alton brown's the chewy.

I've never been much of a chewy gal. More like a crispy. But when more than 800 people gave The Chewy the thumbs up on foodnetwork.com, I just had to try it.

I made some modifications to the recipe based on the commenters, well, comments. I reduced the amount of butter from 1 cup to 3/4 cup because it was supposedly a tad oily. I also browned the melted butter since it was already melted. Because hey, how bad can browned butter get?

Because I reduced the amount of butter quite significantly, I didn't have the same problem with the dough being too soft and gloopy. I got quite the opposite in fact. I could actually shape the dough without ending up with chocolate chip cookie hand cream. So I got out more milk and adjusted the consistency.

first batch

The first batch I made came out somewhat with a crumb that looked cakey. I might have overbaked it because it didn't appear golden brown to me yet. So for the second batch, I froze the dough and baked it straight from the freezer at an even higher temperature, 200C instead of 190C. This time, the edges of the cookies got a nice brown but still super moist and gooey inside.

I have to say, I'm kind of disappointed. Even the edges that got brown weren't as crunchy as I would like. The second batch had a gooey interior but I didn't find it that chewy. In fact, I think the first batch was chewier. Strange, huh. On the plus side, the cookies had a really good caramelized flavour from all that brown sugar. I knew sacrificing the ratio of white sugar to brown sugar really affects the crunch, but I didn't think it would be that drastic.

I'm starting to warm up to the idea of crunchy-edged, chewy-interior cookies because I admit, there aren't many great crisp all the way through cookies out there. I really like how thick some of the chewy cookies can get too!

Anyway, sorry Alton, your cookie recipe gets a thumbs down from me. Can anyone recommend their favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe with crunchy edges and with tons of chew?

Alton Brown's The Chewy

Ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter *I used 1 1/2 sticks
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk *I had to use more
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
2. Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Chill the dough (about 2 hours), then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, using an ice cream scoop, 6 cookies per sheet. Cookies should be quite large if you are using a regular ice cream scooper. Preheat oven to 375 F. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.