Thin, Crispy, Gooey, Chocolate Chip Cookies-Get It On, Bang a Pan
I have been a slouch when it comes to holiday cookies this year. LUCKY FOR ME, Jamie is home and baking up a storm…I get the difficult task of eating and posting about whatever deliciousness she has baked up.
I had all this planned of course. My copy of Sarah Kiefer’s 100 Cookies finally arrived which I then strategically left on the kitchen island in full view. Heh, heh, heh. The book is a beauty both in content and style.
She took the bait. Flipping through the book, Jamie landed on the Neopolitan Cookies exclaimed “so making these”. I kept nodding enthusiastically with every cookie she mentioned. We loved the Neapolitans, buttery, chewy, flavored with vanilla, strawberry, and cocoa. These are definitely going in the rotation. The Smores Bars were labor-intensive but worth the effort. Imagine a blondie base, coated with chocolate and topped with a layer of toasty homemade marshmallow fluff.
Despite the many CCC recipes we have, her Chocolate Chip Cookies and the pan banging technique proved irresistible. All we can say is make room for this bad boy in your chocolate chip cookie file, it’s that good. The cookies are thin, crisp-edged yet soft in the center. They’re dotted with chopped dark chocolate bits and finished with a sprinkle of Fleur de Sel. The dough is sweet so don’t skip the Fleur de sel and definitely use dark chocolate for balance.
You should be running to your kitchen now to make these.
Pan-banging
No, not headbanging which is what I have been doing all year, it’s been that kinda year. I first came across pan-banging in Sarabeth’s Bakery cookbook (a beautiful cookbook) Sarabeth’s Kitchen is a New York institution known for their breakfasts, jams, and baked goods. Her version of Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Clouds, calls for rapping the pan on the oven rack with a couple of minutes left in baking. This causes the cookies to deflate and develop their signature cracks. I adopted this rapping the pan for several of my drop cookie recipes including the Oatmeal Apricot Cookies from Dahlia Bakery. Love the way cracks and crevices look in drop cookies.
Sarah takes it to a whole new level, by repeatedly banging the pan in 2-minute intervals, you get these super cool circular ridges that look like a tree’s age rings. The cookies bake thin and flat, they spread quite a bit, so plan on about 5 cookies per baking sheet.
So take your 2020 aggressions out by making these pan banging chocolate chip cookies and end up with beastly cookies. Win-win.
Chocolate Chip Cookies (100 Cookies)
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (284 grams) Gold Medal AP Flour will give you better ridges
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ½ pound unsalted butter (227 grams) 2 sticks, room temperature
- 1 ½ cups granulated sugar (300 grams)
- ¼ cup brown sugar (55 grams) dark brown preferred
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate (170 grams) about 60 percent cacao solids, chopped into coarse pieces, bits and shards. We used TJ's Pound Plus Dark Chocolate
- Fleur de sel or Maldon Salt, for sprinkling
Instructions
- Adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
- In a small bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda and salt.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat the butter on medium until creamy about 1 minute. Add the granulated and brown sugars and beat on medium until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla and 2 tablespoons water, and mix on low to combine. Add the flour mixture, and mix on low until combined. Add the chocolate and mix on low into the batter. (At this point, the dough can be refrigerated for several hours or overnight.)
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Form the dough into 2.5 ounce (~70 gram) balls (#24 ice cream scoop 1/3 cup each). Place 4-5 balls an equal distance apart on pan.
- Place the baking sheet in the oven and bake 7 minutes, until the cookies are puffed slightly in the center. Lift the baking sheet and let it drop down against the oven rack, so the edges of the cookies set and the inside falls back down. (This will feel wrong, but trust me.) Bang it down, if necessary, to make the center fall.
- After the cookies puff up again, 2 minutes later, repeat lifting and dropping the pan. Repeat a few more times, every 2 minutes, to create ridges around the edge of the cookie. Bake 13 to 14 minutes total, until the cookies have spread out, and the edges are golden brown, but the centers are much lighter and not fully cooked.
- Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and sprinkle with Fleur de sel or Maldon salt. Let cool10-15 minutes before removing the cookies from the pan.
- Repeat with remaining cookies. Store in an airtight container.