Cleaning Out My Pantry: The Chewy

You might be wondering -- where are the sisters?  This is the baking sisters blog after all, so more than one of us should be blogging.  All I can say is, I know, right?  Yooo hooo Rachel and Sarah.  Blog, blog, blog.

Anyway, I am getting ready to move to LA, which I am very excited about.  One of the things that comes with moving is cleaning out the pantry and fridge.  My previous post, about blueberry coffee cake, was one attempt to do that.  This is another.  I had about a quarter of a bag of bread flour.  I didn't want to make any bread produces because we still had 9 bagels from our trip to New York, as well as 2 loaves of whole wheat bread in the freezer, so bread did not seem like a practical baking activity.  

I had seen this Alton Brown cookie on a number of blogs and it had gotten good reviews, so I decided to go for it.  You see, it is made with bread flour, which would help me.  Instead of chocolate chips, I used by Jaques Torres chocolate disks.  I think this might have been a mistake.  The ratio of chocolate to cookie was off.  You know that I love, love chocolate, but I also love the cookie part and these felt like there was too much chocolate for the cookies.  However, the cookie dough was very tasty and I would try these again with chips.  I brought them to the last day of my adult education class and they got very good reviews, and the ratio of chocolate to cookie has not stopped me from eating them.  They are good, just not perfect.  I also thought they could have benefitted from a little salt on top, but really, what can't?

On a side note, this recipe suggests chilling the dough before scooping.  For all of you baking mavens, who I know are out there, what is the right amount of chilling to make the dough cold enough but not too hard?  After a couple of hours in the fridge, this dough was so hard I could barely scoop it.  Help!

You can find the recipe after the jump.

The Chewy

By Alton Brown of Food Network

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.