Food Pusher: Ooey Gooey Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Gooey Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Lately I've gotten into this habit of watching mostly cooking Youtube videos in the morning before and after my morning spinning bike workout. I'll start a video while I do my arm/shoulder physical therapy exercises, and then I'll turn on my spinning workout video. My treat for my post-workout cooldown is finishing the video.

This past week I tumbled down a New York City chocolate chip cookie Youtube rabbit hole, and discovered Cupcake Jemma, a delightful baker based in the UK. (Check out the Crumbs & Doilies Bakery website here.) There were two things about the two Cupcake Jemma videos I watched that struck me. The first is this recipe that I've tweaked a bit here by adding vanilla and decreasing the size of each cookie by half (I mean, I'm not a baker selling these things--just an average home baker who actually eats and shares them.)

The second thing that struck me is the mixing method they used for these cookies and in their rendition of Levain's famous NYC Chocolate Chip Cookie. Rather than creaming the butter and sugars, adding eggs & vanilla, adding all the dry ingredients, and then adding the chocolate chips as most cookie recipes call for, Cupcake Jemma barely mixes the butter and sugars, adds the chocolate chips, then the dry ingredients and lastly the eggs. What the...?

Sounded so crazy to me, but the results don't lie. These chocolate cookies are gooey, tender, flavorful, and just perfectly satisfying. I may be obsessed.

The first batch I made were just half-sized versions of Cupcake Jemma's, but they failed to spread at all and remained kind of ball-shaped, which wasn't very attractive (see pic below). So I did what any other obsessed person would do and I almost immediately made another batch. This time I flattened each ball just a bit, and decreased my baking time a bit. The cookies came out attractive AND delicious. Perfect.

Now here's the recipe for you to go and try yourself.

You're welcome.

Gooey Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies
--Adapted from Cupcake Jemma's Recipe

Ingredients:

230 g unsalted butter, cold, cut into tablespoon size chunks
160 g granulated sugar
160 g brown sugar
450 g dark chocolate chips (I love Nestle's Dark Chocolate Morsels)
200 g walnut pieces (optional)
230 g self-rising flour*
200 g all purpose flour
70 g cocoa powder (preferably Dutch process)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs plus 1 yolk, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions:

NOTE: See images below instructions for visuals of the various stages of this dough mixing process.

In the bowl of a standing mixer, place the cold butter and mix on low for about a minute, just to break up the butter--do not cream the butter.
Add the granulated and brown sugar to the butter and mix again on low/medium low until little nuggets of butter & sugar form--again, do not cream this mixture.
Add the chocolate chips and walnuts (if desired), and mix again just to incorporate the chocolate chips and nuts.
In a separate bowl, combine the flours, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir with a whisk until completely mixed.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/chocolate/nuts mixture in the mixing bowl and mix on low until combined, about 30-45 seconds. It will still be dry and sandy looking.
Add the vanilla to the egg mixture and then add that to the mixture. Mix on low/medium low until dough starts to come together, but do not mix long enough to create a completely cohesive dough.
Using a large cookie scoop or a large spoon, make 60 gram balls of dough. Then flatten each ball into a disk that's about an inch thick.
Cover and freeze dough disks at least 90 minutes before baking.

Preheat oven to 360 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place in the oven to get hot while the oven preheats.
When pan and oven are heated, remove the pan from the oven, place frozen dough disks on pan allowing a couple of inches between them.
Bake at 360 degrees for about 14-15 minutes, until puffed and starting to crack. Take care to not over-bake. Underbaked is better than over-baked.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on cookie sheet at least five minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely. Alternately, if you have a rimless baking sheet, you can slide the parchment with the baked cookie sheets onto a cooling rack to cool until ready to eat, about 5-10 minutes. This is what I try to do so the cookies will not continue to bake on the hot baking sheet.

Place unbaked dough disks in a zip top freezer bag and store in the freezer until you want more cookies.
Store baked and cooled cookies in an airtight container.
Heat cooled cookies in the microwave on high for 10 seconds if you want to melt the chocolate and make the insides gooey again.

Makes about 30 cookies

*You can mix your own self-rising flour by combining 2 cups all purpose flour with 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Then use just 230 grams of that for this recipe. Save or toss what's leftover.