After I read The New York Times' article last month about Ravneet Gill's "Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies," I was intrigued and had to give the recipe a try. Other than the lack of vanilla extract, the recipe seemed straightforward. You cream softened butter with granulated sugar and dark brown sugar; add an egg; incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, and Maldon salt); and stir in bittersweet chocolate (I used Cacao Barry Guayaquil 64% extra-bitter pistoles). I used a #20 scoop to portion out the dough and got 15 cookies from the recipe. I put the cookies on parchment-lined pans, covered them with plastic wrap, and let them chill in the fridge for a day before baking.
I thought these were beautiful cookies. They flattened nicely in the oven but were not too thin, and they had attractive cracks on top. I ate one freshly baked (but fully cooled) and immediately noticed that the exterior of the cookie had a distinct light, crisp texture that I liked very much --but by day two, the light, crisp exterior was gone and the cookie was chewy throughout.
As for my overall assessment of the cookie, I thought it was above average, but definitely not my favorite. I think that the Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie has a deeper, more well-developed flavor, and it's thicker with a more substantial chewy texture that makes it ultra satisfying. Looking at the two recipes side-by-side, they are fairly similar with regard to the ingredients and ingredient ratios. The big differences are that that Jacques Torres recipe: includes vanilla; uses light brown sugar instead of dark brown; uses a 50-50 mix of bread flour and cake flour; and includes significantly more chocolate relative to the weight of the other ingredients. Also, the Jacques Torres recipe requires you to cream the butter and sugars together until they are very light and fluffy, while Ravneet specifically warns that when you beat the butter and sugar you need to stop short of fluffy stage, or you will cause the cookies to deflate during baking.
I'm not going to knock the amount of effort that Ravneet Gill put into developing this cookie or anyone who thinks that this cookie is "perfect" -- taste is obviously subjective, so everyone is entitled to her own opinion. But the amount of time and effort required to make this cookie and the Jacques Torres cookie are the same, and I like the latter so much that I don't see the need to make this particular recipe again.
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