Chocolate Chunk Cookies

A recipe for a large cookie with chunks of chocolate.

Source: Cookie Madness, a great blog with lots of fun recipes.

Yield: 24-36 cookies

Okay, yes this is very similar to chocolate chip. Very similar indeed. Some say the world has no need of another chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I disagree.

I actually really enjoyed this cookie. It is really big, with an amazing texture. You must have a tall glass of very cold milk with it, and I mean that sincerely. I am not much of a milk-lover, myself, but this is one of the few perfect uses for milk. As it turned out, my junior high boys walked through the door with their friends, right as I was putting these cookies in the oven. I convinced them to hang around for a few minutes and be my taste testers. It didn’t take much talking to convince them!

The biggest problem I made with this cookie happened even before I started mixing the dough.  But more on that later…

Whip the butter, and add in the sugars, and continue beating until light (a couple minutes).  Reduce speed to low, and mix in eggs and vanilla.  Once incorporated, add the dry ingredients in two parts, beating on low speed just until incorporated.

This is the part where you stir in the chocolate chunks.  Now, Cookie Madness recommends a good quality semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate for this.  I had trouble finding something I was happy with, so I went with dark chocolate instead.  It wasn’t too dark, just 50%.  The actual problem was the amount.  I didn’t read my ingredient list very carefully, and just bought one big bar.  What was I thinking?  That that would be enough?  Hah!

You may note that the recipe calls for 12 oz.  The bar I bought was only 3.5 oz.  I didn’t realize this until I was cutting up my chunks.  I put them all in, but it was nowhere near enough.  In a panic, I went to my pantry and found a half bag of milk chocolate chips, which I added to the dough.  I was supremely disappointed, because, while this cookie is amazing, it would have been SO much better with lots of dark chocolate chunks.  If I had it to do over, I would buy 4 chocolate bars to cut up.

The next step is to chill the dough.  I highly recommend chilling, because this dough is made with butter.  Cookie Madness separates the dough into 24 – 1/4 cup size mounds before chilling, but I was much too lazy for this.  I just chilled the dough in a big blob as usual.  I think I maybe should have taken her advice, though.

These cookies are humongous.  A 1/4 cup is a big scoop.  I chose to eyeball it instead of measuring.  My large baking sheet normally holds 20 cookies, but for this recipe, I only put 12 on the sheet.  A cookie this size needs some space.  I thought I had used about half the dough for my first 12 cookies, but it turns out I had not.  I ended up with 32 cookies, which I thought were quite large.

Bake these at 350 for about 14 minutes, then pull them out and drop the pan on the counter once or twice to deflate the cookies.  This step is not only highly effective, but also highly satisfying!  Return them to the oven for another 2-3 minutes.  (My cookies were smaller, so 12 + 2 minutes was plenty for me.)  They should be brown on the edges and appear set.

Let them cool on the baking sheet a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack.  The junior high boys gave them rave reviews, and so did I!

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

 

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Cook time

15 mins

Total time

15 mins

 

A wonderfully large cookie with lots of big chocolate chunks.

Serves: 2 dozen

Ingredients

• ½ cup softened butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1½ cups brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 4 cups flour
• 12 oz. chocolate, cut into chunks

Instructions

1. Whip the butter, add the sugars, and mix for a few minutes until light and fluffy.
2. Reduce speed to low, and mix in egg and vanilla.
3. Add dry ingredients in small amounts, and mix until incorporated.
4. Gently stir in chocolate chunks.
5. Separate dough into 24 separate balls, abouit ¼ cup each. Chill dough for an 30-60 minutes.
6. Place on baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 14 minutes.
7. Remove pan from oven, and drop on the counter a couple times to deflate cookies. Return to oven and bake another 2-3 minutes. Edges should be brown and appear set.
8. Remove cookies from baking sheet and allow to cool.

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