Sometimes the pictures in cookbooks really mess with me. Like this one below. See how beautiful that looks?
Well when my ultra thin cookies came out of the oven they had none of the lacy beauty of the ones above which obviously led me to fervently googling other blogs to see what their results looked like. Apparently many were quite close to mine. After breathing a confused sigh of relief I realized that the picture in the book is the back of the cookie. Oh Alice Medrich you are so sneaky.
Somehow though I forgot to try them (!?!) so I cannot tell you what they are like warm and out of the oven, but I know they are very good that day and the next. It is the kind of thin crunchy chewy cookie that you really enjoy because it is so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Thankfully the recipe makes only 15 so the damage to me was limited. Also I did hide them from my 2 year old and then kinda forgot where for a day so I got to spread out the enjoyment!
Ultra Thin Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Recipe from Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy, Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich
Makes 15 5-inch cookies
1 ⅓ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, melted
½ cup rolled oats
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon light corn syrup
2 tablespoons whole milk
½ teaspoon salt
7 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped into chunks, or 1 generously heaping cup chocolate chips or chunks
Combine the flour and baking soda in a small bowl, mixing them thoroughly with a whisk or fork. Set aside. Melt your butter and get the ingredients ready.
In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, oats, granulated and dark brown sugars, corn syrup, milk, and salt.
Whisk in the flour mixture. If the batter is still warm from the butter, let it cool to room temperature before adding the chocolate. If you have a blog remember to take a picture at this point.
Stir in the chocolate chunks. If possible, let the dough rest for at least several hours at room temperature or covered overnight in the fridge. (The resting time makes for an especially crisp and extra-flavorful cookie. If you refrigerate the dough, you may need to warm it to room temperature before you’re able to portion it into cookies.)
Preheat the oven to 325°F (163°C). Position the oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. (These cookies will not spread as they should in a convection oven, so make them only if you have a conventional oven.) Have ready 3 baking sheets. As a quick note my oven is temperamental so I usually get the best results from just leaving cookie sheets on the middle rack and rotating them halfway through.
Place 3 large sheets of aluminum foil, cut to fit your baking sheets, on the counter.
Divide the dough into 15 equal blobs of about 2 tablespoons each. Arrange 5 blobs of dough well apart on each sheet of foil, situating 4 in a square and 1 in the center.
Flatten each piece of dough until it is about 3 inches in diameter. Slide two of the sheets of foil onto baking sheets.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the cookies are thin and very brown, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. If the finished cookies are too pale, they will not be crisp, although watch the cookies carefully as they turn brown quickly. Slide the cookies and foil onto wire racks to cool completely before removing the cookies from the foil. Flip over to check for lacy prettiness 🙂
Cool the cookies completely before stacking or storing. The cookies can be kept in an airtight container for at least 3 days.
Penny for your thoughts?