gourmet chocolate chip cookies

PART: 1

Good afternoon, friends! I apologize for the fairly late post... it's been a busy morning in the kitchen over here. My sister Jordan suggested that I attempt to make these ridiculously gourmet, delicious, super difficult chocolate chip cookies that she saw on another blog. (adapted from a Jacques Torres recipe) First I looked at the photos and just about died. Then I gave the recipe a quick glance and thought, "what am i, dean & deluca?" But last night I kept staring at that photo and today I couldn't help myself. And actually when I really READ through the recipe, it's not difficult, it's just a little unusual. (ps- MAJOR BAKING HINT #1: ALWAYS always always read the recipe all the way through before you just start throwing it all together, sometimes a little strange instruction will throw your whole mojo off and before you know it you've started making sugar cookie dough instead of your fabulous loaf of bread, or whatEVER it was that you started out making.) ANYWAYS, last night on my drive home to Charlotte, yes I'm back here again, I called mom and just asked if she wouldn't mind looking for chocolate baking discs while she was out. She AND Gege were both unsuccessful in their search. But this morning, we met dad at Starbucks and lo, he had a plastic bag full of 4 containers of my little chocolate discs! (thanks dad!) What a champion! I stopped at Harris Teeter and decided to just pick up some extra semi-sweet morsels, but I decided to try the Ghirardelli 60% cacao baking chips instead of my usual Tollhouse. GOOD CHOICE! Turns out, they're called BAKING CHIPS, but really, they're exactly the chocolate DISCS that we had been searching for the whole time. Didn't want to disappoint dad though after all his searching, so I MAJORLY deviated from the recipe- ha! Surprise! Also I'm going to be very honest and tell you I'm going to deviate from the recipe even more than changing a few things about the ingredients. The "trick" to this recipe supposedly, is that you're supposed to refrigerate the dough for 24 hours. Well, seeing as how my grandma is leaving town tomorrow morning, and also how I couldn't stop eating the raw dough, I am just NOT going to wait 24 hours. I'm going to wait 8. I'm sure the extra 2/3rds amount of time isn't actually worth anything. ;) But seriously, I don't know if I'm going to totally ruin these babies or if I'm going to discover the world's greatest, sneaky shortcut- so I'm going to take you on my journey! Tomorrow, I'll let you know how fabulous (or awful) they turned out at 10 pm tonight.

Ok so here's what you need:

• 2 cups minus 2 Tablespoons cake flour- i used Swans Down
• 1 & 2/3 cups bread flour
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 & 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 & 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt- i used coarse sea salt
• 2 & 1/2 sticks ( 1 & 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 & 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
• 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• About 21 ounces bittersweet chocolate discs, at least 60% cacao content- here's where I went haywire. Dad brought me "dipping chocolate" discs- dark, like the ones you melt for fondue. I used probably 10 oz of those and used the Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate baking chips for the other 11 oz. Who knows if when I bake these "dipping discs" whether or not they'll hold or melt all over the place and make my chocolate chip cookies CHOCOLATE chocolate chip cookies- we'll see haha!
• sea salt or fleur de sel for sprinkling

Here's what you do!

• Combine the cake flour, bread flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and whisk well. If you don't have a whisk, who cares, use a fork. We don't need to be unnecessarily fancy here. I just really love any excuse to use my whisk. :)

• Now cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy like.

• Now add the eggs, beating after each one, then add the vanilla extract and beat well.

• Now add your dry ingredients to the butter mixture, little by little. I messed up here as well. This is why I said earlier to really read through your recipe and instructions before just going for it. I mixed the dry ingredients in a much bigger bowl than I did for the butter mixture. You're supposed to add the DRY to the butter, but I didn't have that option, so I spooned in bits of the butter mixture into the dry ingredients bowl and mixed a little bit at a time. I think it turned out just fine. :)

• Now fold in your chocolate. I broke a few of those giant dipping discs with my hands before I put them in, but not all of them. I think it might just add a good textured look.

• Now place plastic wrap on top of the dough and press down to seal it all in.

• Refrigerate! Like I said, I'm literally only refrigerating mine for 1/3 of the called-for time. I don't know whether it'll be fine or not yet, so I'll just tell you for now to refrigerate the full 24 hours. :) The original recipe also says it's best not to refrigerate for longer than 72 hours. (how could you anyways after you've tasted the dough, my goodness!)

I wish I could tell you it's all going to be worth it but I can't! haha! I don't actually know! They might be the worst version of a chocolate chip cookie ever and not even WORTHY of being called that! BUT- they may just end up being the truly gourmet, chewy delicious treats that the photo SCREAMS that they are... tonight, I will find out. And tomorrow, I will tell all! (People magazine much?) But seriously, if anyone wants to go on this mystery adventure with me, make the dough now! Then you can actually refrigerate yours a decent amount of hours and tomorrow, when I tell you how fabulous they are even though I didn't wait as long as I should have, you can defrost that dough immediately and bake away, knowing that YOURS are going to be SIGNIFICANTLY more delicious than mine since you waited! WIN WIN people! Let's get baking!

On a completely unrelated, healthy eating note- I have a little suggestion for anyone who's bored with their normal salad, or who's looking for a healthier way to eat a sandwich. Let's pull out some giant lettuce leaves and use them! Instead of chopping up your lettuce and putting salad in a bowl, try laying out a few whole romaine leaves and filling them with your regular salad ingredients, chopped tomatoes, chick peas, olives, feta cheese, whatever! Then drizzle with some olive oil and balsamic- voila! Instead of putting your tuna or chicken salad between 2 slabs of white bread, fill up a big lettuce leaf, wrap it, and eat it! Hope this is a fun little tip- I really am healthy when I'm not making baked goods! :)

Love you guys! Also loving that you're all e-mailing and commenting on things you're trying and loving... let me know how I can be of help!

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND! xo