The Cookie That Wouldn’t Quit

From lockdown baking to 270 a Saturday at Gina.

As you may have seen, we’ve been running a little bakery pop-up every Saturday in June from the terrace, and one of the most loved things on the table has been the very humble, very dependable chocolate chip cookie.

These are the cookies I shared back in lockdown, and I still get stopped by people who tell me they make them all the time, or that this was the recipe that finally taught them how to bake good cookies at home. Which is one of the nicest things to hear.

We’ve been making them in proper numbers at Gina - 180+ a Saturday, 270 this week and we’ve got through an absolutely silly amount of Original Beans chocolate (We use the 70% Cru Virunga in ours along with Maldon Salt). And somehow, somehow, none of us are sick of them yet.

So here they are, in one easy place. Big chunks of dark chocolate, deep brown sugar, crisp edges, soft middles, we upped the chocolate quantity for the pop up by another 500g per batch, you are also welcome to go wild and up yours too. Make the dough, chill it properly, bake from cold, and please do not skip the resting!

Chocolate chip cookies

Makes: 14 cookies at approx 60g each
Time: 20 minutes prep, overnight resting, 12–14 minutes baking
Equipment: Stand mixer or mixing bowl, wooden spoon, baking trays, parchment paper

Ingredients

140g butter, softened
140g dark brown sugar
110g caster sugar
1 egg
3g baking powder
4g bicarbonate of soda
3g Maldon salt
250g plain flour
180g dark chocolate, chopped into large chunks

Method

Make the dough

Cream the butter, dark brown sugar and caster sugar together until pale and combined. Don’t overdo it here, you don’t want the butter and sugar to be super light and fluffy. Over-beating at this stage can make the cookies puff up and then deflate in the oven.

You can use a stand mixer or a bowl and wooden spoon. Mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.

Add the egg to the butter and sugar mixture and beat together quickly. Add the dry ingredients and mix until the dough just comes together.

Add the chopped chocolate and mix until evenly distributed.

Portion and chill

Ball the dough up immediately into 60g balls and place them on a tray lined with parchment paper.

If you want to keep them for later, freeze the dough balls on the tray, then transfer them to an airtight container once solid.

If you want to bake them the next day, ball them up in the same way and place them in the fridge.

Always rest your cookie dough overnight before baking. I know this is annoying, but you will get a completely different cookie if you try to bake them on the same day without enough chilling time.

Bake

The next day, preheat the oven to 160°C fan.

Space the dough balls out on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.

Bake for 12 minutes if cooking from the fridge, or 14 minutes if cooking from the freezer.

Take the tray out of the oven and allow the cookies to rest on the tray. They will continue to cook slightly as they cool.

Once cooled, eat them.

Note

If your oven isn’t as powerful, add an extra minute to the bake time.

You want the middle to be ever so slightly under-set when the cookies come out of the oven. That’s what gives them the best texture once cooled.

Storage

The dough balls last in the fridge for 2 days or in the freezer for 2 weeks.

Once baked, the cookies will keep for 5 days at room temperature.

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If you’re queuing up this Saturday for our 3rd bakery pop up at Gina with Le Choux, I have some snacks to keep you going including my iced chocolate milk & chouquettes.

Thanks for all of your support so far, we have been blown away by it. Our last one will be on the 27th of June, and yes we will have a large stock of chocolate chip cookies!