scoop and made 3 dozen cookies (they were about 2 inches wide when baked).
 
Once your dough has chilled for 2+ hours, preheat oven to 350.   Line your baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.    I put nine cookies on a pan and baked them for 8 minutes (4 minutes and then rotated the pan for another 4).     Let them cool on the cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes and then on a cooling rack until you've either eaten them all or they've actually cooled and you can put them in an airtight container.   
 
 
What's your most recent recipe success?

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