Cookies for Mama

My mother is a cookie fiend. Now before you go picturing a 500 pound woman, think again. She is annoyingly skinny. She passed the cookie fiendishness down to my little sister and I (still waiting on the annoyingly skinny part!) When she and my sis come to visit from California, we usually go through dozens of cookies. We have been known once or twice to special order chocolate dipped shortbread and drive 40 minutes out of the way for a COOKIE. So with their impending arrival this weekend I wanted to make a very special batch of cookies, a batch that could also masquerade as a Mother’s Day gift. I knew there was nothing my mama would like more….

I am not going to take any credit for this recipe, not for improvising and not even for finding it. Many food blog readers have probably ran across this recipe by now, since it was published by David Leite in the New York Times last July. The recipe kept popping up with rave reviews everywhere, so I just knew I had to make them, because they were going to be oh so good. I really feel like the biggest secret to this recipe is the dough refrigeration time, Leite does an excellent job explaining the reasons for this in his NYT article. For his original recipe, click here. For a good adaptation click here. And for a gluten free version click here. I used the Orangette’s version. The only thing I did different was I used all purpose unbleached flour and all purpose bleached flour instead of the cake flour & bread flour. I also just used Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips 60% cacao. I tried the 1st batch with sea salt on top, like the original recipe, but my family requested that the next batches be left salt free. They liked them better without the sea salt! In case you’re wondering I did make these myself, not the baker in the family (aka, Jon). The hardest part of this recipe? Leaving the cookie dough sitting in the fridge UNEATEN for 36 hours before baking!

They turned out delicious! These are the perfect cookies: big, chewy, soft, sweet, salty, and oh so chocolaty! By Sunday morning there were only 2 left. I probably would drive 40 minutes out of my way for these cookies….Thank God I can just make them at home.