This week’s recipe is an herbaceous take on possibly the most essential American sweet: the chocolate chip cookie! What could I possibly add to the conversation on this cookie? Leaves! Oh, and a ton of warm, toasty brown butter enhanced by an extra dose of dry milk powder, which makes an already toasty thing even toastier. If you’re at all bored of standard chocolate chip cookies (though really, how could you be?) I urge you to give these a shot. They’re chewy and chocolatey but with a beguiling undercurrent of savoriness that I think is really wonderful. I encourage you to make these with any chocolate you like. I tested them with a 70% cacao chocolate, but they’d be just as delicious with milk or white chocolate. For an extra-fancy upgrade, consider caramelizing some good-quality white chocolate in a low oven (or buy some pre-caramelized white chocolate, like Valrhona’s Dulcey). Whatever chocolate you use, make sure it’s something you’d be happy to eat by itself.
History
The chocolate chip cookie has probably the most famous origin story of any American sweet. As the story goes, dietician, cookbook author, and owner of the Toll House Inn, Ruth Wakefield, invented the cookie to diversify the selection of desserts available at the Toll House.
According to Wakefield, the chocolate chip cookie began as a simple variation of her butterscotch nut cookie. The addition of chopped chocolate, though certainly not unheard of at the time, was innovative when combined with the butterscotchy, slightly chewy brown sugar dough. I feel I should also address some alternate theories regarding the creation of this cookie. Some folks posit that the original recipe may have been an accident, either due to a lack of ingredients or a mistake in mixing. This, I think, is rather ridiculous. Considering that Ruth Wakefield has stated that the recipe was an intentional creation, these theories only serve to discredit her as a skilled baker and recipe developer.
Regardless of how they came about, the combination proved incredibly popular and led to a partnership between Wakefield and Swiss chocolate producer Nestlé, who began printing Wakefield’s recipe on their packaging and who eventually began manufacturing “Nestlé Toll House Morsels,” an extra convenient bag of chocolate that required no chopping. These morsels, of course, entered common parlance as the chocolate chip.
The Recipe: Rosemary & Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
280g (2 ⅓ cups) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon Morton kosher salt, or 1 ½ teaspoons Diamond Crystal
170g (1 ½ sticks, 12 tablespoons) unsalted butter
28g (¼ cup) nonfat dry milk powder
2 sprigs of rosemary
150g (¾ cup) granulated sugar
150g (¾ cup) brown sugar, light or dark
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
226g (8oz) chocolate of your choice, chopped into pieces of various sizes ranging from fine dust to ½ inch chunks
Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling (optional)
To make the cookies:
Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Place one stick of the butter in a medium saucepan and set the rest aside in a heatproof bowl. Set the saucepan over medium heat and, when the butter is melted, add the milk powder and one sprig of rosemary and stir with a flexible heatproof spatula. Continue cooking, scraping the bottom of the pot, until the powdery milk solids turn a toasty brown and the butter smells deliciously nutty. Remove from the heat, pluck out the rosemary stem, and immediately scrape the butter, browned bits, and any loose leaves of rosemary into the bowl with the remaining solid butter. Allow to sit for a minute or two, then stir together until the remaining butter melts and the whole mixture is just slightly warm. Finely chop the leaves of the remaining sprig of rosemary. Add the chopped rosemary, sugars, vanilla, and eggs, whisking vigorously until the mixture is smooth. Add the flour mixture and stir everything together with a spoon or flexible spatula until barely any dry flour remains in the bowl. Add the chopped chocolate and fold to incorporate.
Divide the dough into large balls of about 3 tablespoons. They should weigh about 60g and you should get around 15 in total. You can also make these any size you prefer, but be sure to adjust baking time accordingly. Once they’re divided, you have a choice to make. If you happen to be in favor of immediate gratification, you can bake these right away. However, I find that the flavor develops significantly after resting in the fridge. If you opt to go that route, just place the balls of dough on a plate, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 24 hours and up to 4 days. When you’re ready to bake, place the balls of dough on the sheet pans (6 per pan is ideal), sprinkle with salt if you like, and bake for about 10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are just beginning to turn golden. If you kept the dough in the fridge, note that they make take a minute or two longer to bake. Allow to cool on the pans for a few minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining balls of dough.
Resources:
Kieffer, Sarah. 100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More. Chronicle Books, 2020.
Parks, Stella, Santos Penny de los, and J. Kenji López-Alt. Bravetart: Iconic American Desserts. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2017.
Wyman, Carolyn. The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book. Woodstock, VT: The Countryman Press, 2014.
Michaud, Jon. “Sweet Morsels: A History of the Chocolate-Chip Cookie.” The New Yorker, December 19, 2013. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/sweet-morsels-a-history-of-the-chocolate-chip-cookie.
Sounds like a worthy competitor to a traditional chocolate chip cookie!