The Consummate Chocolate Chip Cookie?!

I really enjoy well-crafted or "artisanal" versions of classic comfort foods. That's probably why Flour's creations appeal to me so much, and why I can never turn down a good gastropub mac 'n' cheese or pot pie. So, you shouldn't be surprised that, even though I love and respect the classic Toll House cookie, I wanted to find a recipe that kicked said humble chocolate chipper up a notch. A simple search led me to a well-loved food blog that referenced another well-loved food blog - Leite's Culinaria by way of Smitten Kitchen. If David Leite tells me that something is the consummate chocolate chip cookie, I am tempted to believe him. Still, I knew I had to make it and see for myself.

The actual recipe appealed to me for several reasons:

• All-purpose flour, be gone! The recipe requires near-equal amounts of cake and bread flours. These flours are supposed to yield an airier dough with a finer crumb.
• Sea salt sprinkled on top of each cookie? Yes, please!
• You get to bake with Valrhona chocolate. Consider this the chocoholic's equivalent of a violinist playing a Stradivarius, or a craft beer aficionado drinking Westvleteren on tap. Widely regarded as among the world's finest chocolate, Valrhona is distinctive, assertive, and complex. The recipe suggests any variety above 60% cacao; Manjari, at 64%, is the first variety to fit that bill. You may obtain this chocolate in oval-shaped baking discs called "feves"; I found them at one of Cambridge's larger Whole Foods.

I first made these cookies in the fall, following the recipe exactly. The hardest part was letting the mixture sit for hours; as I waited to bake it, I'm pretty sure I ate several cookies' worth of dough in my impatience. But, good things come to those who wait! Here is a plateful of the resulting delights, so bountifully large and chocolatey:

The cookies were unlike any I had ever encountered! The sturdy dough thinned out and spread rather far while being baked, resulting in large, flat discs. The dough was also fluffier and chewier than a standard-flour dough, even in its flattened state. Most significantly, the Valrhona feves caused the most unusual chocolate distribution and flavor I had ever seen or tasted in a cookie. Chocolate chips stay intact when baked; feves do not. They melt and spread horizontally within the dough, creating a marbled effect. This was advantageous for two reasons: (1) there were no chocolate-free bites, and (2) the pungent Manjari taste was diffused evenly throughout the cookie rather than being concentrated in overwhelming, mouth-coating chunks. What pungent taste, you ask? Manjari chocolate is very bitter and fruity, with tangy citrus notes detectable within the aggressive cacao punch. A little bit goes a long way, and even though there is no particular creaminess or thickness to the melted feves, they manage to coat your mouth and cause the flavor to linger much longer than similar high-percent-cacao chocolates' flavors. Lastly, I was ultimately indifferent to the sea salt. I would have appreciated its savory counterpoint if the chocolate had been sweeter, but the bittersweet Manjari never quite struck a balance with the salt, and their coexistence felt a bit uneasy.

Still, I considered these cookies a success, as did the many people who tried them. (My efforts yielded twice as many cookies as Leite's!) I could appreciate their distinctive, nearly-overwhelming nature. However, there was nothing comforting about them. To me, chocolate chip cookies are primarily about chocolate, warmth (both literal and figurative), and happiness, with their "art" value being secondary; I don't think Leite's priorities aligned with mine. So, I knew I had to re-attempt this recipe with a Julie-esque twist...and the perfect opportunity came toward the end of January!

That particular Saturday was just asking for a dessert like this, with freshly-fallen snow, hockey, a concert, and a delicious lamb dinner all in the plan! I prepared the dough the night before to accommodate Leite's recommended sitting time, following the recipe as written but with two key changes: I omitted the sea salt, and I used three different kinds of feves. A triple chocolate chip cookie is inherently more consummate than a one-trick treat, right? I stuck with Valrhona's exceptional chocolates:

• Manjari, 64% cacao - the same chocolate I used in Take 1, just 1/3 as much
• Jivara, 40% cacao - smooth, sweet milk chocolate, with pleasant caramel notes
• Ivoire, no cacao - creamy white chocolate, with hints of warm vanilla

Here are the feves in glorious abundance, waiting to be added to the dough...

...and here they are, being incorporated!

The recipe's oven and cooling times were not spot-on for the multi-feve dough. The Manjari melted and oozed as intended, but the milk chocolate barely got gooey, and the white chocolate retained its shape. Also, I was baking in a gas oven (as opposed to my apartment's electric oven), and was not prepared for how powerful it was. The cookies were significantly drier than they would have been if baked in my oven for the same time and temperature.

That said, I was very pleased with Take 2! A variety of chocolates with a variety of textures is better than only one type of chocolate; plus, the milk and white chocolates were actually enjoyable in concentrated chunks, so I didn't mind that they retained their shape while the Manjari oozed around them. This simple change made the cookies much warmer and me much happier, satisfying my comfort requirements mentioned above. Then, I solved the oven problem the following day by baking the remaining dough back home. I used my home-field advantage to slightly under-cook the cookies, which resulted in extra-moist, extra-gooey treats! Soft, brown-sugar-y dough with three exceptional softened chocolates in one bite? Oh, my, yes. I absolutely loved these iterations of the cookies, as did their fellow samplers.

So...

Are these cookies among the best I have ever baked? Yes, and they're definitely the fanciest. Are they really the "consummate chocolate chip cookie"? Well, I got them closer to that ideal with the triple-chip upgrade, but I'm still hesitant to bestow such a title when it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Who's to say that a refined, artistic cookie is the way to go? I'm still open to being blown away by a heaped, lumpy pile of dough that's bursting with delicious, gooey chocolate, and that only gets better when dunked in a tall glass of milk. If you have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that you think is worthy of this title, get it to me ASAP!