Candy or Cookie? You Be the Judge (Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle)
Hello? Why didn’t someone tell me it was National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day…a couple of days ago? Yep, I missed it. Well, I almost missed it. As I was doing my late-night perusal of Instagram, what should pop up on my feed? A luscious-looking pic of chocolate chip cookies with the banner shouting out “Happy National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day!”.
WHAAT?
Damn it. If I had just gone to sleep instead of taking that last look at my feed. So there I was at midnight, guilted into making chocolate chip cookies. I envisioned myself staying up another couple of hours, baking off sheets of cookies one at a time (yes, I can’t bring myself to bake two sheets at once). UGH.
Then I remembered a recipe I had been wanting to try from Shauna Sever’s Midwest Made. Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle. It starts with melted butter, yay, no waiting for butter to come to room temp. The batter can be made in one bowl with a wooden spoon (ok, and a whisk), the finished dough is then spread on a baking sheet and popped in the oven. ONE SHEET, that’s it.
I Am So Making Them
Surprisingly, the recipe calls for granulated sugar and no eggs. I double-checked the recipe, yep, no eggs, and no brown sugar. Hmmm, interesting, I apprehensively plowed on. It also started with melted butter, yay, no creaming.
I gathered the dry ingredients as the butter cooled and got out my 12×17 sided cookie sheet (classic 1/2 sheet pan). Added sugar to the cooled melted butter and beat until it formed a loose paste. Poured in the flour and vanilla, stirred to combine and followed with the toasted nuts (don’t skip toasting, 5-6 minutes in a 350-degree oven) and chocolate.
Not Gonna Lie
The worse part was spreading the dough in the pan. Don’t do what I did, which was plop all the dough in the center of the sheet pan. Spread it out a little so it is easier to cover the pan. You want the dough to be as even and thin as possible. The dough will be approximately the same thickness as the chips. I used Guittard’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate (ginormous) chips but almost any chip would work in this cookie, bittersweet, milk chocolate, or a combination. Likewise, walnuts would work in place of pecans.
The cookie baked in 22 minutes. Be extra vigilant towards the end as they brown pretty quickly. The recipe does not have brown sugar and calls for only granulated sugar. It’s important to bake it to nice toasty brown which results in a crisp, toffee flavored cookie. It’s addictive. Crunchy cookie base, oozy chocolate, and toasted nuts. It straddles the line between cookie and candy, another winner from Shauna Sever.
Chocolate Chip Cookie Brittle
Ingredients
- 1 cup (225 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 2 cups (256 g) all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 cup (170 g) chopped pecans lightly toasted, can sub walnuts
- 1 cup (170 g) bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chips 60% cacao
Instructions
- Position a rack to the center of the oven and preheat it to 350°F Have ready a 12 x 17-inch rimmed baking sheet. You do not need to grease or cover with parchment.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter and vanilla. Add the sugar and salt and continue to whisk until the mixture thickens and appears pastelike. Switch to a wooden spoon or spatula and mix in the flour. Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips.
- Press the mixture into the ungreased pan in a thin, even layer (use the chocolate chips as your height barometer—try to get them in as close to a single layer as possible throughout the dough, and you’ll have the right thickness). Alternatively, spread the dough in the pan, scatter chocolate chips and nuts on top and press into dough, leaing someexposed on top.
- Bake for 23 to 25 minutes (start checking at 20 minutes), or until light golden brown and the edges a bit darker than the center (mine were pretty uniformly brown ), rotate the pan 180 degrees every 7 to 8 minutes during baking. Let cool completely before breaking into irregular pieces. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week.