An Urban Legend in My Kitchen: Chocolate Chip Cookies

This post reminded me of the famous (or perhaps more accurately, infamous) email about the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe, that did the rounds a long time ago. I had read it, and even filed it (somewhere), thinking that I would try out the recipe and see how good it really is. That was many, many years ago, and no, I never got round to baking those cookies. So Alberto’s photo and happy results with the “official” Neiman Marcus recipe inspired me enough to fire the oven and get a-baking…

I contemplated doing the email version of the recipe, but it required a few more ingredients than the “official” recipe, and I didn’t have everything readily available on hand… so, the “official” recipe it would be…

Even then, I tweaked the recipe a little. I used reduced fat “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” instead of regular butter. Ya, I know, I know, you’re thinking: that’s like ordering a pizza with the works, and asking for a diet soda to go with it… or like having a double cheesecake with extra whipped cream but drinking a skinny latte… where’s the logic in that?!?! And hey, chocolate chip cookies are chocolate chip cookies… they are MEANT to be sweet, indulgent things in life. But a gal sometimes just want to have her cake, or in this case, cookie, and eat it too… you know? Besides, that was the only “butter” I had in the fridge. So, it was either that, or no cookies. And the family readily plumped for cookies, albeit not “real” ones, as one person sagely put it!

Also, I reduced the brown sugar slightly to ¾ cup. That wasn’t such a good idea. Whilst the cookie was still sweet enough, I think it would be just fine or better with the full measure of sugar. And I think I would prefer to use a touch more espresso powder the next time round.

This baking was a “team effort” – see my earlier post… and perhaps the results we got reflected that : )

The cookies were good, with loads of chocolate chips and nice flavor. But somehow we got cookies that had a more cake-like crumb, rather than the chewy texture that Alberto got. Hmmm… I suspect it could be the over-enthusiastic heaping of dough onto the cookie sheet? Our cookies were rather “thick” (and chunky?) and perhaps thus baked out into a cake-like texture rather than a cookie texture. Perhaps we should have flattened out the dough slightly before baking it. I had assumed they would “spread” as they baked, but they didn’t.

But they were still good. In fact, I had planned to melt down some chocolate chips, and drizzle it over the top of the cookies, but never got a chance to do so. The cookies were being popped into anticipating mouths so quickly, as they came out of the oven, that they were all gone before I could even get going on the melted chocolate chips! Oh, and the cookies tasted very good dunked in hot (and iced) chocolate! Shiokadelicous indeed!

Here’s the recipe (without my tweaks):

½ c unsalted butter, softened
1 c brown sugar
3 tbsps granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsps vanilla extract
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1¾ c flour
1½ tsps instant espresso powder, slightly crushed
8 oz semisweet chocolate chips

- combine all the dry ingredients together
- cream the butter together with the sugars, until fluffy
- beat in the egg and vanilla extract
- mix the dry ingredients into the butter mixture
- stir in the chocolate chips
- drop large spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet (and flatten slightly)
- bake at 190C or 375F for 8-10 mins, or 10-12 mins for crispier cookie

Recipe said it would make between 12 to 15 cookies. We managed 16 very good-sized ones.

Happy chocolate chip cookie-ing!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
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