Choose Your Chocolate:
The size, shape, and type of chocolate you use will affect the taste and look of your cookie. We use high-quality semisweet chocolate, which has a cacao content of around 60%, and indicates that no more than 50% of the mass of chocolate is sugar. Check out a few of our favorites below.
Hand-chopped
For a more chocolatey cookie, chop up a chocolate bar. With roughly chopped flakes and chunks, each bite of your cookie will taste different and there is a wider distribution of chocolate throughout. Thinner cookies work best with hand-chopped.
• Ghiradelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Premium Baking Bar (used in the Crispy)
• Green and Black’s Organic Dark Chocolate baking bar
• Theo Chocolate 70% Dark Chocolate baking bar
Chips (or Morsels)
For a batch of uniform cookies with chocolate in distinct pockets, use chips. Chips may melt a bit, but mainly retain their shape when baking. They won’t spread out into the dough like hand-chopped chocolate, so go with chips if you like more cookie in your bite.
• Guittard Real Semisweet Chocolate Baking Chips (used in the Classic, Cakey, and Chewy recipes)
• Ghiradelli Chocolate Semi-Sweet Chocolate Premium Baking Chips
• Barry Callebaut Semisweet Chocolate Chips
Know the Dough:
How you handle your cookie dough is just as important as what you put in it.
Less Kneading = Better Texture
The less you work the dough, the softer your cookies will be. It’s best to barely work the flour in, mixing it just until the dough pulls together. Overworking creates stronger gluten networks, which lead to a tough texture.
Longer Rest = Better Flavor
A longer rest time before baking gives your cookie more complex, concentrated flavor, reminiscent of toffee or butterscotch. The flour proteins and starches have time to break down. Ingredients can marinate and soak up extra moisture, so the flavors become more pronounced.
Longer Rest = More Compact
Chilling the dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. Solid fat takes longer to melt than room temperature fat, so cookies made with chilled dough will spread less.
