Recipes and tips for National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
Dylan Hollis shares his recipes for both sweet treats.
Grab your mixing bowls and baking sheets because we're celebrating National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day with two recipes to satisfy both crispy and chewy cookie lovers alike.
Digital creator Maria Provenzano and TikTok star-turned-cookbook author Dylan Hollis joined "Good Morning America" on Friday to sweeten up the set with two variations of classic chocolate chip cookies and tips to always achieve any desired texture, from soft and fluffy to thin and crunchy.
Potato Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes 2 dozen
Prep: 1 hour 20 minutes
Cook: 15 minutes
Ingredients
3/4 cup (170 grams) butter, melted
3/4 cup (165 grams) packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (8 ounces/230 grams) bag of ruffled potato chips, crushed (4 cups crushed), divided
2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (255 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
Directions
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Mix in half the crushed potato chips.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold this into the creamed mixture, then fold in the chocolate chips.
Crush the remaining potato chips to a finer crumb and set aside.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Form the dough into rounded tablespoons and roll in the remaining potato chips.
Place formed dough on a greased baking sheet and bake for 11 to 15 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies begin to brown (the higher end of the 11-15 minutes).
Tips for crispy cookies
Use melted butter instead of room temperature butter. Combine as normal. Always use butter over any vegetable shortening for crispy cookies! Butter melts at a lower temperature than shortening, and will result in a flatter cookie. The extra sugars and fat in the potato chips, and the chocolate chips themselves, will make for an epically crispy cookie!
Baking soda is the best leavener for crispy cookies, as it contributes to faster browning. I've added an extra 1/4 teaspoon to this recipe compared to the cookbook version to make it extra crispy. (Related: If you have a cookie recipe that uses baking powder but want the result to be crispy, you can replace it with 1/3 teaspoon of baking soda per teaspoon of baking powder.
Do not chill your dough. Chilled dough spreads slower in the oven, and results in a thicker, chewier cookie.
Replace brown sugar with white sugar, or use a higher proportion of white sugar to brown sugar. Brown sugar contributes moisture and chewiness to cookies.
Add 1-2 tablespoons of corn syrup or maple syrup to your cookie dough during whatever step the sugar is called for. This aids in a more robust caramelisation.
Omit or reduce eggs. Eggs bring a lot of fluffiness and volume to baked goods, and leaving them out will result in more crispness. Lost moisture may be replaced by a tablespoon or two of milk, but often is not needed.
Reduce the recipe's oven temperature by 25 degrees and increase the baking time. This allows the dough to spread out more before the structure of your cookie is set.
Excerpted from "Baking Yesteryear," reprinted by permission of DK, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2023 by B. Dylan Hollis.
Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Provenzano's upgrade browns the milk solids of butter before combining ingredients to add a deeply nutty and caramel flavor to the classic chocolate chip cookie everyone knows and loves.
"The process is simple: Place the butter in a skillet -- you could use a pot as well but I like the control I have with a skillet -- and allow the butter to melt," she said. "Once it's melted, start to swirl it around by holding the handle of the skillet and making circle motions, not by using a spatula or spoon."
"Keep swirling until it starts to look golden. Then, remove it from the heat and continue to swirl for another 30 seconds-ish and pour it into another bowl to cool," Provenzano instructed. "The butter can go from golden to burnt really fast, so once you see it start to turn golden you are good."
While she typically doesn't go for recipes that require her to refrigerate the dough, she said "the flow of this recipe works because you don't have to wait for the butter to come to room temperature -- and the refrigeration helps make these cookies set up and bake really nice."
Ingredients
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar (I like using dark, but either dark or light brown sugar is good)
1 egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 heaping cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate; chocolate chips can be used as well but I would do 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips; I also like doing half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate.
Flakey sea salt for topping, optional
Directions
Place the butter into a small skillet over medium-high heat. As the butter melts, begin to swirl it around. Continue to cook and swirl until it starts to become slightly golden, then remove from heat and continue to swirl a bit longer. It can go from brown to burnt pretty fast.
Quickly pour the butter into a separate bowl once it's perfectly golden so that it doesn't continue to cook in the pan.
Once the butter has cooled, pour it into the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (or a hand mixer can be used as well).
With the mixer on low, pour in the sugar and brown sugar, making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl every so often. Stir on medium speed until the mixture is well combined and lighter in texture.
Stir in the egg and vanilla with the mixture on low, and mix until well combined.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Use a whisk to mix them together well.
With the mixture on low, slowly pour the flour into butter/sugar mixture and mix until just combined.
Stir in the chocolate until evenly mixed, scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is mixed in being careful not to overmix.
Use a cookie scoop (or two spoons) to scoop out the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper; you can make them any size you like, but I do the size of about 2 tablespoons, if making them smaller or larger, make sure to adjust the baking time.
Place the scooped dough onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper or parchment paper and place it in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
Evenly space the cookies out onto a baking sheet so they are at least a couple of inches away from each other. Sprinkle each scoop with sea salt (optional).
Bake for 10-12 minutes, depending on their size, until the edges are starting to become golden.
Allow to cool and enjoy.
Tips for Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
Use unsalted butter. Since I like to top these with some extra sea salt, I want to make sure to control the amount of salt that's in the cookies. Use kosher salt for the perfect level of salt to balance the sweetness in the dough.
Don't use burnt butter. If the butter overcooks, you have to start over, sorry!
I like using 00 Italian flour to make these light, yet chewy, but regular all-purpose flour works as well.
Refrigerate the dough while the oven heats up. It helps the dough set up. I usually don't like this step with other recipes, but since we are using melted butter it is necessary for the structure of the cookies.
Make these ahead and keep in the fridge or freezer!
Top with flakey sea salt. This is optional but totally worth it. The crunch of the salt is so lovely with the chocolate.
Use fancy chocolate when you can. I used Valrhona chocolate and did a mix of dark and milk and it was TOTALLY worth it!
Chocolate chips can be used instead of chopped chocolate. You might need an extra 1/2 cup since it doesn't pack down as much as the chopped chocolate does.
Baking tips for chewy cookies
The secret to the depth of flavor is the brown butter, but this also helps to create a chewy cookie. When I want to be fancy, I use the Italian 00 flour because it's the same flour used to make pasta and pizza, this also helps with making it chewy and tender at the same time.
I also recommend using chopped chocolate instead of the chips because it spreads the chocolate out throughout the cookie.
The real secret is to let the dough rest in the fridge. It doesn't have to be for a super long time, just about 20 minutes while the oven heats up. Then bake!
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