July 9, 2008

The Secret to Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies? Let them Rest.

The New York Times has a great story about bakers, and how they achieve chocolate chip cookie nirvana:

Given the opportunity to riff on his cookie-making strategies, Mr. Rubin revealed two crucial elements home cooks can immediately add to their arsenal of baking tricks. First, he said, he lets the dough rest for 36 hours before baking. Asked why, he shrugged. "I don't know,” he said. "They just taste better." "Oh, that Maury's a sly one," said Shirley O. Corriher, author of "CookWise" (William Morrow, 1997), a book about science in the kitchen. "What he's doing is brilliant. He's allowing the dough and other ingredients to fully soak up the liquid — in this case, the eggs — in order to get a drier and firmer dough, which bakes to a better consistency."

Includes recipe for:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Full article here.