Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer

Pan-Banging Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough August 18, 2023 from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer

2 cups (284 grams) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks or 227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups (300 grams) granulated sugar

1/4 cup (50 grams) brown sugar

1 large egg

2 tablespoons water

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

6 ounces (170 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks

fleur de sel for sprinkling, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy, about 1 minute.
4. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.
5. Add the egg, water and vanilla and mix on low speed until combined.
6. Add the flour mixture in two additions and mix on low speed until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips on low speed.
7. Portion the dough into 1/4-cup or 3-ounce dough balls. Flatten slightly into thick discs. Place 3 or 4 cookies an equal distance apart on baking sheet. 
8. Bake the cookies one pan at a time. Bake until the dough discs have spread flat but are puffed slightly in the center, 9 minutes. Lift one side of the baking pan up about 4 inches and gently let it drop down against the oven rack, so the edges of the cookies set and the center falls back. After the cookies puff up again in 2 minutes, repeat lifting and dropping the pan. Repeat a few more times to create ridges around the edge of the cookie. Bake for 15 to 16 minutes total, until the cookies have spread out and the edges are golden brown but the centers are much lighter and not fully cooked.
9. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and sprinkle the cookies with fleur de sel if desired. Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes then move them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Do you like those ripples at the edges of cookies, commonly found in some bakery cookies? Or do you like your chocolate chip cookies thin and crispy? If you're a "yes" to both. here's the recipe for you. 

This recipe is from Sarah Kieffer's book 100 Cookies but she also has it on her Vanilla Bean blog. I don't think I've tried a bad recipe from her yet, either from her book or her blog. Although I'm not a fan of thin. crispy cookies, surprisingly, I did like this one so her recipe streak continues. It's a bit sweet for me but that's probably because I used milk chocolate chunks and because this has way more granulated sugar than brown sugar. If you want to cut the sweetness, use semisweet or dark chocolate chips.

The pan banging trick is literally just that. You let the cookies bake for 9 minutes then bang the pan on the oven rack several times. Banging the pan deflates the cookies and causes those ripples at the edges as the middle collapses. You let it bake for 2 minutes then bang the pan again to once again deflate the middles that keep trying to rise, thus creating another ripple at the edges. Another 2 minutes, bang, deflate, 2 minutes, bang, deflate and so on until the cookies are the golden caramel you want them to be. 

Depending how long you bake, bang and ripple, the cookies will be crisp if you bake them to an even golden color. I prefer for at least the middles to be chewy so I didn't bake these as long but even then, they were still more crisp than chewy. 

As good as these tasted, I don't think I'd make them again unless I knew someone who really does like crisp cookies, mostly because the pan banging was a pain in the ass. I don't like opening the oven every two minutes to bang the pan (too much heat escapes) and I'm not used to roughing up my baking pans that way, lol. Still, it's a fun technique if you want the rippled look and that crisp texture.