1 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 large egg yolk, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips, mini and regular size
1/2 cup caramelized cocoa nibs (I ordered mine from chefshop.com)
- Combine melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar in a large bowl. Whisk until smooth and well combined. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla extract; stir until combined.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
- Add to butter mixture in two additions, stirring after each addition until combined. Fold in chocolate chips and caramelized cocoa nibs.
- Portion into large dough balls (I got 11 cookies out of this dough). Cover with plastic wrap and chill or freeze for at least an hour or overnight.
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake 14 - 16 minutes or until edges have set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.
I was hunting through my pantry for espresso powder as I could've sworn I had some left and I wanted to use it in a recipe for a coffee-based cookie. But of course I didn't have any. But I did find these caramelized cocoa nibs that I must've bought awhile ago and forgot about. Not the first time that's happened, believe you me.
So I decided to add them to this recipe for giant chocolate chip cookies. Cocoa nibs add a little crunch to baked goods but unlike nuts which steam and soften during baking, cocoa nibs retain their crunch. Plus they add a dark cocoa flavor to the cookie. I'm more of a milk chocolate person myself but since I wasn't the one eating 12 giant cookies (yes, these went into military care packages), I thought I could send them to people who probably didn't have my fanatic sweet tooth. Plus chocolate chip cookies....
This dough came together beautifully. Not too dry or too sticky and it was easy to form into giant dough balls. I bought a huge cookie scoop from the Le Creuset last year. It was criminally expensive for a cookie scoop (let's face it, I could go the cheap way and just use two spoons), even for an outlet, but I'd been wanting that size cookie scoop for years. I'm glad I bought it as it enables me to make evenly-size huge cookie dough balls. Which I then flattened slightly to thick discs as I wanted an even bake for a uniformly shaped cookie.
Besides the cocoa nibs, I also added regular semisweet chocolate chips and mini chocolate chips. When making giant cookies, if you want a more even distribution of chocolate and just more chocolate in a chocolate chip cookie, the best way to ensure that is (conversely) to use smaller chocolate chips. They're easier to disperse in large cookies and you get more even distribution of chocolate.
This recipe actually made 11 giant cookies and 1 medium-ish-sized one. I had the medium-sized one as the taste test cookie. I had to bake it separately from its gigantic brethren or else the little cookie would've baked too much before the big ones were done.
Just above and below is the taste test cookie. You can see it doesn't spread too much and bakes up to a good thickness.
I don't believe I overbaked this cookie but I also didn't underbake it as much as I normally would have. So it might be baked "just right" for people who don't like underbaked cookies. Flavor-wise, this was also pretty good. The edges had a nice crunch to them. The middle wasn't as chewy as I normally prefer my cookies, probably because I baked it a minute or so more than I normally would. Still a good cookie though and the cacao nibs worked well.
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