There are plenty of types of cookies out there with all sorts of wacky flavors and compositions. However, if I was going to say what is essential in a cookie recipe, I think a cookie must have:
- Fat, like butter or oil
- Sugar, or a sweetener with sugar in it
- Flour or some other primary substrate
- Leavening, usually baking powder or soda
So I was surprised when I looked over the ingredients for this recipe and didn’t see anything to make the cookies rise. They had a nice dome shape in the pictures. Without baking powder or soda, wouldn’t they just be crispy lumps? I have made cookies with leavening that still didn’t rise as desired, so it was hard to imagine doing without it.
I didn’t have much time to pivot since I had committed to making the cookies that evening after dinner, and others were waiting for me to finish to watch The Mandalorian. I also hadn’t read ahead to see that Dorie recommended a two hour rest before scooping out the cookies.
The cookie concept was interesting. Rather than a normal 1.5 tablespoon scoop of cookie, these were mini one teaspoon cookies (about a quarter of the size of a normal cookie) with the dough balled up around a single chip.
The dough was easy enough to make: due to my lack of preparation, I had to use my usual trick of microwaving the butter cut into pieces to rapidly get it to room temperature appropriate for creaming with sugar.
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When I got to the final step, I quickly realized why Dorie recommended chilling then as the dough got sticky with all of the work to ball, fill, and ball again.
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In the past, I looked down on cookies as a form of dessert because they frankly aren’t too challenging to make. They are also quick and not a lot of work. These cookies were a surprising amount of work to ball out rather than just scooping 60 times.
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I started with a single teaspoon scoop as a reference and picked out chunks of similar size. However, I checked my sizing one tray later and realized I had been taking chunks close to twice as large. Fortunately, the cookies didn’t really rise or spread too much and baked out into perfect little bites.
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One of the greatest dangers of eating cookies is always wanting one more cookie. By their size, these cookies are a particularly slippery slope since you can easily go from one to an entire handful, one bite at a time.
But if you can keep yourself from eating more than three, you’re coming out ahead.
You can find the recipe here