I recently purchased a copy of Thomas Keller’s Bouchon book. I don’t often buy cookbooks as I find that they spend too much time collecting dust and I only try a handful of recipes out. But there’s something about Thomas Keller’s books. I love the writing, the format, just about everything.
I love visiting Bouchon bakery, so being provided with the recipes and tips to make TK’s baked goods is really great. I’m determined to bake my way through most of the book.
After spending an evening reading the book, I chose his chocolate chip cookies as my first recipe. I always buy the chocolate chip cookies when I’m at a Bouchon Bakery. While my favorite chocolate chip cookie will likely always be the New York Times/Jacque Torres’ recipe, Bouchon makes a chocolate chip cookie with strong hints of molasses and dark brown sugar that is really good too.
Despite the recipe looking easy enough, Keller’s recipe is full of very precise steps. I have to confess, I tried to skip some of these precise steps and I think it might account for why my cookies don’t look quite as good as the ones I purchase at the bakery.
Nevertheless, they taste good. I loved the enormous size. I was a little taken aback that the recipe makes only six cookies after so much work, but they were six very, very big cookies. The insides is fudgy and chewy, the outside crunchy. You can definitely detect the molasses flavor, which adds a nice wintery touch to these cookies.
Hopefully I stick to my goal about baking my way through the book. I definitely want to eventually make TK’s famed macarons and chocolate bouchon and there’s a couple other holiday cookie recipes I have bookmarked.
Chocolate Chunk and Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 238 grams 1 1/2 cups + 3tbsp all purpose flour
- 2.3 grams 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 3 grams 1 tsp kosher salt
- 134 grams 1/2 cup + 2tbsp lightly packed dark brown sugar
- 12 grams 1 3/4 tsp unsulfured blackstrap molasses
- 104 grams 1/2 cup + 1 tsp granulated sugar
- 107 grams 2/3 cup 70% chocolate chunks 3/8 inch
- 107 grams scant 1/2 cup chocolate chips
- 167 grams 5.9 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
- 60 grams 3 tbsp + 2 1/2 tsp eggs
Instructions
- Place the flour in a medium bowl. Sift in the baking soda. Add the salt and whisk together. Place the dark brown sugar in a small bowl and stir in the molasses and granulated sugar, breaking up any lumps; the mixture will not be completely smooth.
- Place the chocolate chunks in a strainer and tap the side to remove any powdered chocolate, which would cloud the cookies. Mix with the chocolate chips.
- Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Turn to medium-low speed and cream the butter, warming the bowl if needed, until it is the consistency of mayonnaise and holds a peak when the paddle is lifted. Add the molasses mixture and mix for 3 to 4 minutes, until fluffy.
- Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add the eggs and mix on low speed for 15 to 30 seconds, until just combined. Scrape the bowl again. The mixture may look broken, but that is fine (overwhipping the eggs could cause the cookies to expand too much during baking and then deflate).
- Add the dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing on low speed for 15 to 30 seconds after each, or until just combined. Scrape the bottom of the bowl to incorporate any dry ingredients that have settled there. Add the chocolate and pulse on low speed about 10 times to combine. Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
- Position the racks in the upper and lower third of the oven and preheat to 325F. Line two sheet pans with Siplats or parchment paper.
- Using the ice cream scoop, divide the dough into 6 equal positions, 150 grams each. Roll each one into a ball between the palms of your hands.
- The cookies are very large; bake only 3 on each pan. With a short end of the pan toward you, place one cookie in the upper left corner, one in the lower left corner and the third one in the center, toward the right side of the pan. Bring the dough to room temperature before baking.
- Bake until golden brown, 14 to 16 minutes in a convection oven, 18 to 20 minutes in a standard oven, reserving the positions of the pans halfway through baking. Se the pans on a cooling rack and cool for 5 to 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to the rack to cool completely.
- The cookies are best the day they are baked, but they can be stored in a covered container for up to 3 days.
Notes
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Just measuring on a scale all ingredients including eggs… however 60 g “eggs” = just one egg by my calculation.
I have never seen a chi chip cookie recipe with only 1 egg. Curious to see how they turn out.
I’ve made many diff choc chip cookie recipes with 1 egg. Usually when it’s more than 1 it turns out pretty cakey. Hope this works out for you!
Thanks for posting this recipe — I just tried it out and now I’m going to buy the Bouchon Bakery book. This is the first time I’ve made chocolate chip cookies that are truly delicious. Yum!
The book is really nice. I love how big and hefty it is, with a lot of pictures and stories. It’s a nice coffee table book.
The cookies look delicious. However, I don’t think it’s nice to post the entire recipe from other people’s book.
I don’t post recipes that are created by other personal bloggers unless I’ve made adaptions, then I post my version and link to the original. When it comes to published cookbooks though, I will share the recipe if it’s something that is readily shared. This exact recipe is available for preview if you preview the book through Amazon or other sources, so it’s my understanding that it’s one of their recipes that they’ve allowed to be shared. Of course if I was publishing entire cookbooks on my blog, that would not be good. But it’s my understanding that it’s okay to show one or two recipes from a published cookbook as the publishers often share a few to draw interest.
Yum I love Bouchon desserts too, and these look amazing!
Bouchon does make some wonderful stuff!
Wow, that’s a lot of work for just 6 cookies! Yours looked like they came out perfectly!
Mine look a lot more wrinkly than the ones I’ve bought from the bakery, also they seem to have almost a greyish hue rather than the dark brown his ones are. Heh. Oh well. They still tasted great! Apparently they bake a lot of their stuff in a convection oven so I don’t know if that makes a difference.