Thick Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Before you start

These are the tall, craggy cookies sold by some New York bakeries: about 170 grams each, nearly as thick as they are wide, crisp on the outside and soft inside. Ordinary chocolate chip dough cannot be scaled up to this size; it spreads and burns at the edges before the middle bakes. Three changes make it work.

First, the butter goes in cold and is mixed only until it is broken up, so the dough has little air and stays stiff. Second, a mix of bread flour and cake flour gives structure without toughness. Third, the shaped balls are chilled and then baked hot and fast, which sets the outside before the inside can melt outward. Leave the balls tall and rough; do not flatten them.

Ingredients

• 225 g (1 cup) unsalted butter — cold, cut into 1.5 cm cubes
• 150 g (¾ cup packed) light brown sugar
• 100 g (½ cup) granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs — cold
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 220 g (1¾ cups) bread flour
• 160 g (1⅓ cups) cake flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp fine salt
• 300 g (about 1¾ cups) semisweet chocolate chips or chunks
• 120 g (1 cup) walnuts — toasted and roughly chopped

Method

1. Whisk the bread flour, cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
2. Put the cold butter cubes and both sugars in the mixer and beat on low, then medium, for 1 to 2 minutes, just until the butter is broken into small pieces coated in sugar. It should look like damp sand with some pea-sized lumps, not fluffy.
3. Add the cold eggs and vanilla and mix on low for about 20 seconds, only until mostly absorbed.
4. Add the flour mixture and mix on low until the dough just comes together, then add the chocolate and walnuts and mix a few seconds more. The dough will be stiff.
5. Divide the dough into 8 portions of about 170 g. Shape each into a rough, tall ball, taller than it is wide, with a craggy top. Do not smooth them.
6. Wrap and refrigerate the balls for at least 1 hour, or freeze them for 30 minutes. Heat the oven to 205°C (400°F) with a rack in the upper-middle position.
7. Set 4 balls on a parchment-lined sheet, well apart. Bake for 16 to 19 minutes, until the outsides are golden brown and the tops look set but cracked, with the very center still soft. The center should register at least 71°C (160°F) on an instant-read thermometer.
8. Leave the cookies on the hot sheet for 15 minutes; they finish cooking and firm up enough to move. Bake the second batch on a cooled sheet.

Tips for success

• Bake only four at a time. Crowding drops the oven temperature and the cookies spread into each other.
• An oven thermometer matters here. At less than 200°C the outside sets too slowly and the cookies slump.
• Rewarm a cooled cookie for 5 minutes at 175°C (350°F) to bring back the soft, warm center.

Substitutions

Cake flour

Use 140 g all-purpose flour plus 20 g cornstarch. The texture stays tender, though slightly less fine.

Bread flour

All-purpose flour works, but the cookies spread a little more and are less chewy. Chill the balls for the full hour or longer.

Walnuts

Leave them out and increase the chocolate to 420 g. Nuts help the cookies hold their height, so expect slightly more spread.

Variations

Dark chocolate peanut butter chip

Replace the walnuts with 120 g peanut butter chips and use 60% chocolate chunks.

Double chocolate

Replace 40 g of the cake flour with Dutch-process cocoa powder and use white and dark chocolate chunks.

Troubleshooting

Cookies spread and lost their height

The butter was creamed too long or the dough balls were not cold. Mix the cold butter only until broken up and bake straight from the fridge.

Outside dark but center raw

The oven runs hot or the balls are bigger than 170 g. Lower the heat to 190°C (375°F) and bake a few minutes longer, and check the center with a thermometer.

Dry, crumbly dough that will not hold together

Too much flour, or very small eggs. Weigh the flour, and knead the dough briefly by hand to bring it together.

Storage

Store cooled cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days. Freeze unbaked dough balls for up to 3 months and bake them from frozen at 205°C (400°F) for 20 to 23 minutes. Baked cookies also freeze well.

Safety notes

Do not eat the raw dough, which contains raw flour and raw egg. Because the centers stay soft, bake them until they reach 71°C (160°F). Contains wheat, egg, milk, tree nuts and soy.