Triple Chocolate-Chip Cookies
TRIPLE CHOCOLATE-CHIP SHORT CRUST COOKIES
Mmmmm, chocolate chip cookies. Best served warm, and straight from the oven, but in lieu of this, at the least they should be buttery, crumbly, and seriously chocolaty. The ease of which these cookies are made, make buying a second rate supermarket quality chocolate chip cookie inexcusable.
Am I being harsh? Yep. And with good reason … these scrumptious cookies are a breeze to make, and freeze so beautifully, they make it very easy to have a frozen stash squirrelled away for a rainy day. You can pull a sweet sausage of these from your freezer, and make your house smell like a real estate agent’s dream in minutes …. “I’ll take it!"
This recipe is based on a pastry dough recipe from the Culinary Insitutute of America, a cooking school that sits in the beautiful Hudson Valley, a beautiful couple of hours train ride beside the Hudson river from New York city.
The campus, finding its home in the town of Poughkeepsie, is a culinary dream. I’ve played with their recipes for years, and their text books have been staple ‘go to’ books in my library for what seems like a very long time. I highly recommend them for basic pastry and baking grounding.
With over 2000 pastry students enrolled at any one time (some are away gaining work experience within their chosen field), there is an enormous amount of excited energy on campus being generated by sweet bakers. The public can taste some of this energy through the Apple Pie Bakery, onsite at the Culinary Institute, where the advanced students fill the dessert cabinets with their creations, to be enjoyed by teachers, other students and the general public.
The scale of the facility is extraordinary, with rooms dedicated solely to subjects including chocolate, pastry, sugar work, cake decorating, and an entire subject and room is dedicated to experimenting and adapting recipes for food intolerances! It is seriously amazing. I've posted some photos at the bottom for those interested in the school!
If you do happen to find yourself in the Hudson Valley, the Franklin D Roosevelt Museum is very close to the CIA and is also well worth the visit, with the house, museum and library open to the public. They sprawl across the property from which he and Eleanor guided the country through the depression and war. I picked up a little homely cookbook whilst I was there, ‘Cookies for Eleanor’ written by her grandchild Chandler Roosevelt Lindsley.
How Eleanor was the outspoken dynamo she was as Franklin’s wife and First Lady, and then went on to actively campaign for world peace as the first US Delegate with the United Nations after his death astounds me. One of my favourite quotes come from Eleanor …. “nobody can make you feel inadequate but yourself’. Damn girl …. snaps for you Eleanor Roosevelt. Apparently she loved afternoon tea and cookies. So, inspired by the CIA and Eleanor, here is a super easy, super delicious cookie!
Lets bake.
TRIPLE CHOCOLATE-CHIP SHORT CRUST COOKIES
For a print friendly recipe, click here!
Makes 12 large fat cookies
INGREDIENTS
225g unsalted butter (softened … room temperature)
115g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 large egg (free range always)
340g plain flour
pinch of sea salt
1 cup (200g) dark chocolate ( ‘callets’ or uniformly small pieces)
½ cup (100g) milk chocolate (as above)
½ cup (100g) white chocolate (as above)
METHOD
Cream butter and sugar in kitchen aid, or with hand blender until light, combined and fluffy.
Add vanilla, beat, then add egg beating gently after until just combined. Don't worry if it looks a little cuddly, the flour will resolve this.
Fold in flour and pinch of salt.
This is the base of delicious cookie dough.
Done.
Squish dough out onto floured surface, into large flat rectangle, and sprinkle over mixed chocolate. Knead together until all combined. Bring together and shape into long sausage shape. Lay down on rolled out cling wrap. Wrap cling wrap around giant sausage, and twist ends in opposite directions, to make the sausage tighter. Refrigerate (if baking soon, or freeze for later use).
When cold, or frozen, cut into even sized slices (around 1.5cm thick) and bake at 200 C, until lightly golden and cooked (depends on your oven, around 10mins). I like to keep them a bit soft in the middle, and crunchy on the outside.
Cool for a few minutes on the baking tray then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Eat warm. Dip in milk if you like. Enjoy.
SWITCH IT UP
Sweet & sour
Replace chocolates with 1 cup of white chocolate buttons and 1 cup of craisins (sweetened dried cranberries)
On the dark side
Replace 40g of flour with cocoa powder, sifted with flour. Use dark chocolate chips only.
Petit Petit
Roll several very thin ‘sausages’ and make little bite sized cookies – which are great in a little jar with a ribbon as a gift!
Hudson river from the train headed to Poughkeepsie
Culinary Institute of America - Hudson Valley Campus
A little bit of a fan girl moment with the very talented Peter Greweling, author of severe technical books on chocolates and confections and head of the chocolate curriculum at the school.
