Puffy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am on a quest.

To find the perfect chocolate chip cookies.

And boy, this recipe is gonna be hard to beat. You see, I have very high standards for a chocolate chip cookie. It has to be soft, overloaded with chocolate chips, buttery, dense yet light, with a barely crunchy outside that leads to a gooey inside. No crumbles, hard cookies, or flatness allowed here. I don't even know if I have ever had the chocolate chip cookie of my dreams, but someday, I will find it!

As of right now, this is my husband's proclaimed favorite chocolate chip cookie ever and until (or if or when) I find something better, this is my favorite too! He says they are perfect, and I guess I can't really think of anything about them that isn't good, once they are baked that is. You see, I am a self-proclaimed cookie dough connoisseur (had to look up the spelling on that one!). I eat any and every kind of dough/batter that I make. It's true. And the one downfall of these cookies is that the dough isn't as delicious as other chocolate chip cookie doughs that I have made. The dough is actually on the dry side, which lends to the gorgeous puff once they bake.

I would say that these are the best chocolate chip cookies that I have ever made; but not the best cookie dough that I have tried. I suppose that considering the baked cookies are what you would be sharing, this is the recipe to go with! Alas, perfectly baked cookies and perfect cookie dough may not exist together, but perhaps this is the best of both worlds.

Everyone loves chocolate chip cookies, and everyone will be especially happy when they see one of the puffiest chocolate chip cookies ever! Make these cookies, and everyone will think you're a cookie-baking queen!

Puffy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Print)
recipe adapted from buns in my oven
Prep: 20 minutes / Bake: 10-13 minutes
Yield: about 2 dozen

1 stick (8 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg, cold
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Cut the butter into small cubes and place back into the fridge.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

3. In the bowl of your stand mixer (or large mixing bowl), beat the cold butter and sugar until barely combined. Make sure to use low speed and beat no longer than one minute. Do not beat until the usual creamed or fluffy! Overbeating will cause excess air and a tough cookie. Add the egg and vanilla and beat until just combined. The dough will look soupy and strange at this point.

4. In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add them to the butter and sugar bowl, beat until combined. This will produce a stiff, lightly sticky dough. Add the chocolate chips and mix.

5. Scoop the dough into your desired size and place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet. I have a one tablespoon scoop; I made my cookies two scoops in size. I found that the cookies looked better after baking if you do not roll them into balls; rough scoops make prettier cookies.

6. Place the baking sheet in the fridge for 5 minutes. This prevents the cookies from spreading. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until the very outside edges are lightly browned. The cookies will set and look more done after cooling. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

My Review

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing

I spotted these little gems in my cookbook last night and wrote the ingredients on my grocery list.

And boy am I glad I did.  

So moist, light, pumpkin-spiced, delectable, fallish, and heavenly.

I love them.

A lot.

Probably too much.

And you will too when you make them. They are what I said and more. I was skeptical about the icing; I love my frosting, especially cream cheese frosting when it comes to pumpkin, and I didn't think the icing would meet my standards, but it was delicious! I had never done the brown butter thing before so that was fun to try too. They aren't too difficult to make and the recipe yields enough for a crowd.

As you may recall from these cookies, I altered Martha's method a bit because it didn't seem too realistic. I almost changed this one too, because the recipe said to pipe the batter onto the baking sheet...what?!? Who ever heard of piping cookies? Well I hadn't, so I wasn't going to. But I decided to go all Martha on this one and followed exactly what the recipe said. The cookie 'dough' is more like a thick cake batter, so the drop method probably wouldn't have looked quite right. Here's to fall and good ol' pumpkin!

Pumpkin Cookies with Brown Butter Icing
from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Prep: 60 minutes / Bake: 10-12 minutes
Yield: about 6 dozen (I halved the recipe when I made them!)

For the cookies:
2-3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1-1/4 teaspoons ginger
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2-1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups canned pumpkin
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the icing:
4 cups powdered sugar
10 tablespoons (1-1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon evaporated milk, plus more if needed
2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 375. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg in a bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Add pumpkin, evaporated milk, and vanilla; mix on low until well blended. Add flour mixture and beat on low until combined.

3. Line baking sheet(s) with parchment paper. Transfer batter to a pastry bag (not all of it of course) fitted with a 1/2-inch plain round tip. I just used the bag without a tip. Pipe 1-1/2 inch circles onto parchment paper, about 1-inch apart.

4. Bake cookies until tops spring back, 10-12 minutes. Cool on sheets on racks 10 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire rack; let cool completely.

5. Make the icing. Put powdered sugar in a medium bowl. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Then  butter about 3 minutes longer, swirling the pan occassionally, until golden brown. Immediately add butter to powered sugar, scraping any brown bits from pan. Add evaporated milk and vanilla; stir until smooth.

6. Spread icing on cookies, about 1 teaspoon each. If icing is too thick, add more evaporated milk. I added more and then a little too much. As you can see in the pictures, my icing was a little thin and slightly lumpy, but that's ok!

Oops! I dropped one frosting-side down.

According to Martha, these cookies can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Chocolate Cream-Filled Sandwiches

My husband seems to have developed quite the sweet tooth recently. Right after lunch he says, "Let's make dessert!" He forgets that he is blessed with an insanely active metabolism, whereas I have to actually work to maintain my figure. Alas, I gave in, and we made these cookies that he wanted to try. After this, it's to the gym for me!

Chocolate Cream-Filled Sandwiches
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies
Prep: 30 minutes / Bake: 8 minutes
Yield: about 2 dozen

1-1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups sugar
10 T unsalted butter, room temperature
1 egg, room temperature
Vanilla Creme Filling (recipe below)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Sift together first 5 ingredients into a bowl.

2. In another bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg; beat to combine. With mixer on low speed, gradually add flour mixture and beat until well combined.

3. Using a small scoop, drop dough onto parchment paper lined baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. Flatten dough between palms and sprinkle with additional sugar.

4. Bake 10-12 minutes until cookies are slightly firm. Transfer baking sheets to a wire cooling rack.

Vanilla Cream Filling
Prep: 10 minutes

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 T vanilla

1. With an electric mixer, cream butter. Gradually add powdered sugar with mixer on low speed; continue beating until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and beat to combine.

2. Pipe filling onto the underside of half the cookies, place remaining cookies on top of the filling.

My Review

• Preparation: 4
• This recipe took a little less than an hour start to finish. My husband and I worked together, it was fun!
• Taste: 4
• These were really good. However, they were a bit on the crunchy side, we baked them for 9 minutes. Good news is, after keeping them covered overnight, the cookies softened! Now they are perfect, which makes them more unresistable...
• Cost: 5
• We didn't have to buy any ingredients, so I'll give it a 5.
• Clean-up: 3
• Two big bowls, lots of measuring gadgets, baking sheet (and my husband) ;)
• Changes
• We did the recipe in half because we didn't have enough butter for the whole batch.
• The recipe called for Dutch-process cocoa powder, we didn't have any so we used our normal Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder.
• The recipe called for half butter and half shortening for the filling, e didn't have any shortening for the filling, so we just replaced that with butter. The shortening would just make the filling more white, less of a butter color. And slightly less butter flavor too, but ours was yummy.
• The recipe said to drop the cookies on the baking sheet. Then dip the bottom of a glass in sugar and press to flatten cookies to about 1/8 inch thick. (You may need to carefully remove dough from glass with a thin spatula). I'm like, that's crazy! First of all, why would the sugar stick to the glass? And I'm not about to scrape each cookie off the bottom of a cup! So we gently pressed them between our palms and sprinkled them with sugar.
• Our cookies got much flatter and wider than they looked in the picture, and I don't think we made them too big of dollops. Mine don't look perfect but they still taste good!
• Summary
• These cookies were fun to make and they look pretty with the piped filling. Great with a glass of milk!