Part 1 – Monday This will be a 3 part post as there will be an experiment ran @24 hrs.
If you haven’t heard I am totally fascinated by Deb over at Smitten Kitchen. I follow her on twitter, I get RSS feeds from her website, she’s a contact of mine on Flickr and I would try just about anything she has cooked. The other day she posted leite’s consummate chocolate chip cookie. Her post was based on an article “Quest for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie: Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret” in The New York Times by David Leite. I have never even heard of David Leite and maybe that’s a bad thing that should be resolved! So off to Google I go. He has a website full of tips and tricks, recipes and so much more I could spend days here. David also has a wikipedia entry, although it is short.
So I start the research and the quest for good quality chocolate disc and end the day rather sad. While I don’t mind paying a fair price for good ingredients I am just saddened that there is no where local to find such treats. Online I can find 2.2 lb bags of disc in the $30 price range but that doesn’t include shipping, and really is shipping chocolate a good idea? I mean tempering is such an important thing that having my chocolate get possibly hot then possibly frozen on my door step makes me cringe at the thought of paying 3o bucks to make 2 batches of cookies. In the article references are made to names like Callebaut, Valrhona and Mr. Torres’ own line of chocolate. When one is stuck here in middle America there are only a few choices here, you can order stuff online and wait, you can make a trip to the nearest METRO area or you can substitute the best you can find and go from there. I have opted for best I can find; Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Baking chips. I would really like to get my hands on these 72% Cacao Gourmet Baking Chips. While I was at Walmart I decided to pickup some replacement baking items. I have always been amazed at how people will buy baking soda, baking powder, and such items leaving them in the cabinet until they run out many years later. 🙂
Ok so the making of the dough begins 🙂
Sift the dry ingredients AKA: MAKE A HUGE POWEDERY MESS in your kitchen.
Interesting thing about this recipe is that it calls for unsalted butter. Honestly I have never worked with unsalted butter but it did seem different. You are to cream the butter and sugars together till “fluffy” which is something like 5 minutes. Oh look at my Kitchen Aid going to town.
Add your eggs one at a time mixing for about 10 seconds after each one, put in your vanilla. Today was the first time I used my REAL Mexican Vanilla, wow it smells amazing! Now you must add your dry ingredients. This too is AKA: MAKE A HUGE POWEDERY MESS in your kitchen. Important warning DO NOT OVER MIX! You just want to incorporate the dry ingredients not beat them up! Ok finally the moment you were waiting for. Add the chocolate chips, so here I just cheated by adding both bags. Really 23 oz vs 20 oz. Who wants to measure? What do you do with 3 oz of choc chips? Yeah just toss them in. Now stirring this in by had would of been better but if you are careful you can use the mixer and not break too many of the chips.
And here it is my soon to be sleeping beauty
Push the plastic wrap directly on to the dough and refrigerate for 24-72 hours. And now we must wait till tomorrow for more of the story.
The ingredients:
2 cups minus 2 tablespoons(8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
1 1/4 pounds bittersweet disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content
Sea salt.
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