Food Pusher: Toffee Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Toffee Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I've been trying new flavors in the basic Levain-style cookie recipe, and today it involves mixing toffee chunks in with chunks of Dove Dark Chocolate. I have to say this is a winner: tender, melt-in-your-mouth cookie with crisp, flavorful toffee and just enough bits of chocolate.

I made the toffee from scratch, because I can, but you can also purchase Heath toffee bits, and I'm sure they'd be fine. I wanted better than "fine," though, so I went the extra mile. Click here to see the recipe for the toffee bits/chunks.

These turned out quite a bit flatter than I thought they would, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I'm sure if I were to add nuts to these, they'd not be so flat, but today is a no-nut day. I only baked up six of these and plan to bake up the rest next week to take to work.

Toffee Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Adapted from Cupcake Jemma's Recipe on Youtube

Ingredients:

237 g unsalted butter, cold (2 sticks plus 1/2 tablespoon*), divided
160 g granulated sugar
160 g brown sugar
250 g dark chocolate chunks (I used Dove Dark Chocolate)
230 g toffee pieces (homemade or store-bought, but homemade is better)
430 g all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Instructions:

(Scroll to the photos at the end to see what this unconventional process looks like.)
The night before you plan to mix up the dough, brown 65 g of the butter (1/4 cup plus 1/2 tablespoon), place in a glass container, and refrigerate overnight.
Beat the eggs and vanilla together in a small-ish bowl and set aside.
Cut the cold butter into tablespoons sized chunks and then add that and the browned butter to the bowl of a stand mixer. 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. Note: you may need to get a butter knife and cut the cold browned butter into smaller pieces at this point. Mine was too firm and needed cutting.
Add the chocolate chunks and toffee pieces (if desired), and mix again just to incorporate the chocolate chunks and toffee.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir with a whisk until completely mixed.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/chocolate/toffee 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, taking care not to mix too long.
Using a large cookie scoop or a large spoon, make 60 gram gently formed balls of dough -- it's best if you don't pack the dough into a tight ball. 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.

Makes about 30 large cookies

* When you brown the butter, you lose some of the water in that process, so I added another 1/2 tablespoon to make up for it. I don't think the cookies will be ruined if you don't add that extra 1/2 tablespoon of butter, though.