Chunky Chocolate Chips Cookies

This is so far the best, I repeat, the BEST chocolate chips cookies I ever bake! These are the real deal, I highly recommend you to give these a try.

The strange combination of cake flour and bread flour is extraordinary. The dough must be refrigerated for a minimum of 24 hours (I prepare the dough 2days ago - 15 July 2011). They are perfectly soft while still being just firm enough to stay together. You can bake a longer time if you prefer a crunchy cookie.

The recipe recommends using chocolate disks or fèves, I, however, did not have these, so I used a mixture of Semi-sweet chocolate bar that I chopped up, as well as Ghirardelli 60% semi-sweet baking chocolate chips, which are actually very large chips and worked perfectly as a replacement. I also mix some bittersweet chips from Phoon Huat that has a average size of common chips.

The different taste & textures of chocolate blend perfectly to the cookies, I recommend using two kinds of chocolate, if you can.

Recipe: Chunky Chocolate Chips Cookies
Makes: estimate 80 base on 1 tbsp scoop
(i increase the recipe to 1.5x (except the chocolate) to makes about 120 cookies)

Ingredients:
• 200g cake flour (i use 300g)
• 160g bread flour (i use 240g)
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder (i use 2tsp)
• 1¼ teaspoons baking soda (i use 1¾tsp)
• 1½ teaspoons coarse salt (i use 2tsp)
• 280g unsalted butter, room temperature (i use 420g)
• 125g packed light brown sugar (i use 80g)
• 125g granulated sugar (i use 80g)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature (i use 3)
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract (i use 3tsp)
• 600g bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cocoa content (i do not have these, so I used
- 300g Ghirardelli 60% cocoa bittersweet chocolate chips,
- 250gm Chocolate Converture Strong Bitter Droplets from Phoon Huat as well as
- 100g Van Houten semi-sweet chocolate pieces, which I chopped - I loved the look and texture of these chocolate combination)
- sea salt or fleur de sel, for sprinkling (optional)

Method:
1. Sift together the cake flour, bread flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a medium sized bowl and set aside.

2. In the bowl of your mixer, cream together your butter and sugars until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add in the eggs, one at a time, until combined, scraping down the bowl as needed. Add in the vanilla and mix. Gradually add in the dry ingredients, until just moistened. Fold in your chocolate until evenly added throughout the dough. Press plastic wrap against the dough, making sure it is completely covered, and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or as long as 72 hours (I left mine for 36 hours).

3. When you are ready to bake, bring the dough to room temperature so that you can scoop it out, and preheat your oven to 170C. Line and/or grease your baking sheets. Scoop your dough out onto the sheets. (i use a 33mm ice cream scoop, but you can use 40mm ice cream scoop, which is about the size of 2 tablespoons, or even larger, if you like.) Do not press the dough down – let it stay the way it is. Sprinkle the cookies lightly with a bit of fleur de sel or sea salt. Bake 10-12 minutes for smaller cookies (mine took about 11 minutes), or 18-20 minutes for larger cookies. (You can bake for another 3-5min more if you prefer crunchy, its equally GOOD!)

4. Allow the cookies to cool slightly on your baking sheet, then move them to another surface to cool completely. You can enjoy these warm, room temperature, or cold. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.

Beside the Oatmeal Raisin Cookies, this is so far my favorite cookies! The response was unanimous; my family & colleagues think it's incredible and especially loved the massive amounts of chocolate used. Everyone that tried them are begging for more!