Soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies? Well, sorta

On whim I started wondering what would be a good “Election Day snack” recipe. I Googled, expecting a boatload of red, white and blue edibles, which didn’t happen. The first page I went to wasn’t even what I would consider snacks, it boasted mostly meal sides and potluck-style options with scant relation to voting. As I scrolled, I came upon this.

I’m betting if you checked at most poll places and even a lot of offices/break rooms last Tuesday, you would have found chocolate chip cookies, so that makes them an election day snack — though they are pretty much an any-day snack. But the promise of “soft + chewy” won me over, as well as the ingredients list (note the use of dark chocolate, rather than semi-sweet). Besides, I literally made these Nov. 7 between a morning assignment and evening election coverage, so, yeah, “Election Day snack.”

I’ve baked chocolate chip cookies since my early teens, first helping my sisters do them as part of a staggering array of Christmas cookies made for a family of nine kids that regularly hosted multiple visitors through New Year’s and beyond — as recounted when I tried making “Cowboy Cookies” for the test kitchen. Christmas Cookie baking was literally a week or two of part-time work.

And Toll House cookies were the most popular. We doubled the batch (maybe tripled, I’m not sure), though mom’s ability to stretch dad’s modest income came into play. She bought imitation chocolate chips (also imitation vanilla), and we used half as many chips as the recipe called for.

We were kids. They were cookies. They were great. As usual, mom made the right call.

After Jay and I took full control of the cookie baking and used the proper amount of real chocolate (and vanilla), one factor didn’t change: These always seemed like crunchy cookies, which is fine, but the older I got, the more I wanted to make soft chocolate chip cookies.

I tried a recipe or two but was never particularly impressed. This recipe, from unpeeledjournal.com, showed (and made) a lot of promise. And they used a lot of oatmeal (more, by measuring cup, than flour), which intrigued me (my mom’s oatmeal cookie recipe remains one of my favorites).

So I made a batch and took them to the taste testers late in the afternoon of Election Day, and while I usually give individual quotes, these evoked almost a universal response: “Delicious.” There were variations, with most people noting they were still warm, which is almost always a bonus — and indeed, the raison d’être — for home baked cookies.

“I didn’t expect them to be warm,” Bill O’Boyle said.

“Nothing beats a warm chocolate chip cookie,” Jennifer Learn-Andes said.

“Thank you for bringing these in today,” page designer Lyndsay Bartos said, which I took (without asking) to mean something like this is extra-appreciated during long, hectic and unpredictable Election Day work in our business.

And yes, they were absolutely soft + chewy — then. The next day, not so much. They remained reasonably chewy after completely cooling but developed a decidedly crunchy outside. For me, Toll House cookies have always been crunchy from start to finish, so this is an improvement in the softness quest, but not what I was looking for.

I usually bake cookies on insulated baking sheets (a consequence of burning too many cookie bottoms in those childhood Christmas cookie marathon baking sessions), and it’s possible that’s why they weren’t as soft as hoped for. Insulated sheets greatly reduce odds of burning, but can increase oven time before the bottom starts to brown. Or I may have done something else wrong in the process (my butter wasn’t as soft as it should have been when I creamed it with the sugars, for example). But these were very good, and I’m looking forward to a second attempt.

Incidentally, none of the taste-testers could guess the “secret ingredient” of oatmeal, though some did point out — once aware — that this probably makes it a “healthier” cookie. Hearing that, MT (the queen of healthy-ing up sweet snacks) chimed in: “Whole grain goodness!”

Oh, and I chilled one cookie sheet of dough while just baking another without any refrigerator time. I saw zero difference in the amount of spreading between the two. Not sure if it made any difference in chewiness.

Dobru chut!

Soft + Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (unpeeledjournal.com)

1 ⅔ cups rolled oats, ground into flour in food processor

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¾ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon kosher salt (or ¼ teaspoon table salt)

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter

⅔ cup sugar

⅔ cup packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

12 ounces dark chocolate chips

¾ cup chopped walnuts, optional

Heat the oven to 350°. Grease or parchment three baking sheets.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, ground oatmeal, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, granulated sugar, and light brown sugar on medium to medium high until very fluffy and light. Scrape the bowl and make sure everything is uniformly combined.

Add the egg and vanilla. Mix on medium-high until fluffy and combined. Scrape the bowl and mix again to get all the batter mixed thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients, chips, and walnuts (if using), and mix on low just until combined, scraping the bowl halfway.

Using a cookie scoop or spoon, scoop rounds of cookie dough onto the cookie sheets, leaving at least an inch and a half of space between each. They will spread a bit.

Chill cookies for 15 to 30 minutes. This is optional, but it will help the cookies spread less and stay chewy in the middle.

Bake one tray at a time (unless you have a convection oven), rotating halfway, for 10 to 12 minutes, until the bottoms are light brown and the tops look set and dry, but still light.