blue chip chocolate chip cookies
I suppose there comes a point in every food blogger’s so-called “career” when she posts her favorite chocolate cookie recipe, but I’ve avoided this point for a long time because, does the internet actually need another chocolate chip cookie recipe? 130,000 times no. But, the thing is, I do have a favorite. And sometimes, sometimes when you’re making a heavy meal full of classics that I’ll get to one by one this week, you want to end on a simple–but not too subtle–note. See, this cookie has what we affectionately call “a lot of chocolate to very little dough,” in fact, when you’re folding all of the ingredients together, it seems impossible that so many chocolate and pecan chunks will fit in so little batter, and the best part is that they barely do.
Who is the crazed, handsome genius who brings us this masterpiece? No, not Alex, though he did bake the cookies while I washed dishes on Sunday (see how we switched it up there? cr-azy!). It is, and really just has to be, the famed David Lebovitz, from his Great Book of Chocolate. And yeah, I was like the last person on earth to buy this but I’ve made up for it by making these cookies more than twice. More than twice. You have no idea how few recipes get even one repeat performance in the smitten kitchen, twice means that you need to print (yup, it’s working again) this post and go make these right now. In 30 minutes, you’re going to be all “Schmoll House who?” and you’ll never look back.
Blue Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies
The Great Book of Chocolate
So, here’s my chocolate chip cookie thing. The nuts are always well-toasted and they’re always finely chopped–as in, some will be the size of petite peas but many will be more like powder. What this gets you is a cookie filled with all of the awesome flavor of nuts, as well as the extra crunch, without the nuts actually interrupting your chocolate chip experience. Nobody wants their chocolate experience interrupted. Half the people who try them will have no idea there are nuts at all in there–thus hushing the nut haters–but they will know that there is something undeniably better.
As for the name, David got the recipe from the now-shuttered San Francisco cookie shop, Blue Chip Cookies.
Makes 20 cookies, or more if you use one of these tiny cookie scoops.
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) (115 grams) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/2-inch (1cm) pieces
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt or 1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt (Deb option)
1 1/2 cups (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup (130 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped
Adjust the oven rack to the top third of the oven and preheat to 300F (150C). Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.
Beat the sugars and butters together until smooth. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda.
Stir together the flour and salt, then mix them into the batter. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.
Scoop the cookie dough into 2-tablespoon (5cm) balls and place 8 balls, spaced 4 inches (10cm) apart, on each of the baking sheets.
Bake for 18 minutes, or until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
All of these comments had to be copied over during the server move. Sorry to the original commenters!
1#shana January 14, 2008
what is it with the chocolate chip cookies recently? these look lovely, i love how small they are. although inevitably that means i will eat. them. all. without even knowing it!
2# Pedro January 14, 2008
Partial feed. Grr. How can we encourage the end of the audition?
3# deb January 14, 2008
@#$! I had changed it back after Friday, wtf? Let me see what is going on.
4# David January 14, 2008
First you tell me Alex does dishes.
Then you tell me he bakes cookies?
Dear lord, I need to cool down.
(Too bad there’s no Murray’s in Paris…)
5# deb January 14, 2008
Oh, crikey. So, here is what is happened. Wordpress 2.3.2, the latest version (upgraded on Friday) only has two RSS options: partial and full. However, the “full” cuts off where you put the entry break in (I do mine about halfway through entries, so the front page doesn’t get too cluttered) and there is *no* way to undo this. I will see if there are any plugin solutions to this problem that my Wordpress Guru can install. In the meanwhile, this is Wordpress’s fault, and not mine, not that it is any consolation. Sorry for the inconvenience, people. (Though I do think we’re worth the click.)
6# radish January 14, 2008
Sorry about web troubles!! Am I missing something? I think I can see it all? Or am I not an attentive reader?? Question though - how do you cream chilled butter - i always bring mine to room temperature to cream bc it’s hard otherwise?
7# deb January 14, 2008
Actually, I was a little confused by that step, too, and always soften the butter a bit so it is mixable (though not as much as if I were making a cake). Perhaps we can get David to clarify?
8# Hilary January 14, 2008
Blue Chip Cookies??????? We used to go there all the time in San Diego. I must try this recipe!
9# Sharon January 14, 2008
Ooh these cookies looks so good! i like a high chocolate to dough ratio. btw, i have a new blog and i have linked you on there, if you don’t mind! been reading from day 1 :D
10# Jocelyn January 14, 2008
Yum. Cookies are my second favorite weakness in life. My first is well done french fries with melted cheese & gravy on the side (Disco Fries, you know I coined the term in 1992 and now every calls them that!) I think you should let me guest blog again someday and I will make Disco Fries at home for all of your favorite hungover readers!
11# Joy January 14, 2008
MMM…you’re making me drool. It’s not even the middle of January and my dieting sensibilities have escaped me!
12# Kathryn January 14, 2008
Oh how exciting! I remember Blue Chip cookies from growing up, and I’d always get one of their white chocolate chip macadamia nut ones. I can’t wait to make these.
13# katy January 14, 2008
gorgeous. and I was about to ask why they are called blue chip cookies, but of course, you’re one step ahead of me! :-)
14# 13desserts January 14, 2008
oooh! I am a huge fan of your blog and reading it really encouraged me to set up my own. I am totally reassured that a seasoned pro such as you also posted a choc chip cookie recipe ;-), in my opinion, there can NEVER be too many of those!
15# applebranch January 14, 2008
hurray! thanks for this — again, a fortuitous connection between what you post and what I’ve been craving. Last night, i was thinking of a way to use up the leftover pecans from the holidays and was wondering how they’d work in chocolate chip cookies…and voila!
16# spoiledonlychild January 14, 2008
Deb, I fail to understand how one person, with a full-time job at the NYT no less!, can bake as much as you do. It blows the mind. Do you sleep? Do you ever leave the house? Do you do anything during your non-work hours other than cook and bake? And everything comes out so scrumptios and perfect looking. I think I’m onto you. You’re a robot, aren’t you?
17# deb January 14, 2008
I’m super-flattered that you think that I work at the Times (!)–heh, not yet anyway–but can assure you I’m not a robot. But we did do a lot of cooking this weekend because we were having about 7 people and one staggering drunk of a toddler over on Sunday. I’ll get a couple this week.
18# Judy January 14, 2008
Deb,
Just made the caramel cake and the glaze is really thin…I cooked it until 212 temp, should I have cooked it longer??
Thanks for any help,
Judy
19# Veronica January 14, 2008
I tried this recipe off of David’s site but ended up starting over with a new one recommending softened butter after a butter creaming fiasco. Chunks of butter flew around my kitchen. I have a hand mixer, not a stand mixer so maybe that’s the difference? If you or David could clarify, I would try these cookies again. I so wanted to bake the best ones ever. Thanks!
20# Chuck January 14, 2008
I’m one of those “nut haters”, hate maybe a little strong, but I don’t like nuts interfering with my chocolate deserts. However, I could deal with finely chopped nuts. The extra crunch sounds great!
Regarding your full feed issue, check out this plugin, which should solve your problem.
21# Warda January 14, 2008
That is so funny! David’s chocolate chip cookies are my favorite in the whole wide world too. I made them last month about three times just to make sure that they are indeed my favorite. And they are! (My hips will testify of that!) And the butter does cream pretty easily with the help of the sugar. I’m guessing the brown sugar has something to do with it.
22# moe January 14, 2008
These look great! Out of curiosity, what kind of chocolate chips do you use?
23# mike January 14, 2008
Sounds delicious and I agree about the nuts. Small/finely chunks or none at all in my cookies!
24# Anali January 14, 2008
I just printed it! Yum!
25# Helios January 14, 2008
I’ll have to try this recipe. My current favorite is Dorie Greenspan’s “Best” Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe in her Baking: from My Home to Yours. But your rave review makes me want to try these ones just to be sure! :) Nut free though. I’m a chocolate chip cookie purist that way.
26# deb January 14, 2008
Judy — I learned last night that my thermometer is a total piece of ahem, its temperature could be as far as 50 degrees off, likely explaining why my caramel topping was so thick. The original recipe’s picture shows a thin caramel that soaks in more, and many other commenters experienced this, thus your outcome was correct. If you want it thicker next time, like mine, go ahead and cook it quite a bit hotter. In the meanwhile, I’ll be investing in a thermometer that costs more than $2.99 but more on that later this week.
Moe — I’ve been using Ghiradelli because they’re the best-quality readily available ones in the stores I go to. I love their flavor, but their size is a little mega making them dominate the smaller-sized cookies I prefer to make. Nobody complains, but it’s just something I notice.
27# Mer January 14, 2008
“’Schmoll House who?’”
I love your writing style. You make me laugh.
28# Alice January 14, 2008
I’ve made these cookies before and they are SO good. The chocolate and nut and nut content compared to the dough is higher and I think that’s why they taste better the, what did you call it, Schmoll House cookies dough? haha.
29# JEP January 14, 2008
Yes, I do need this choc chip cookie recipe & my tummy thanks you for it:)
30# Jane M January 14, 2008
I love cookies! I just don’t like the way each batch I bake come out differently. I know, sometimes my butter isn’t at room temp, sometimes it’s humid out, sometimes I’m not careful in measuring…but all in all I REALLY REALLY ENJOY BAKING. I just have to tell you, last week I made the goulash…IT WAS OUTTA-THIS-WORLD YUMMY! I’ve got probably 13 pounds of biscotti dough in my fridge waiting to bake them off for a Trade Show starting on Thursday. My customers LOVE my baking and many have asked me if I’m baking again for this show! They won’t be disappointed –I HOPE!
31# Kristin January 14, 2008
Oh my…my son just made me buy chocolate chips at TJ’s and I hadn’t yet found a recipe…what luck I found in this post tonight! Yay!
32# Amy January 14, 2008
While we’re on the subject of feeds and entry breaks and such, can I mention that I preferred when you used to have the break always happen between the writing and the recipe? Sometimes I don’t click through to the recipe, but I always read all of the writing. These days I never know whether there will be more writing if I click or not!
Fantastic idea to chop the nuts finely, by the way — I myself am a “nut hater”, but I don’t actually hate nuts (in fact I rather like them!) what I really hate is the interruption, just as you describe.
33# StickyGooeyCreamyChewy January 14, 2008
Lol, I must be working too hard. I was halfway through your post before I realized that they were “Blue Chip Chocolate Chip Cookies” and NOT “Blue Chocolate Chip Cookies”! Sigh….I need a vacation.
Whatever they’re called, they look awesome. Of course, most of David’s recipes are.
34# Katie January 14, 2008
This is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, too. Glad to see that others appreciate them!
35# meg January 14, 2008
Oh, no! I had gotten so excited about your pickled carrots - SO excited - that I made a bold statement that I’d planned to make them, in anticipation that they would be so delicious and snackable that I could finally resist chocolate for, like, a week.
And before I can even say “vinegar,” you’re trying to get me to make chocolate chip cookies, instead! And I have to say - you’ve done such a good job selling these cookies that I just don’t know how strong my vegetable-willpower will be!!!
But THANKS for them both - I can’t wait to dig in!
36# Val January 14, 2008
Deb, I also made the caramel cake, and the glaze came out thin as well. Yours looked so thick and perfect. I cooked it to 212, as stated in the recipe. Any thoughts?
37# TaratheFoodie January 14, 2008
I never thought to toast the nuts before adding them to the cookie batter and I’m not sure why. That’s a great idea and I’m sure it really adds to the flavor. These sound SO good and if I wasn’t watching what I eat right now, I would make these in a heartbeat. I’ll be sure to make them maybe on Valentine’s Day (when it’s acceptable to eat something bad for you always).
38# alison chino January 14, 2008
we made these tonight at our house and they were a huge hit! thanks for such a great recipe!! sooooo good!
39# caitlyn January 14, 2008
My current favorite chocolate chip recipe is from “The Good Cookie” by Tish Boyle, but your cookies look amazing. I’ll have to give them a try — thanks for sharing!
40# kathryn January 15, 2008
I’m going to make these without telling the (anti-nut) husband about the nuts. Wish me luck!
41# lobstersquad January 15, 2008
Deb, bless you for giving it in grams too. It´s very similar to my favourite recipe. I always think there´s no way all those chips will fit, but somehow they do. Next batch, I´ll try them with toasted nuts, too, following your sage advice.
3 days? Do you seriously think these cookies (either 20 or many more using the tiny scoop) would actually last 3 days in this house?
Not a chance. :-) Yum!!
The pictures alone are clogging my arteries. Yummy!
Hi–I made these cookies last night, but they turned out horribly! They were so greasy, they just melted into little pools in the oven and were so big and flat and meh, definitely not like your photos. I can’t really see what I could have done wrong, I followed the directions to a T. Does the recipe maybe just have too much butter? Anyone else have problems with this? Usually, your recipes turn out so well when I try them…
I made these this weekend as well, and while I wasn’t crazy about them (no matter what, I can’t warm up to walnuts in cookies), they actually came out beautifully and all the walnut lovers loved them. I’m looking forward to trying them again with just chocolate chips (sorry!). Clee, did you soften the butter? These have the unlikely direction to keep the butter cold. I wonder if that is why yours came out so greasy?
I tried these, coincidentally with the Ghirardelli’s chips and no walnuts (lots of allergic people in my life) and the chips were large enough to really hold the cookie together on their own. I am definitely more a fan of chewy, but my boyfriend prefers crunchy and I caught him standing in my kitchen in his underwear eating these for breakfast. Keeping the butter cold definitely made a difference given the amount of sugar in the recipe.
I whipped up a batch of these babies for a dinner party I held the other night. Unfortunately I didn’t have any nuts to throw in them, but they were still great!
Deb - these cookies were absolutely fabulous. I can’t thank you enough for sharing the recipe. I doubled the recipe, and was ever-so pleased. I wrote it up on my own blog too - giving you and David L all the credit.
http://tastingspoons.blogspot.com
Thanks!
I tired these today and they were huge (not like in your picture at all). They also spread and were flat and thin. I followed the directions exakctly. What did I do wrong? They still taste good, not great and just don’t look lihe pic
So, I made these today. Delicious. I’m not sure, however, that I like them better than “Schmoll House.” I really think that the beauty of Toll House is the slightly salty dough contrasted with the sweet chocolate chips. The dough here was a little, well, nondescript. Maybe I just like a little more dough to the chocolate chip ratio. Maybe I’ve just eaten so many thousands of Toll House that I’m desensitized to new chocolate cookie recipe adventures. Whatever . . . these are good, just not my favorite.
Im trying these tomorrow and i can’t wait! I’m sure they’ll come out purrrrfect! The best thing for an elementary school girl’s reunion! And my analogy for testing the best ever chocolate chip cookies entirely depends on how much milk you manage to consume with only ONE cookie.. hihihi and if Deb’s pics are any indication… i think one of these blue chips will definately require 2-3 glasses of cold milk!
I too had the problem of flat and thin cookies, though everyone in the house gobbled them up in record time anyway. The second time, even though I yes, used very cold butter, I also refrigerated the finished dough for an hour before scooping them into balls and baking - made all the difference. Still not as high as in these photos and they did spead a little, but the coldness did make a BIG difference. Just thought I’d share.
I made these last night and am currently brushing yet more crumbs off my skirt after an illicit sample. (Or two.) (They’re supposed to be dessert for a dinner party tonight. We’ll see how many make it.) Absolutely delicious, so thank you. I’m always on the hunt for good cookie recipes. I made a few mistakes I won’t make next time (butter not cold enough, nuts not toasty enough), but these cookies absorb mistakes like George W. Bush.
I’m apparently punchy because comparing something so wholesome and delicious to P. Bush feels like heresy.
Smitten, I made these last night and brought them to work this morning for an office valentines celebration. And now I have to swat my co-workers’ greedy hands away! Thanks so much for sharing. They came out great.
I couldn’t find this in your recipe index and felt momentarily flustered and upset.
Oddly, they were the biggest hit with my “I don’t like too much chocolate in my chocolate chip cookies” boyfriend so I just HAD to make them again.
(That is, b/c then I’d have someone else to absorb the guilt and help me eat them all.)
Anyway, I don’t know if it was my impatience, but just a heads up that it might not be in the index?
I had the same problem as Jeannie and Angie — my cookes spread out a lot in the oven, were super-thin, crispy, and looked nothing like your photos. I will try refrigerating the dough longer, but I wonder if they could use a little more flour (or if maybe the baking soda should have been added with the dry ingredients instead of the wet? I am just making things up here, now). So sad, because your pictures look great and that is what I have been craving all weekend!
awesome site and recipes just bookedmarked your site.. i love choc chip cookiess my sites dedicated to these devilish things lol
go to my cookie recipes and check it out. keep up the cool work
happy bakin
ben
i was a little confused at first about the chilled butter–i didn’t get that creamy consistency that i normally do. i even had ridiculous thoughts of adding a little melted butter just to soften it up a bit. thank god i didn’t–i kept to the recipe, and the cookies turned out great. these are amazing, and before this experience, i WAS a toll house lover (as well as a no-nuts, low chocolate to cookie ratio kind of girl). i’ve been converted. thanks for the recipe :)
I made these cookies about a month or two ago, and I’ve made them a few times since then! These are, in my opinion, the BEST chocolate chip cookies EVER. Thanks for sharing this recipe!! :)
I actually used to work and bake at two blue chip cookie franchises, I will try the recipe and let you know how it measures up!