With as much time I spend meandering about the baking blogs, I've come across about a gazillion recipes that all look good enough to eat right off the screen and it feels like I'll NEVER have time to try them all- so I decided to have a cookie off and compare two recipes in one night! Plus- TWICE the goodies! YAY! Amy was a wonderful baking compadre (and she has a Kitchenaid, I'm just sayin...). She came armed with her best recipe courtesy of Thomas Keller a al Ad Hoc at Home. The book had some DELICIOUS looking recipes in there and she had tried the recipe before with a smaller, less accomplished mixer. I came armed with a recipe from My Baking Addiction for the Extraordinary Chocolate Chip Cookies. Jamie did not disappoint!
So she graciously let me start with my recipe. Nothing too extravagant in the recipe. The strange thing about chocolate chip cookies is that no recipe is really that far off from any other. All of the recipes have the same basics- butter, brown sugar, flour, sugar, chocolate chips, eggs, you get the idea). The key is in the ratios of all of the wonderful ingredients. I followed the recipe to a T being that it was the first time I was preparing it. I came up with some changes that I would make after tasting them. First things first though- they came out looking like I DID grab them off of the computer screen! It was insane. The taste was also surreal! The only small change I would make is to use either all salted butter, or one stick (of the two). This time was all unsalted and I think I would have like a bit more salt in there. I also would have mixed the chips better, used all dark chocolate chips (or at least part), and maybe a tinge less brown sugar- like one or two tablespoons less. These are all factors of taste though, so give it a go and make the changes you see fit.
Also worth noting: Amy has a wonderfully developed kitchen. I feel like my kitchen is a pre-teen girl going through "the change" and she doesn't quite have all of her confidence or her umm, fully developed equipment :) Amy's kitchen, on the other hand, is a mid 20's woman who's got all of her equipment in check and knows how to use it- especially her mixer. Man oh man! We got to break it in that night and it was quite a treat! Also? She has a cookie scoop. I never knew I needed a cookie scoop having used my hands to form cookies for the past 25 years. What a TREAT! Almost as much as the Kitchenaid! (Who am I kidding- there was no comparison! But it's nice to know that such a small tool can make baking so much easier) Another treat in Amy's kitchen? Silpat FTW!
After a mouth-watering dinner (Thanks Chris!!!) Amy moved into the ring for round two. I was in charge of reading the recipe from the book and played director. Her recipe called for cold butter (not a normal thing for baking since it adds more crunch), and some more delectable dark chocolate (60% and 72%). Let me tell you, the taste was divine. Absolutely untouchable. I definitely felt like I was eating cookies from an upscale chef at an upscale restaurant. It was how chocolate cookies should taste when they grow up! It was as if in this grown-up cookie the flavors aged so gracefully, while the cookies looked like they needed a little face lift (quite literally as they didn't have much leavening to them), but it's what's on the inside that counts folks! And that's exactly where these cookies ended up- on my inside- YUM! Maybe it was the cold butter that left them a smidge flatter than we would have hoped, but upon consumption, there was no question that Thomas Keller knows what he is doing.
My conclusion: If you like a traditional cookie, try Jamie's from My Baking Addiction. If you have a more refined palate- go big or go home and check out Thomas Keller's wonderful cookbook from his restaurant Ad Hoc. Oh, and I am SO very sorry about the lack of photos. I guess I'll have to force my self to do this again! Any takers? I would love to test out some more recipes!
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