Holiday Baking

A few weeks prior to the birth of Evelyn, our friends Nathan and Sara welcomed a beautiful baby boy. We visited them a few times during the weeks that we eagerly anticipated the arrival of our own little one. At the final visit, a couple days before Evie's birth, Nathan gave us a package of what may have been the most beautiful chocolate chip cookies I'd ever seen. They were huge, golden, and had a ton of chocolate chunks in them.

Fast forward a few weeks, and Nathan, Sara, and their little guy were coming to meet Evelyn. I asked about the cookies, sure that they purchased them in a local bakery and eager to connect with their source. Well, it turns out that Nathan made them! I had to get the recipe. Turns out that the recipe is one published by the New York Times. I found a link to the recipe on one of my favorite baking blogs, Cookie Madness (thanks Jenn, for getting me turned onto this blog!).

I've thought about that recipe so many times in the past 5 months, but figuring out how to manage both a baby and a batch of cookies baffled me for a while. Also, these puppies require at least 24 hours refrigeration of the dough prior to baking. Let's face it, folks, I am happy if I plan ahead for what I am having for lunch, so planning ahead for this recipe just wasn't happening.

Well, I finally got my act together! I made the dough a couple of days ago and am baking them tonight. I wanted to have a couple of plates ready for Christmas Eve, when we host a dinner at our house, and Christmas day, when we go to Mike's mom's house.

I had so much fun making these cookies. It may be because the baking experience is a bit different than my past chocolate chip cookie adventures (two kinds of flour! chocolate disks! sprinkle cookie with salt before baking!). It also may be that I am enjoying having a bit more time on my hands to bake, now that Evie is more independent in her play (or could it be the 7 o'clock bedtime that we just started, which makes me feel like I have so much more time in my day?). Regardless, these cookies are a baking adventure.

Here are some photos of the process. I don't have the fanciest of cameras or other equipment to create really pretty foodie pics, so excuse the amateur nature of these photos!

The batter, before adding the dry ingredients.

I mixed it for about 5 minutes at a pretty high speed,

resulting in a very fluffy consistency.

The batter, with the dry ingredients mixed in and ready for the chocolate chips.

I used Ghiradelli 60% cacao chips, and didn't bother hunting down the disks.

These chips are a bit more like a disk than your standard chocolate chip.

I used 3 ounces more chocolate than the recipe called for,

just because I was going to have a small amount of chips leftover.

Besides, a little extra chocolate never hurt anyone, right?

I also found that the batter alone was very salty.

However, once I added the chips, the chocolate really balanced out the saltiness.

(sorry for the novel)

BTW, I fully appreciate the irony of using a Weight Watchers scale to measure out the ingredients for these bad boys.

The batter, ready to refrigerate.

I ended up refrigerating mine for just about 48 hours.

The first batch in the oven (above),

and midway through baking (below)

These are the first two batches that I baked.

The recipe called for

"making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie".

I forgot to do that on the batch above, but remembered on the batch below.

I don't know if the pictures do it justice, but turning the pieces really did make for a much more attractive cookie.

Is your mouth watering yet?

The cookies got progressively bigger as I baked them.

The last cookie measured about 5 1/2 inches in diameter.

I had Mike do a taste test between a salted and non-salted cookie. He liked them both equally, but said that the salted one tasted a little more "peanuty". About 2/3 of the way through baking these cookies, I figured out that I could easily bake for a bit less time and have them turn out much prettier and chewier. If you made it this far, and didn't get sucked in browsing the Cookie Madness blog I linked to earlier, here is a direct link to the NY Times recipe. Just click here.