I’m on another big fat cookie kick and have been playing with my old recipe — the one inspired by Levain Bakery in New York City. My new favorite ingredient to use in the cookies is pasture butter. Like European style butter (Plugra, for instance), pasture butter has a higher percentage of fat. Baking with it gives you different results — some good, some not so great. My usual ways to use it include in pie dough and in these convection toaster oven chocolate chip cookies.
I used to bake these in a regular oven at 375F, but I’ve discovered that baking at 350F in my Breville counter top toaster oven gives higher, fatter, nicely browned cookies. The recipe gives you 7 gigantic cookies, so it’s well suited for making small batches for friends. However, if you feel like spoiling a larger group, you can spend some $$ on ingredients, double it and make multiple batches.
Over the years I’ve experimented with different types of flour. Bread flour gives you a tall cookie with a thicker crust, while King Arthur AP flour gives you a tall cookie with less of a crust than bread flour. Pastry flour gives you a softer cookie, but the cookies tend to spread more.
Here’s the newest rendition of the recipe. If you don’t have a baking scale, Amazon has a ton of inexpensive models.
Update: I still love pasture butter, but I’ve found you can make these just as good using regular unsalted butter (Land o Lakes). I’ve also played around with adding milk powder, but after making these about a million times I think they are better without it. I do add a little cornstarch to help curb spreading.
Giant Toaster Oven Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 380 grams bread flour (2 2/3 cups) or use 300 bread and 80 AP
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cornstarch
- 280 grams unsalted butter, cold and cut into chunks (2 1/2 sticks)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 130 grams packed brown sugar
- 120 grams granulated
- 1 large egg
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 cup assorted chocolate chips
- In a large bowl, thoroughly mix together the bread flour, all-purpose (if using), baking powder, baking soda, salt and cornstarch. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, using a hand held electric mixer or the paddle of a stand mixer, beat the cold butter until creamy. Beat in vanilla and both sugars and continue to beat for 3 to 4 minutes, scraping the side of the bowl every minute or so.
- Add the cold egg and the egg yolk and beat until blended, scraping side of bowl.
- Using lowest speed of mixer (or by hand), stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture until it is almost fully blended. Stir in the chocolate chips and mix until fully blended.
- Divide dough into 7 large balls. To give them a roughed up look, break each in half and pat halves together with broken sides showing.
- Wrap the shaped dough balls loosely in plastic and chill until firm, the put in a freezer bag (or wrap tightly) and chill overnight.
- Convection Baking: Bake cookies one or two at a time on a parchment lined tray at 400 degrees F. for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, lower heat to 330 and bake for another 10-12 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool for at least an hour before serving. They need time to set.
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