“Chocolate chipless cookies? However like, what even is the purpose?” requested a couple of befuddled colleague once I advised them I used to be creating a chocolate chip cookie recipe minus the chocolate chips. “I don’t know, simply the right distillation of buttery, butterscotch-y cookie essence?” I replied, wild-eyed, deep within the midst of my eleventh batch. They’re not chocolate chip cookies and so they’re not sugar cookies both—they’re an elusive center floor, a gravity-defying bridge between two worlds, a crack within the space-time continuum.
With out the chocolate for melty-gooey texture and bittersweet taste (or every other add-ins), cookie dough has nowhere to cover. Each ingredient has to work arduous, hitting its full potential, particularly the large three: sugar, butter, and flour. This implies darkish brown sugar in lieu of sunshine brown or white sugar for optimum molasses notes. As an alternative of merely being creamed or melted, butter is browned, bringing a bunch of nutty, toasty overtones. It’s with the flour that issues take an uncommon flip. How does one make plain all-purpose flour—bland and starchy however important for construction—extra flavorful? By toasting, it seems. Take into consideration the brown crust on bread, the deepness of a New Orleans gumbo, or the golden backside of a cookie. All of those are extraordinarily scrumptious as a result of the flour has skilled a Maillard response. Toasting a portion of the flour in butter on the stovetop, earlier than working it into the dough, is a cheaty means of boosting these taste compounds, saturating the cookies with a toffee-like goodness. Don’t be afraid to take it far; you’re searching for the colour of milky espresso—if the combination begins to smoke, get it off the warmth.
Even with all of the methods up its sleeve, these chewy cookies come collectively in below an hour, no stand mixer wanted. However be warned: They’re inherently divisive. You’ll both face impassioned disbelief that the chocolate is absent or relieved delight. Presenting them to somebody within the former camp? Name them “brown sugar cookies” and transfer on along with your day. However for these of us within the latter camp, right here is the last word model of a chocolate chipless cookie, with smooth buttery facilities ok to make even the chippers of the world activate their tribe.
