The brilliant recipe for #thecookie, which became an international craze
One day we’ll be able to go out to restaurants in full force again, but on the evenings we eat at home, the food had better be delicious. The new cookbook Deliciously at Home can help us with that! With her simple yet delicious dishes, American Alison Roman is known as the domestic goddess of the apocalypse. Deliciously at Home is therefore packed with recipes that are making their way around the world—with unprecedented success. Like this recipe for #thecookie.
Alison: “I’ve always had something to say about chocolate chip cookies (which says a lot about me). Too sweet, too soft, or with too much chocolate—there’s a lot that could be improved, if you ask me. But nobody asked me, and instead of giving America’s most iconic cookie a complete makeover, I used all my favorite elements to come up with something entirely different.
The dough is made with lots of salted butter (it gives a slightly different flavor and a deeper saltiness than simply using salt—for all other recipes I prefer unsalted butter, but not here). It contains just enough flour to hold it together and the right amount of brown sugar to make you think of a chocolate chip cookie. Chop the chocolate into pieces to prevent clumping, and once you’ve shaped the dough into a long sausage, roll it in granulated sugar so the cookies get crisp edges. Less chocolate chip cookie, more shortbread with pieces of chocolate—this just might be the cookie you’ve been looking for all along.”
How to make shortbread cookies with salted butter and chocolate pieces
- Line one or two rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Put the butter, sugars, and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat everything for 3–5 minutes with a mixer or in a food processor fitted with the flat beater, at medium-high speed, until the dough is super light and fluffy. Scrape the dough from the sides, turn the mixer to low speed, and slowly add the flour, followed by the chocolate pieces. Mix until all the flour has been incorporated.
- Divide the dough in half and place both halves on a large piece of plastic wrap. Fold the plastic wrap around the dough so you don’t get sticky hands. Shape the dough with your hands (as if you were molding clay) into a sausage; this is easier if you roll it back and forth on the counter, but it certainly doesn’t have to be perfect. You can also use parchment paper for this, but I find plastic wrap more convenient for shaping a sausage. From each half of dough, make two sausages with a diameter of 5–6 cm. Refrigerate the dough for an hour or two, until it is firm.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C.
- Brush the dough sausages with the beaten egg and roll them in the granulated sugar (for an especially delicious crisp edge).
- Cut each dough sausage into 1-cm-thick slices, place them on the parchment-lined baking sheet or sheets, about 2.5 cm apart (they won’t spread much), and sprinkle with flaky salt. Bake for 12–15 minutes, until the edges turn brown. Let them cool before eating them all.
Tip: if you find it annoying to buy salted butter just for this recipe, simply use unsalted butter and add 3⁄4 teaspoon coarse sea salt to the flour.
Title: Deliciously at Home
Author: Alison Roman
Price: €27,99
Publisher: Spectrum
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