my ultimate choc chip cookie recipe
make a batch for your freezer this weekend and thank me later
What I’m reading: this newsletter from All Day Cake that is providing a very useful refresher to Swiss (and Italian and French) buttercream for my wedding cake adventures this week
What I’m listening to: Radio Cherry Bombe at the Ballymaloe Festival of Food, ft. Kerry Diamond and Irish agricultural “changemakers”
What I’m eating: dinner at the newly opened Dishoom Permit Room (below)
My big news this week is that I moved house!
I moved from a charming flat in Westbourne Park to a really cosy studio in White City. My old flat was objectively lovely: recently re-decorated kitchen, sunny terrace overlooking the canal, 10 minute walk to work - but its major downfall was one of the other tenants. I won’t go into too much detail but the main thing I learned from the last year or so living in Westbourne Park is that I’m too old (and life’s too short) to live with awful flatmates.
My new flat is an absolute dream. It’s a little studio - although I think it used to be a one-bed flat as there is a doorway entering the kitchen (but no door). It’s bright and spacious and there’s plenty of room to have friends to stay - but the best thing about it is that it’s all mine! No more hostile interactions in the kitchen, no more eating dinner in bed, no more passive aggressive texts! It’s too soon to say for sure, but I think this move might be life-changing.
The first order of business in my new flat (the day after moving and having a teeny tiny housewarming) was making a batch of emergency cookies for the freezer. If you’re new here, I’m a strong advocate for a cookie stash in the freezer, as it means that you are never more than 20 minutes away from a freshly baked cookie (allowing for baking time and oven preheating). This batch takes minutes to make, and the magic is that these cookies actually bake better from frozen.
I especially recommend baking a cookie if you’re feeling sad or tired or angry or hungry. You can bake a small batch if you’re having friends over, or a bigger batch to take to work if you feel like morale needs a little boosting. You can bake a batch and bring them over to the neighbours to curry favour. You can bake a few and wrap them up neatly in brown paper and ribbon to give to someone for their birthday if you’ve forgotten to buy them something. You can bake a few and sandwich ice-cream between them for an instant crowd-pleasing dessert (see below). The possibilities are legitimately endless.
I have posted this recipe before (here and on Instagram), but I’m not paywalling this one as I think it’s really important that everyone has a solid cookie recipe in their back pocket: consider it a public good. This is technically version 2.3 of my original cookie recipe, and it features brown butter, two sugars, two flours and milk choc only (because I think it makes a better cookie). There’s also a step where you make little choc shards to place on top of the cookies before baking, but this isn’t strictly essential - it’s mainly an aesthetic move. Save the recipe and make a batch this evening!
recipe: choc chip cookies (version 2.3)
Ingredients
250g brown butter - see below
205g dark brown sugar
250g caster
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt (3g)
1/2 tsp bicarb (3g)
1 tsp baking powder (6g)
1 tsp vanilla
175g plain flour
175g strong flour
325g milk choc, chopped
Maldon salt, to sprinkle
Method
Note: when browning butter, you lose 10-20% of the volume as the water content evaporates. I recommend browning around 280-300g here to produce 250g brown butter.
First, brown the butter: place in a saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Allow to boil until it starts to foam and rise, and the sound of bubbling will have almost stopped. At this point it should smell lovely and fragrant. Remove from the heat, weigh again and add more butter if necessary to bring back to 250g. Allow to cool for a few minutes.
Add both sugars and whisk for about a minute - it does not need to be aerated at all, just well combined. Add the eggs, and whisk. Add all dry ingredients and fold in. Add the chocolate, reserving 40g. Fold in, and refrigerate.
Melt the reserved 40g chocolate in the microwave or in a bain-marie, then pour onto a tray lined with a piece of baking paper, and use a palette knife to spread. Place this in the fridge until it has set, then break into shards.
Portion the cookies into 60g pieces, and flatten slightly. Place a few shards of chocolate on each one. Refrigerate again, or freeze - though if you freeze them, do try and bring them back to fridge temp before baking.
Bake at 160C for 12-14 mins, with a sprinkle of Maldon salt on top.
omg thank you so much for sharing! Your original is my go-to and I was due to make another batch this weekend, but I love a brown butter cookie too so can't wait to try this! 🙏
Controversial take, but a freezer cookie beats a gooey, just-out-of-oven cookie every time