Pretzel Chip Cookies

One of the things that I really like to do when I’m coming up with a recipe is turn stuff inside out.  Put what’s normally on the inside on the outside.

If you have a good flavor combo, it keeps that combo but can give you really interesting, new textures.

Now that you’re kind of inside my brain, you can probably see how it’s not a huge leap to take a chocolate covered pretzel and flip it all around.

This cookie is the result and I think that it might be the best cookie I’ve ever made.  I’m not going to go so far as to call it The Best Cookie EVER like so many people do, but I’ll just say that I would put it up against any other cookie in a taste test and leave it at that.

The Flours

I’ve been eyeing the recipe that I adapted for these guys for a while.  One of the things that intrigued me about it was how it ditches all-purpose flour for a mixture of cake flour and bread flour.  I could see how that would give the cookies a soft texture but still be somewhat chewy which sounds like a winning cookie to me.

I usually don’t worry about weighing cookie ingredients, although I know I should, but for this recipe it seemed to call for a very exact ratio of cake flour and bread flour so I pulled out my digital scale.

As far as the chocolate goes, the article in the NY Times goes on and on about how to get the absolute perfect ratio of chocolate to dough and exactly what kinds of chips result in the best cookie.

I’m sure they are right, but I’m not really going to order chocolate off the internet just to make chocolate chips cookies.  So I just picked up a few different kinds of chips that looked good to me and tossed them in.

Making the Dough

This is a pretty standard cookie dough to make.

Start by sifting together the flours and other dry ingredients except the sugar.  It is somewhat important to sift the flours here because cake flour can sometimes clump up pretty badly.

Then, using a mixer (hand or stand) beat together the sugar and butter until it’s a light, fluffy texture.  Then mix in the eggs one at a time on low.  Then add the vanilla.

Next, add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture and mix until the flour is incorporated.  Mix on low and don’t over mix it or your cookies will get too chewy.

It should take under a minute to get your flour mixed in, then gently mix in your chocolate chips until they are evenly incorporated.

The Waiting

There was one part of the article that I was a bit skeptical about.  They said that it’s very important to let your cookie dough rest in the fridge for at least 24 hours before baking your cookies.

This is a serious test of willpower.  You have these delicious cookies just sitting there, but you have to wait.

The idea behind it is to give the dough plenty of time to absorb all the liquid.  If you bake them right away, the flour won’t get a chance to even absorb the eggs.

I didn’t actually bake a cookie right away to compare, but I must say that the dough had a much different texture after sitting overnight.

So I think it’s worth it if you can stand the wait.

Once the dough is mixed, just cover it with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge overnight.

Forming the Cookies

When you’re finally ready to make the cookies, just scoop out about 3.5 ounces of cookie dough.  I actually weighed mine to make sure it was right, but basically it should be the size of a large golfball.

This amount of dough makes a pretty enormous cookie.  You can only fit six of them on a baking sheet at a time.

When each cookie is rolled into a ball, press it into some crushed pretzels on one side.  Make sure a good amount of pretzels are stuck to the cookie.

Then add each cookie to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes.  The cookies should be nicely browned on top, but still soft in the center.

These guys turned out so perfect.

Once they come out of the oven, let them cool on the baking sheet for five minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Serving them a bit warm is a really good idea.

Biting into one of these is a pretty intense experience.  The salt from the pretzels is the perfect topping for the cookies.  It really brings out the chocolate flavor in the cookies.

At the same time there’s this fantastic texture thing happening between the soft cookie and the crunchy pretzels.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but maybe it’ll give you an idea!

There’s a few tricky parts with this recipe and you could ignore them if you dare.  You could not weigh or sift your flours.  You could not let your dough sit for 24 hours.  You could make wimpy little cookies.  They would still be good.

But if you do take the time to follow some of the more annoying steps, you’ll be well-rewarded.

Pretzels.  Chocolate.  Cookies.

Is it the best chocolate chip cookie IN THE WORLD?  I don’t know, but I definitely wouldn’t turn one down.