A Chocolate Cookie Recipe to Blow Your Mind

I came across this recipe in some random way on Twitter. Guess it happens that way, right? Started reading through it and I believe the dialogue in my head sounded something like, "Wait, huh? Wha? No! How's that... Whoa. What the what?"

And I simply could not stop thinking about it. The recipe calls for equal parts bread and cake flour. Bread and Cake Flour. Did you get that??? "There's different flours?" you ask.

OK, OK, trying not to laugh. As soon as I'm done laughing...

But seriously. Did you see "Stranger Than Fiction"? One of THE most romantic and thoughtful gestures ever!

Difference between flours. Here's a great little explanation from www.thekitchn.com

First, what's actually the same about all these flours is that they are made from wheat. What makes them different is how they're milled, what kind of wheat they're made from, and even what time of year the wheat was harvested. But what it really all boils down to is protein content.

Protein content is directly related to how much gluten can be formed using that particular flour. Gluten helps create structure and determine texture in your final baked good. Flours with low protein contents will generate less gluten and flours with high protein content will create more.

To get the light and airy structure of cakes, you want a flour with very little protein. But to form the dense chewy structure of bread, you want a flour with a lot of protein so that you can create as much gluten as possible.

Here is the approximate protein content of all the common types of flour:
Bread Flour: 14 - 16%
All-Purpose (AP) Flour: 10 - 12%
Pastry Flour: 9%
Cake Flour: 7-8%

The cookie recipe calls specifically for bittersweet baking chips with at least 60% cocoa. Easy enough. Ghirardelli makes these and they are beautiful! See?

The next thing that interested me about this recipe: after you mix the batter, it's sealed and kept in the fridge for no less than 36 hours before baking. I could go in to all this guessing about the what and why about that, but I don't really care. I just do what the recipe says. One of the biggest mistakes when it comes to baking is NOT following the recipe.

And then and then and Then! After using your handy dandy scoop to prepare the dough on the pans... Let's talk scoops.

I have a couple of these and it drives me up the wall, it comes off it's track and I want to throw it. I don't have a clue why I allow it to remain in my baking tool drawer. Maybe I'll make a Christmas ornament out of it.

But I also have a few of these and I love them!

They come in lots of different sizes. Woo Hoo! get a few of these for your baking. You can create evenly sized cookies and muffins. They are just really a useful tool.

After you scoop the dough on the pans, spacing them pretty far apart, press down slightly. I have found this will help them bake more evenly and be so darn pretty when they are done.

Here comes the next crazy thing about this recipe - lightly sprinkle the dough with sea salt before baking. Can you imagine? OK, so it's not unheard of, but still. I have to say it makes for an amazing flavor: the sweetness of the dough itself, the bittersweet chocolate, and then the slight taste of sea salt - words cannot describe how amazing these are.

I will never bake another chocolate chip cookie again. I mean, not another recipe. I mean, I will bake thousands of these!

And they really do look this amazing. Promise!

Happy Baking!!!!!