Bakery Review: Hannah's Cafe

Hannah's Cafe - visited June 17, 2017

I’ve been remiss in not blogging about the various bakeries and restaurants I’ve tried out over the past couple of months. I’ve been traveling so I've expanded my reach and it’s a shame not to share my gastronomic indulgences. So I’m going to take the next week (or two) on my blog and catch up on those posts as I share my “foodie crawl” from my neighborhood to San Francisco to Las Vegas to Milan to back home. I ate everywhere.

We’ll start local. One of my coworkers mentioned liking bear claws and how they were hard to find nowadays as so many bakeries just didn’t make them anymore. I ended up taking that as a personal challenge to find one and perused yelp for “best bear claws” in our area. One reviewer mentioned Hannah’s Café so I decided to mosey down there on a Saturday morning to see if the bear claws were really all that. 

Only to arrive and find there were no bear claws in evidence in the display case. I asked the counter person and she looked baffled. As in “what’s a bear claw” baffled. Not a good sign. Someone else behind the counter tried to explain it was “like an almond croissant”. Um, no. Totally different. Croissants are made by layering dough and butter multiple times to achieve their flaky texture. Bear claws are traditionally made with enriched dough like a brioche and have a less flaky texture but still a tender crumb, similar to a brioche or challah. Yes, they’re both stuffed with some kind of almond paste and garnished with almonds but the doughs are different.

Finally, someone who appeared to be the pastry chef for the café said she didn’t have any bear claws. Well, darn. Not that I’m such a big bear claw fan myself but I’d come with a purpose and that purpose was thwarted. Which, of course, only made me want a bear claw for myself. Still, I was flexible. And since I was already there, might as well try something they did have, right?

The café wasn’t very big and there were only a couple of display cases but they still showed a nice assortment of baked goods. I waffled between a pastry-pastry (like a pain au chocolat, my fave) and more of a cakey dessert like an actual cake or cupcake. I finally settled on two mini cakes: a German chocolate and a salted caramel chocolate.

When trying a new bakery, I rarely ask how much anything is, figuring that even if I pay a little more, at least I’m supporting a local small business, right? But I have to admit I blinked when the cashier rang up the two petite cakes and the total was $14. $7 a (little) cake! Eeep. For something the size of a Sprinkles cupcake. But….supporting a local small business means supporting a local small business so I dug for my cash and handed it over. (As an aside, I prefer to pay in cash when shopping at a small business so the small business owner saves on credit card fees.)

German Chocolate Petite Cake

The cakes were nicely presented, wrapped with clear plastic so the outer edges don’t get dry while sitting in a refrigerated display case all day. I thought both cakes were good. In hindsight, I should’ve gotten a different flavor for one of the cakes other than a chocolate-based one since essentially they came from the same cake but were just finished differently, one with the coconut and the other with the salted caramel.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Petite Cake

They must’ve been recently made as they weren’t dry and the flavors were good. I did think it was the kind of cake I could make myself though so I’m not sure I’d pay $7 for one again. I’d still want to support the business so if I go again, I might try something on the pastry side like a croissant or pain au chocolat since I can’t easily make either of those. Too bad about the bear claws though.

Vanilla Cake Filled with Cookie Butter

Bakery Quality White Cake - made July 4, 2017, adapted from All in All

This is another recipe I made for the 4th of July barbecue because I could frost and decorate the cake with my handy bag of red, white and blue M&Ms. M&Ms show up better against a vanilla frosting than a chocolate one plus my nephew, Vanilla King (he's made it to being able to "sort of" tolerate chocolate but still prefers vanilla) was attending the barbecue so I defaulted to vanilla cake as one of the desserts I'd brought.

Most vanilla cakes use almond extract to add to the flavor. Not me. I love almonds and despise almond extract. I always just add extra vanilla extract or, in this case, vanilla bean paste. I knew using cake flour would give this cake a nice tender crumb and it did. Just don't overbake it - does that even need to be said anymore?

I didn't want just a plain vanilla cake with vanilla frosting though (sorry, Vanilla King) so instead of sandwiching the layers with the vanilla buttercream, I ended up filling it with cookie butter. It was almost by accident as after I had made the frosting while the cake was cooling, I wasn't sure I'd have enough frosting to fill and cover both layers. So I spread a layer of cookie butter over the bottom cake before topping it with the second layer. It worked out pretty well and I left myself enough frosting for the rest of the cake.

But in hindsight I should've followed what professional cake bakers do and piped frosting around the outer edge of the bottom cake layer before filling it. Why? Because that's what would hold the layers in place and aligned while you cover the whole thing with frosting. Because I didn't, the layers moved around on me as I frosted it. So it was slightly lopsided. Ever try straightening a cake you'd already frosted? Yeah, it doesn't work.

Regardless, this cake tasted pretty good. The crumb was tender, the cookie butter added a nice flavor to complement the vanilla cake and, miracles, I even liked the vanilla buttercream. So did the rest of the barbecue crowd.

Oh, and you'll also notice, I did my usual trick of reserving enough batter for a small taste test cake. When I'm bringing a whole cake to a party, I can't very well present it with a slice missing or an explanation of "I had to taste it first." Instead, I reserve a small portion of batter to bake separately into a ramekin which I topped with a layer of cookie butter then covered with some of the frosting. Yup, I verified it was good enough to bring to the party and share with the others.

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup milk
6 egg whites, about 3/4 cup
1 teaspoon almond extract (I substituted vanilla bean paste)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into cubes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans.
2. In a medium bowl, mix milk and egg whites with vanilla and almond extracts until blended.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add cubes of butter and cut in with a pastry blender or two knives until butter pieces are the size of small peas.
4. Add the milk mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the two cake pans. Bake for 25-27 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted near the center of the cakes.
6. Cool the cakes in the pans for 5 minutes then run a small spatula along the sides to loosen cake, turn out onto plates and let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
3 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
2-4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream or whole milk

1. Cream butter and powdered sugar together with paddle attachment of stand mixer until well blended then beat on high for 3 minutes. 
2. Add the vanilla and 2 tablespoons of the cream or milk and beat for another minute, adding more cream or powdered sugar to reach desired consistency.

4th of July M&M Cookies

4th of July M&M Cookies - made dough July 1, 2017, adapted from Buns in My Oven (originally titled Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies)

In the interests of being holiday appropriate, I redirected this recipe for chocolate chip cookies to be 4^th of July M&M cookies to take to a barbecue on Independence Day. I’m late blogging it but timely in making it on the right day. The original recipe says you don't have to chill the dough. I re-wrote the directions to chill because that's what I always do, regardless of the recipe, but feel free to follow the original directions if you want more immediate gratification.

As I’ve blogged about multiple times before (you’ve only to search for “M&M cookies” on my blog to see how many times), I cheat by using holiday M&Ms to make cookies or other baked goods appropriate for the holidays. Red and green for Christmas, pink, red and white for Valentine’s Day, fall M&Ms for Halloween and, of course, red, white and blue M&Ms for 4^th of July. It’s an easy cheat and saves you (me) the trouble of messing about with food coloring or other decorations.

Plus, M&Ms are easy to add to cookie dough in addition or in lieu of chocolate chips. Just be sure you reserve some to press on the outside of the cookie dough balls after you form them and before you freeze them before baking.

I didn’t time these in the oven – what else is new – but just went by appearance. Once the edges had browned and the middles didn’t look raw anymore, I took them out of the oven, maybe around 10-11 minutes in my oven on the convection setting. Overall, I thought they were pretty good. Because I didn’t bake them for very long, they were of chewy and moist, almost like baked on the outside with a cookie dough texture on the inside. The nice part is they’re very versatile so you can make these with just chocolate chips or with any color/flavor M&Ms you choose.

8 tablespoons butter, melted and browned
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon espresso powder, optional
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
1 2/3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup M&Ms

1. Combine browned butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar and espresso powder (if using); beat until well combined.
2. Beat in the vanilla and egg until just combined.
3. Add flour, baking soda and salt; mix until just combined. Do not overbeat.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips and half of the M&Ms. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and press remaining M&Ms on the outside of each dough ball. Cover, chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled or frozen dough balls on baking sheets and bake for 10-11 minutes, until edges are golden brown and middles are just barely no longer raw. Do not overbake. Let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Twix Nutella Skillet Cookie

Twix Nutella Skillet Cookie - made June 10, 2017, adapted from Kleinworth & Co

Whenever I go out to lunch with my parents and we order dessert, we usually get some form of pizookie – a warm chocolate chip cookie served with ice cream. My mom never fails to tell me “you should make this.”

Sprinkle with chopped Twix bars

I actually do make this but usually a one-dough-ball cookie baked in a tiny skillet with a dollop of ice cream – you know, dessert for one with that one being me. I don’t usually make it at dessert parties due to the timing logistics of putting them in the oven at the right time, having them come out at just the right time after everyone’s finished eating dinner and serving them at the right time. It’s bad manners to hover over your guests, prodding them with a spoon, anxious that they eat their warm pizookie offering before the ice cream melts. Or so I’m told.

Cover with Nutella

But they had some other family members over for a housewarming dinner and she wanted me to serve pizookies for dessert so I obliged. I had amassed three 6” cast iron skillets by now plus two 3.5” ones so I could go with 1-2 person desserts as well as make a couple of different flavors. Traditional chocolate chips for my cousin Elinor’s boys. Snickerdoodle for Vanilla King, my other nephew, who still breaks my heart by not liking chocolate (why???). There were 9 adults, 1 teenager and 2 tweens so I wasn’t sure my smaller skillets were going to be enough so I did make extra in an 8” skillet just in case. Which turned out to be a good call because this was a really good pizookie. I added my own pizzazz by adding a layer of Nutella and chopped-up chunks of Twix candy bars in the middle. And yes, that was a good call. This may be the new family gathering dessert from now on.

1 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup turbinado sugar
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3/4 cup chopped Twix bars
1/2 cup Nutella
2 teaspoons fleur de sel

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly grease an 10" cast iron skillet or line with parchment paper.
2. In a mixer bowl fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars until smooth and creamy.
3. Beat in eggs, vanilla and milk until well combined. Scrape down sides of bowl to keep even textured.
4. Add flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt, mixing until just combined. Do not overmix.
5. Fold in chocolate chips and caramel bits, if using.
6. Smooth 1/2 the cookie dough into the prepared skillet. Sprinkle with chopped Twix, drop dollops of Nutella over the Twix and sprinkle with fleur de sel. Cover with the remaining cookie dough and smooth top.
7. Bake for 27 to 30 minutes or until browned on the sides and lightly brown on top. Cool skillet cookie slightly before serving warm with vanilla ice cream,

Red Velvet Cake

Red Velvet Cake - made June 10, 2017 from Spicy Southern Kitchen

So.....the original blog I got this recipe from said to sift the cake flour before measuring or else you'lll have too much flour and the cake will be dry.

True confession time: I hate sifting flour. I really do. It's messy, it's time-consuming and it just means an extra gadget (the sifter) to wash. For all-purpose flour, I use the dip and sweep method to measure. For cake flour, if the recipe calls for sifting then measuring, I just use less cake flour, about 1-2 tablespoons less for each cup of flour called for. It's almost always "close enough".

Alas, I probably shouldn't have taken the lazy baker's shortcut with this recipe. Although I only used about 2 cups of cake flour (unsifted) and thought the batter was fine, the cake, when baked, did have a slightly dry mouthfeel to it. No, I take that back. It wasn't really dry as I didn't overbake it but it wasn't as moist as I like my cakes.

The taste was fine but I prefer a more liquid batter that bakes into a more moist cake from a mouthfeel perspective. I don't know if it was because I ignored the instructions to sift then measure which means I did use too much flour or if I baked it longer than I should have (although I don't think so) but this didn't turn out quite as I had hoped.

Ah, well, lesson learned.

2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (sift before measuring)
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons red food coloring

Frosting
1 16-ounce box confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
milk, if needed, to achieve desired consistency

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9 x 13" pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Sift both flours, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and vanilla on high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. On low speed, add sugar in a slow and steady stream. Once sugar has been incorporated, turn mixer to high speed and beat for 3 to 5 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
5. On medium-low speed, beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition until just combined.
6. Combine buttermilk and food coloring. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture, alternating with buttermilk mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Beat until just combined; do not overmix.
7. Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly with a spatula. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely before frosting.
8. For the frosting, beat confectioners sugar, butter, sour cream and vanilla extract until smooth and creamy. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved.

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies

Peanut Butter Swirl Brownies - made May 29, 2017 from Martha Stewart's Cookies

Fudgy brownie, peanut butter batter swirled and baked into the brownie. Not much more to say here except “break out the mixing bowl and turn the oven on” if you like peanut butter chocolate combinations.

These turned out better than I expected in the sense that the brownie portion was nicely fudgy with my preferred chewy-soft, rich taste and texture and the peanut butter swirling throughout added a complementary flavor while not interfering with the chewy texture.

I made these for work by request and they went over pretty well. If you want some crunch in them you can use chunky peanut butter instead of creamy and/or you can sprinkle chopped up bits of toasted peanuts on top before baking. I prefer an unadulterated smoothness in my brownies so no peanut bits here but to each her/his own. The great thing about brownies is they’re pretty forgiving if you want to do a little experimentation. The only things they won’t survive are sub-par, low quality ingredients and overbaking.

Batter
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Filling
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line an 8" square baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Brownie: Melt butter and chocolates together in the top half of a double boiler set over hot, barely simmering, water. Whisk until smooth and completely melted. Set aside to cool slightly.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Whisk granulated sugar into melted chocolate mixture. Add eggs, and whisk until mixture in smooth. Whisk in vanilla. Add flour mixture; stir until well combined.
5. Make filling: Stir together butter, confectioners' sugar, peanut butter, salt and vanilla in a bowl until smooth.
6. Pour one-third of the batter into the prepared pan; spread evenly with a rubber spatula. Drop dollops of peanut butter filling on top of the batter, spacing about 1 inch apart. Drizzle remaining batter on top and gently spread to fill pan. Drop dollops of remaining peanut butter filling on top. Gently swirl peanut butter filling into batter with a butter knife, running the knife lengthwise and crosswise through layers.
7. Bake until a cake tester inserted into brownies comes out with a few crumbs but is not wet, about 45 minutes. Cool completely.

Lady's Chocolate Chip Cookie & Cookie Butter Skillets

Lady's Chocolate Chip Cookie and Cookie Butter Skillets - made May 26, 2017, modified from Modern Honey

I've come to believe that one of the easiest "comfort food" desserts you can serve is the chocolate chip cookie skillet. There's nothing like warm chocolate chip cookies. Served with ice cream. Baked in a cast iron skillet. Oh, and while you're at it, put some nutella to slowly melt over the warm cookie. Because....why not? Okay, yeah, you're going to have to do some massive workouts and live on rabbit food for 3 days but it's worth it. Especially this one.

Pre-bake

It's also quite versatile. If you have some non-chocolate lovers (I know, I don't understand them either), you can make the dough and right before you add the chocolate chips - which, hello, make the whole thing - separate out the plain dough and add cookie butter to that batch instead. No need to mix it into the actual cookie. I layered it into the cookie skillet for a cookie butter cookie skillet. It's hard to top a brown sugar sugar/cookie butter combination.

Post-bake

Unless, of course, you make the traditional chocolate chip cookie skillet with big milk chocolate chips, bake it, then spread a layer of nutella to melt over it. And serve it warm with vanilla ice cream. Yes, it was as good as that just sounded. Or better.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Skillet covered with Nutella

While chocolate chip cookie skillets are easy to make, you do want to make sure you choose a chocolate chip cookie recipe that spreads. I know, that's against my usual grain of thick, chubby, chunky cookies that remain thick with very little spread. But since it's in a skillet, you want it to spread at least enough to make it to the edges of the skillet. Otherwise, you'll get a weird cookie in the middle of a skillet that looks like it didn't need to be baked in a skillet. Plus the cookies that spread tend to be more buttery and less floury, also a good thing.

The cookie butter, chocolate-chip-less version was also good. It's hard to see the cookie butter in the picture below which only means I should've used more. But it, too, was good. Next time you have a group of friends or family over for an informal meal, this is a good dessert topper for a casual gathering.

Cookie Butter skillet cookie

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup + 1 tablespoon flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk chocolate chunks
1/3 cup cookie butter
vanilla bean ice cream

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.  Spray two 6-inch cast iron skillets with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a small heavy saucepan, melt brown over medium heat, stirring often, until it bubbles and milk solids turn brown. Turn off heat and add brown sugar and granulated sugar, stirring until completely blended. Cool slightly.
3. Add egg and vanilla, stir until combined.
4. Add flour, baking soda and salt. Stir until well combined.
5. Pour half of the cookie batter into 1 6" skillet, adding dollops of cookie butter and covering with dough,
6. Add milk chocolate chips to other half of the cookie batter and pour into second skillet. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until edges are lightly golden brown and middles no longer look like raw dough. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes.
7. Add vanilla bean ice cream and serve.

Good, Better, Best Cookies

Good, Better, Best Cookies - made May 29, 2017 from Dorie's Cookies by Dorie Greenspan

This was the name of the cookies in Dorie Greenspan’s cookie book but it doesn’t really tell you what this cookie is. In the original recipe, the “good” was represented by making just the cookies, “better” was to make the filling and serve these as sandwich cookies and “best” was to dip half the sandwich cookies in chocolate.

As you can see, I didn’t bother with the part about dipping into chocolate but I did get to the “better” stage (sort of) by making as sandwich cookies. Although I cheated and used straight cookie butter instead of making the filling in the recipe. C’mon, if you’re going to make a cookie butter sandwich cookie, I firmly believe the sandwich filling should be cookie butter in its unadulterated glory.

The cookies themselves were based on ground almonds. I didn’t have whole or slivered almonds to grind but I did have some almond meal I had bought for another recipe (which I haven’t made yet) so I figured it would do. In hindsight, it might’ve been better if I had ground up almonds as I was a little unsure of how much almond meal to use and it seemed my almond meal was finer than any almonds I would’ve ground in my food processor. But I made do and this seemed to turn out okay.

The dough was good to work with, which was just as well since this calls for rolling out to an even thickness so you can use a round cookie shaper to cut out uniformly-sized and shaped cookies. I did chill it briefly to make the dough easier to work with but I don’t think I rolled it out thinly enough as they still made for slightly thick cookies. I wasn’t sure whether these were supposed to be crisp like a shortbread or chewy. I suspect if I had rolled them more thinly and baked them longer, they might’ve gone into crisp territory but mine were a little thick and I never bake them “longer” so they were more chewy.

In general, I thought these were good, especially sandwiched with cookie butter. But I think I would’ve liked them better if I had ground the almonds myself instead of using almond meal. The almond meal was too uniformly fine whereas ground almonds would’ve had bits of almonds in the dough and that would’ve provided a nice texture contrast to the smooth cookie butter filling. Taste-wise, the cookies themselves didn’t seem to have much flavor and I’m not sure whether to blame the almond meal or not. Again, it would’ve been better to make the recipe as is and ground toasted almonds for both better texture and flavor.

My final caveat is my usual reminder about my picky taste buds which influence my assessment of a recipe. While I thought these were "okay", I did get at least one rave review of them at work so someone thought they were more than okay.

Cookies
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds, lightly toasted (or 4 ounces almond meal)
6 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
1 tablespoon cold water
1 cold large egg yolk

Filling
1/2 cup Biscoff spread
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon milk or more as needed

1. Cookies: Put the flour, almonds, sugar, cinnamon and salt in a food processor and pulse until the almonds are ground. Scatter the pieces of cold butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is worked in and the mixture looks like moist crumbs.
2. Lightly beat the cold water into the egg yolk and, pulsing the machine, add the yolk in 3 additions. Using long pulses, process until the dough forms clumps and curds.
3. Turn the dough onto the counter, divide in half, gather each piece into a ball and shape into a disk.
4. Working with one piece of the dough at a time, roll the dough between pieces of parchment paper to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Slide the parchment-sandwiched dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for at least 1 hour or refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Cut 2-inch circles into the chilled dough and evenly space on baking sheets. Bake the cookies for 11-13 minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom and top. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
7. Filling: In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the Biscoff, butter and salt until smooth, about 2 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and gradually add the confectioners' sugar. Add milk and continue beating until smooth and desired consistency is reached. 
8. Turn half of the cookies bottom-side up and spread with filling. Sandwich with the other half of the cookies, bottom-side in and top side up. 

New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough May 21, 2017 from The New York Times

I wouldn’t call this a Levain Bakery copycat recipe and it isn’t meant to be one. Instead, it’s a jumbo chocolate chip cookie with sea salt sprinkled on top. I’ve come across several variations of the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies. I don’t think they’re an urban legend like the Neiman Marcus cookie but there are several versions because the New York Times printed several versions over the years.

I know I’ve tried an earlier version and didn’t think there was anything special about them so I wondered what all the fuss was about. That earlier one was fine but it just seemed like a typical chocolate chip cookie. Remember, I have jaded taste buds though.

This version was pretty good. It did make for a nice big cookie with crisp edges and it caramelized nicely for a chewy texture in the middle. It’s not a cakey-cookie in terms of texture but was a chewy cookie-cookie texture. The sprinkles of sea salt, which the original authors insisted was a must to send this over the edge, was fine but I liked the cookie just as well without it. I’m not big on the salty-sweet with chocolate chip cookies as I prefer the flavor profile to be more focused on the chocolate and the brown sugar caramelization.

Any time you make big chocolate chip cookies, I advocate using either the mini chips to get more chocolate in every bite or use big chocolate chips or chunks as befitting a behemoth cookie. You can use the regular Tollhouse-sized chocolate chips if you had to but it isn’t as impressive. Go big or go mini but don’t go regular. It's hard to tell from the pictures but I actually did use Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips that are slightly bigger than Tollhouse. But the cookies were so big in size that they made the chips look smaller than they are. Guittard milk chocolate chips might've been a more size-fitting choice.

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons (8.5 ounces) cake flour
1 2/3 cups (8.5 ounces) bread flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) brown sugar
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/4 lbs bittersweet or milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
sea salt

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl; set aside.
2. Using a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.
3. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds.
4. Fold in chopped bittersweet chocolate. Press plastic wrap against dough and chill for 1 hour. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 72 hours but at least for 24 hours.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls onto sheet. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes then transfer cookies onto another rack to cool.