Recipes » Chocolate chip walnut cookies

Chocolate chip cookies

One of the best cookie recipes I’ve ever encountered—and one which I created by partial accident. The rich, slightly “underbaked” center contrasts with the light, crispy, browned exterior when baked just right. If you like the de facto standard of chewy and evenly pale cookies, this recipe might not suite your tastes.

Author: Seth Price
Category: Dessert
Date published: 6 June 2020

Prep time: 8 hours (15 minutes active)
Cook time: 10 minutes
Yield: About 12–15 cookies

Ingredients

  • 250g all-purpose flour
  • 8g corn starch
  • 4g baking soda
  • 1g baking powder
  • 3g salt
  • 115g (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted and browned
  • 40g lard
  • 170g white sugar
  • 20g molasses
  • 1 egg
  • 2 egg yolks
  • Decent dash vanilla extract
  • Drop almond extract
  • 70g walnuts, chopped
  • 200g dark (60–70%) chocolate, chopped

Directions

  1. Optional pre-step, if you like your cookies especially doughy: pasteurise your flour (and eggs, depending on where you live) to help mitigate the risk of foodborne illness from raw ingredients.
  2. Mix together butter, lard, sugar and molasses with anything but an electric mixer in a large bowl till homogenous. Add egg and yolks one at a time. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts. Slowly sift together flour, corn starch, baking soda, baking powder and salt into the bowl, combining with the wet ingredients only till no streaks of dry flour remain. Gently fold in walnuts and chocolate. Chill at least four hours, preferably overnight.
  3. Preheat oven to 200°C (400°F, gas mark 6). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  4. Scoop out and form golf-ball-sized dollops of the cold, hard dough with about 3cm (1½″) distance between each ball. Put the cookie sheet in the freezer for a few minutes or till your oven is ready (this helps keep your cookie from flattening out when baking).
  5. Place the cookies under the broiler (for gas ovens) or on the topmost rack (for electric ovens). Bake until the exterior is at least visibly browned, preferably till medium-brown: about 5–7 minutes. Kill the flame, move the pan to the oven’s center rack and let “rest” for about 1–3 minutes or until desired doneness. Remove and let cool on the pan for at least ten minutes before handling. Can be served warm or room-temperature.