28 December 2011

Festive Treats 2011 - Chewy Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's time of the year for my JC friends annual year-end celebration once again. We used to exchange gifts among ourselves, but nowadays we focused on getting gifts for the kids instead. Nevertheless I still wish to bake something for my dear friends; last year I baked Carrot & Walnut cupcakes. This year, I had many ideas like macarons and cake pops... but in the end settled for a Salted Chocolate Chip Cookie which is more manageable than macarons and cake pops (after considering the tight schedule; I still had to bake a Sticky Date Toffee Pudding, and Lychee Rose Cupcakes). Moreover, ever since I baked my first salted choc chip cookie, I was obsessed with it.

I first came across this idea of topping sea salt on chocolate chip cookies from Delicious Day's blog. I do like salted caramel treats so I thought this would be a worthy recipe to try. And try I did. Her recipe is slightly different from the usual, bread flour is used and butter is first browned before adding to the batter. The result was a very fragrant and scrumptious cookie. I love how the sea salt hit you subtly amidst the sweetness of the chocolate chip. I tried looking for fleur de sel but couldn't find so had to settle for Maldon Sea Salt flakes which is already quite a good quality sea salt.

I mentioned in the previous post that I adore ice-cream scoop as a baking tool now. Yep, besides cupcakes, I love using the scoop for drop cookies. How else could I get uniform sizes of dough neatly onto the baking sheet? To get small size cookies, I actually searched high and low for an extra small ice-cream scoop and finally found a 32mm size one at Tott. The ice-cream scoop I have at home is 44mm by the way. Yes, I only own 2 scoops in case you'd think I own a dozen :p I'm considering for an even smaller size ice-cream scoop as these cookies (using 32mm scoop) spreaded to about 5cm in diameter after baking which is still too big for my liking. Saw a 25mm size one on Amazon and still considering whether to buy :p

For this batch of giveaways, I adapted Chef Joycelyn's Classic Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe that I learnt in her class two years ago. I baked them for a shorter duration to get the chewy texture which I like! Couldn't stop pigging on the cookies :p

Chewy Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes 62 pcs using 32mm ice-cream scoop)

Ingredients
  • 210g plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp fine salt
  • 120g unsalted butter, softened
  • 150g dark brown sugar
  • 50g caster sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 240g chocolate chip/Valrhona Perles
  • Maldon sea salt flakes or Fleur De Sel
Method
  1. Preheat oven to 170 degree celsius.
  2. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl and set aside.
  3. Cream butter and both sugars in a mixing bowl until well blended, stopping to scrap down the bowl as necessary.
  4. Add egg and vanilla extract, the batter will look curdled.
  5. Add flour mixture in three additions, mixing until just combined.
  6. Add chocolate chips/baking perles using a spatula, until evenly distributed.
  7. Clingwrap the bowl of dough and refrigerate at least 30 mins. *If chilled overnight, thaw the dough for 15 mins before use.
  8. Using a 32mm ice-cream scoop (for uniform size) or two teaspoons, scoop up balls of dough and space them apart from each other (as the dough will spread) on baking trays lined with non-stick baking parchment or Silpat mats. Keep remaining dough in fridge.
  9. Sprinkle sea salt flakes according to preference over the balls of dough.
  10. Bake the dough for 13 mins (to get a soft and chewy texture of cookie).
  11. Repeat steps 8 to 10 for the remaining dough.
Although I already reduced the sugar by as much as 100g in total, I still found the cookies quite sweet, probably due to the baking perles. Probably would reduce the sugar even further next time.


As for the packaging, initially I wanted to get glass jars from Daiso but couldn't find the time to make a trip there. Then I thought of small round plastic containers but those could only hold four cookies per container (I'm packing six each). After digging my cupboards, I found that I still have a pack of clear plastic bag as well as some cute sticker labels. Viola! Here they are. I wanted to write "Chewy Salted Choc Chip Cookies" but realised after writing two labels that I wrote as "...chocolate cookies" missing the chip. Oh well. Anyway, hope that my friends would like those cookies as much as I do.

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