The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook: Chock-Full of Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cover recipe from:  The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook
By Elinor Klivans, Copyright 2008
Choc-Full of Chocolate Chip Cookies
The author of this cookbook, Elinor Klivans, has been a fan of chocolate chip cookies all her life.  I can only imagine how much fun it was creating recipes for her cookbook.  That’s pretty much a dream job.  Klivans shares that one of her chocolate chip experiments was to see how many chocolate chips a cookie could comfortably hold.  She found that two cups of dough + four cups of chips makes cookies with at least fifty chocolate chips in every one.  Wow!  Klivans also notes that she likes to do side-by-side taste tests of different kinds/brands of chocolate chips.  She explains that each brand of chocolate clearly has its own unique flavor.  She looks for the flavor of chocolate (rather than sugar) to dominate.  And with white chocolate chips, Klivans makes sure that cocoa butter is listed in the ingredients.  Her top picks (in order of preference) for semisweet chips, which is what is called for in this recipe:  Guittard, Nestlé, Nestlé Dark, Hershey’s Dark, Ghirardelli.

Can you imagine having a cookbook that is full of dessert recipes that you make with chocolate chips?  That’s what this delicious cookbook is all about.  I love the cookbook and my only complaint is that I wish there were more photographs in the book- I’m drawn to the cookbooks with photographs included for every recipe.  That certainly would have helped me figure out which cookie recipe in this cookbook was on the cover.  Can you believe that the book does not indicate anywhere what cookie dons the cover?  I’m still not entirely sure that the recipe I pinpointed is the cover recipe but given the choices, this is the only one that made sense.  The only problem is that mine turned out to be much more “chunky” from the chocolate chips & not flat like those in the cover picture. 

Choc-Full of Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source:  The Essential Chocolate Chip Cookbook

ingredients:
1 ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup packed light brown sugar
6 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
4 cups (24-ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

directions:
1.  Position a rack in the middle of the oven.  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2.  Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.
3.  In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until smoothly blended, about 1 minute.  Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing.  Add the egg and vanilla and mix until blended, about 1 minute.  The mixture may look slightly curdled.  On low speed, add the flour mixture, mixing just until it is incorporated.  Mix in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed.
4.  Use a Tablespoon to drop heaping spoonfuls of dough (about 3 level Tablespoons each) onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing the cookies 3 inches apart.
5.  Bake the cookies one sheet at a time until the edges are lightly browned and the centers are golden, about 15 minutes.  Cool the cookies on the baking sheets for 10 minutes.  The cookies will flatten slightly as they cool.  Use a wide metal spatula to transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
6.  The cookies can be stored in a tightly covered container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Makes:  27 cookies (big ones)

Author’s notes:  Bittersweet or milk chocolate chips can be substituted for the semi-sweet chips.

Notes from Culinary Covers:
*I  prepared and baked the cookies exactly as the recipe indicates, except that I used silpats instead of parchment paper.
*To scoop the dough onto the cookie sheet in some kind of uniform way (hoping to get nice, round cookies), I used a small cookie scoop (1 Tbsp) and dropped two scoops on top of each other to make good-sized cookies.
*These cookies turned out to be pretty big, which was perfect for me since I was sending them with my boys on a camping trip.  I sent a lot of different kinds of cookies on the trip, but these were in a bag labeled “Dad Cookies.”  I couldn’t imagine the little boys on the trip eating a cookie with 50 chocolate chips in it (and then probably ask for another one).
*My son’s friend was over when I was baking these and got to sample the first batch, warm out of the oven.  He came over the next day too and I’m pretty sure he came for the cookies and not to play with my son
*Word is that these cookies were apparently, “F&!@!*! Off The Hook!” (whatever that means).  I think it means that the guys on the camping trip liked them a lot. 

Did this recipe deserve the cover?  Well, if it is indeed the cover recipe (it’s not clear in the book but I’m assuming, given the choices, that it is), then YES!  Awesome cookie recipe and it is definitely chock-full of chocolate chips, which is obviously the theme of the cookbook.

 Print This Post

Tagged as: chocolate chip cookies, the essential chocolate chip cookbook