Crispy Chocolate Cookie

He ain't heavy. He's my cookie brother.

I understand that most bakers know this but baking crunchy cookies is a personal journey, hence this in-case-I-forget documentation.

After culling the internet for tips to bake a crispy biscuit, this is what I surmised to make a sure-fire crisp of a cookie. The crux of the matter is to go for a all-white sugar formula with no baking powder ( unless you want a cakey cookie ) and bake it long and slow at  low temperature.  

I depart from the usual formula of baking in 180C and found that 160C is optimum with this amount of butter and flour ( for every 350g flour, use 160g unsalted butter ). If thinner cookie is what you want, push the butter up a notch but mind the gap – for the cookie spreads more during baking.

White sugar caramelizes during baking and when cooled, makes a delectable crunch. Caster sugar is the way to go because it creates tighter clusters of caramel within each cookie. Watch your sugar intake for any recipe but with cookies, it is important not to hold back too much because you need it to create the crunch factor. This fact, I learned the hard, wasteful way.

I discovered that the batch of cookies with dough chilled prior to baking has a lower crunch factor compared to dough at room temperature. The former batch is thicker and more flaky because the dough was firm when it was introduced to the oven. With dough at room temperature, the cookie spreads a wee bit more and the heat reaches the interior of the cookie faster, cooking the inside to a nice crisp.

Finally, ensure equal thickness throughout the batch that is to be baked for uniform cooking. A cookie dough of about 4mm on an aluminium tray works great for me.

Baking the perfect crispy cookie can be trying. No two palates are the same so one simply has to figure out a recipe that works for him. And when the end product turns out the way you want it to be, it is just as satisfying as figuring the difference between MacClaurin’s and Taylor’s Series or understanding the difference between Special Relativity and General Relativity.

Makes about 40 cookies.

Ingredients :

160g unsalted butter, room temperature and softened

135g white sugar ( This amount makes the cookie barely sweet. I recommend 200g of fine white sugar )

1 egg, 50g

1 tsp vanilla extract

350g top flour

½ tsp baking soda, sieved

½ tsp sea salt, crushed finely

¾ cup choc

Method :

Preheat oven to 160C, with baking racks.

Whisk butter until it is broken up. Add sugar and whisk until pale and light.

Whisk in egg until well combined.

Finally add vanilla extract.

In 3 batches, combine flour to the butter mixture until  the mixture is well combined.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Leave the dough to rest, covered, for 2 hours at room temperature.

Line a tray with parchment. Preheat the oven to 160C.

Measure out ½ T of cookie dough and press down with the base of a cup, about 4 mm thick.

Bake the cookie in the preheated oven at 160C for 20 minutes.

Cookies with turn out evenly tanned.

Remove immediately from the oven and cool the cookies on a rack.

When cool enough to handle, remove the cookies from the parchment and cool on the cookie rack.

Store in an airtight container only when the cookies are completely cooled.