A couple of weeks ago, the LA Times Culinary SOS Column featured the recipe for Milk's "Ooey-Gooey Double-Chocolate Cookies." With a name like that, I knew I would have to give these cookies a try, and so I took the recipe for a spin earlier this week for an office happy hour. According to the Times, these cookies are baked just long enough to set up on the outside, while remaining "ooey-gooey" on the inside, creating a perfectly messy treat.
The recipe is easy. You melt together butter and unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler, add the result to a mixture of eggs, vanilla and sugar, stir in flour sifted with cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, and then add bittersweet chocolate chips. You chill the dough for an hour before baking. After chilling, the recipe instructs you to divide the dough into 18 portions and shape it into balls with greased hands. I think directions like this are just silly--who can divide a batch of dough into 18 equal portions, and who wants to deal with the mess? So I used a #24 cookie scoop instead, and I got 22 cookies out of the batch, each perfectly round and cleanly formed without any muss or fuss. I discovered that this cookie spreads very little in the oven, so after the first pan of cookies came out very puffy and rounded, I flattened the dough in subsequent batches before baking to get flatter cookies.
When I took the cookies out of the oven, they were very very soft, just as the recipe said they would be. In fact, Tom tried a cookie after it had cooled a little and he had to use a fork to eat it. I was a little afraid they might not solidify enough to actually stack them into a container and take them to work. Instead, I discovered that by the next morning, they had completely firmed up and were actually a little on the hard side. I found the flavor of these cookies to be disappointing. I used very good chocolate (Guittard unsweetened, Guittard chocolate chips, and Penzey's hi-fat dutch cocoa), but the cookie's flavor was very flat and one-dimensional, a little like biting into an American milk chocolate bar. However, these cookies received absolutely rave reviews from everyone who tried them... Maybe I will make them again some day and see if I can get the ooey-gooey part right next time!
Recipe: "Milk's Ooey-Gooey Double-Chocolate Cookies," Los Angeles Times Culinary SOS Column, January 14, 2009.
The recipe is easy. You melt together butter and unsweetened chocolate in a double boiler, add the result to a mixture of eggs, vanilla and sugar, stir in flour sifted with cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, and then add bittersweet chocolate chips. You chill the dough for an hour before baking. After chilling, the recipe instructs you to divide the dough into 18 portions and shape it into balls with greased hands. I think directions like this are just silly--who can divide a batch of dough into 18 equal portions, and who wants to deal with the mess? So I used a #24 cookie scoop instead, and I got 22 cookies out of the batch, each perfectly round and cleanly formed without any muss or fuss. I discovered that this cookie spreads very little in the oven, so after the first pan of cookies came out very puffy and rounded, I flattened the dough in subsequent batches before baking to get flatter cookies.When I took the cookies out of the oven, they were very very soft, just as the recipe said they would be. In fact, Tom tried a cookie after it had cooled a little and he had to use a fork to eat it. I was a little afraid they might not solidify enough to actually stack them into a container and take them to work. Instead, I discovered that by the next morning, they had completely firmed up and were actually a little on the hard side. I found the flavor of these cookies to be disappointing. I used very good chocolate (Guittard unsweetened, Guittard chocolate chips, and Penzey's hi-fat dutch cocoa), but the cookie's flavor was very flat and one-dimensional, a little like biting into an American milk chocolate bar. However, these cookies received absolutely rave reviews from everyone who tried them... Maybe I will make them again some day and see if I can get the ooey-gooey part right next time!
Recipe: "Milk's Ooey-Gooey Double-Chocolate Cookies," Los Angeles Times Culinary SOS Column, January 14, 2009.
Comments