Those Fancy NYT Cookies from Pinterest

I continuously see this pin floating around pinterest for these New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Well yesterday I had to leave work suddenly with a migraine and, since finding a sub last minute is a hassle, three of my co-workers covered my classes for me.  There is nothing more horrible than when a fellow co-worker comes to you with watery eyes and says "Can you do me a favor?" And there goes your planning period.  So I thought I'd make it up to them by bringing everyone cookies. You can't hate a person who brings cookies!  So this was the perfect time to attempt this recipe.

 NYT Chocolate Chip Cookies
Here's the original recipes from the blog The Other Side of 50
2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour **see my note below!
1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into chunks
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, grated
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Stir all chocolate into dough using a wooden spoon. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours. (**see note below)

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Drop  the dough by tablespoonfuls on to the prepared cookie sheet and bake until golden brown, but still soft, 10-12 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for cooling. 


Minor Alterations
First, I put off making this recipe for a while because I did not want to purchase a bag of cake flour and  a bag of bread flour.  THEN, I discovered this tasty little tidbit: you can make your own cake flour! Check it out here.  I did buy a bag of bread flour, but this just means an excuse to bake some bread... and I'm okay with that.


Also, I happened to have a dark chocolate candy bar (85% cocao) from Trader Joe's in my pantry.  It's a small miracle that a bar such as this survived in my house for more than five minutes, but nonetheless, there it was!  So I chopped that up for the "chunks" that the recipe calls for.  I had a little over half a bag of mini-chocolate chips (I can't image who ate the missing half) so I used that in place of the regular chocolate chips.  Finally, because that Trader Joe's bar was SO bittersweet (emphasis on the bitter) I only used 2 ounces of the non-sweetened chocolate (one block).  Also, grating this kind of sucked and I was tired of doing it after one bar, so that's the other reason I used half as much.


Part of why I am not the greatest baker known to man is because I don't always read through the recipes carefully. So it didn't occur to me that the dough was supposed to be refrigerated for 24 hours until I was well into the process.  Instead, I refrigerated the dough for the length of time it takes to give a 2.5 year old a bath, put on jammies, and read about 100 bedtime stories (roughly an hour and a half).  Then I stored the dough in the fridge between batches.


The result?
They turned out pretty delicious.  Did you really think a cookie with over 2 cups of sugar and 3 kinds of chocolate could be bad?  They were flatter than I expected they would be, but I like the mix of sweet and bitter chocolate. I don't like things that are terribly sweet. You know that pin that keeps circulating for the Oreo wrapped in cookie dough, wrapped in brownie? That's not really my thing, and so these cookies were perfect.  My husband, on the other hand, would take that Oreo creation, add frosting, and enjoy it with a glass of Coke... he loved the cookies too. The shredded chocolate made them much prettier than the average chocolate chip cookie so that's a bonus if you are using them as gifts (which I was). The chocolate is also even distributed, which is nice, no chocolate-less bit with these cookies! In the end, I'd say this recipe is worth the time!