Being that I am now jobless, I spend a lot more time baking, or at least thinking about baking. I went to the bookstore about a week ago, just to waste time. I browsed the cooking section [shocker] and came upon a book titled "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread." Well, being that I am a sucker for anything with my name in the title, I had to take a peek. It turned out to be a collection of recipes from a bakery in New York City, called Amy's Bread. I found a few recipes that looked like things I could easily do, plus I loved that the book gave you a history of each recipe, and a tutorial at the beginning of each chapter or section. This recipe is from that cookbook, and it has such a great story.
"Amy tried half a dozen recipes for double chocolate chip cookies, but none of them quite matched the cookie she had in her imagination. So she took the best qualities from each of her tests and finally came up with this winner. Not too sweet, crunchy on the edges, moist and chewy in the middle - this cookie fills your mouth with the flavor of deep dark chocolate, melted butter, and a hint of toasted pecans from the first bite...Sadly, we no longer sell double chocolate chip cookies in our cafes. Their delicate texture made them too fragile to transport to our other retail locations safely, so a lot of them were broken when they arrived."
--from the recipe for Double Chocolate Chip Cookies, "The Sweeter Side of Amy's Bread"
Ingredients:
1 5/8 cups Unbleached all purpose flour
3/8 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp Kosher salt
2 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup pecans, toasted, chopped
Directions:
- Position one rack in the top third of the oven, one rack in the bottom third of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line the cookies sheets with baking parchment.
- In a bowl, add the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt and whisk together.
- In a glass bowl, melt 1 1/2 cups of the chocolate chip in a microwave oven at 50% power for 3 mins. Stir them to make them smooth, then set aside to cool.
- In another bowl, using an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars on medium speed for 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. Pour in the melted chocolate and continue mixing until the mixture is uniform in color. The chocolate should be pourable but not hot, or the butter will melt. Gradually add the eggs and the vanilla, mixing until everything is well combined.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the dry ingredients in stages. Mix only until everything is well combined. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl frequently. There should not be any pockets of dry flour left in the dough. Add the remaining chocolate chips and the pecans and continue mixing at low speed until the chips and nuts are evenly distributed. Chill the dough in the refrigerator until it is firm but not hard.
- Using a large soup spoon, a metal ice cream scoop, or your clean hands moistened with water, scoop out big balls of dough, placing 6 balls on each prepared cookie sheet. Each ball of dough should weigh approximately 90 g/3.17 oz each. If you don't have a scale, use a scant 1/2 cup to estimate the size. The dough balls should be about 2 1/4 inches in diameter. Press each ball very lightly on the top, just to level the top of the ball. Do not flatten the ball. Bake the cookies for about 18-20 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets halfway through the baking time. These cookies will spread a lot during baking. They should be just set when done.
- Cool the cookies on the sheets for 5 minutes, then move them to a rack and cool completely before serving.