Nom-Able

Welcome to the first ever post on Nom-Able, a blog about food. For a little bit of background material, I’m a chunky girl with an appetite for, well, food. And not just any food, but the most fattening, butter-laden food known to man. As such, this will not be a health food blog, though there will be healthier meals from time to time. What you’ll mostly find here is a collection of my favorite recipes that I have made. Naturally, since these are my recipes, there will be substitutions and adaptations, but I promise I will always post the ingredient list and instructions exactly as I made it, with a link to the original recipe so you can make it yourself.

One of my first and fondest memories of Christmas is chocolate chip cookie baking. My mother and her sisters would gather around the small, wooden table in my grandmother’s kitchen, and together with their mother, they’d always make the same Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe from the same scrap of yellow plastic wrap taped to a 3×5 card in my grandmother’s metal recipe box. Over the ten minutes or so it took to mix, bonds would be broken, new alliances forged, and the catty, petty bitching that defines a family of women would take full shape. Then, they’d sit around in the living room and drink tea while the youngest sister and I were usually left with the all-important duty of mounding the cookie dough onto the sheet with a teaspoon and into our mouths with our fingers. The cookies this produced were probably like your own mother’s cookies — warm and gooey and best fresh out of the oven; nearly rock hard three hours later.

Ladies and gentlement, these are not your mother’s cookies.

The secret, as the New York Times has revealed and reveled in, is in the butter. For this recipe, it comes out of the fridge cold, it goes into the mix cold. This way, as the butter melts during the cooking process, it leaves lovely little air pockets that make the cookies light and help them spread rather than remaining in little spoon-shapped lumps. The butter is also creamed with the sugar for five minutes, to allow for maximum air mixture. Finally, the dough rests in the fridge for at least twenty-four hours, to allow for maximum moisture penetration of the dry ingredients.

Is it worth the extra effort?

Oh yes. Even the dough is more delicious — both fresh from the mixer (no wooden spoons here, Mom!) and a day later. Better yet, let them sit for two days and ooh, are they ever cookie-gasmic.

The Consumate Chocolate Chip Cookie

Adapted from The New York Times

Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons
• (8 1/2 ounces) cake flour
• 1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour (I used all purpose flour for both)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (I used dark chocolate morsels from Nestle because it’s what I had on hand)
• Sea salt.

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.
4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.

Note: Disks are sold at Jacques Torres Chocolate; Valrhona fèves, oval-shaped chocolate pieces, are at Whole Foods.