COSMIC COOKIES
Why are chocolate-chip cookies in a design portfolio? Because cooking is a creative endeavor that rewards attention to detail, iterative prototyping, technical prowess, and passion... Cookie science is an important facet of design.
Two recipes have gone through over 50 tracked iterations, measured to the gram, degree, and second. Textbooks have been read, experiments performed, roommates satisfied. I get fan mail from time to time, which is almost as good as a cookies served at 110°F.
Egg Mass & Ratios
For over a decade I endeavored to build an exceptional cookie recipe that does not demand too much fuss in home preparation, nor use uncommon ingredients. However the obvious difference in my approach from familiar home cookie recipes is that my basic, fundamental unit is "egg mass."
USDA law defines eggs sizes (large, jumbo, etc) by "minimum net weight per dozen." In practice this means eggs in a carton commonly vary in mass by +/-20%. A typical large egg has about 50g of yolk & white, but a given dozen ranges from 40g to 60g.
Superlative baking demands exacting ratios. Since eggs are quite variable in mass, superlative cookies must be built around egg-mass ratios based the actual egg being used.
The 3-Zone Ideal
Crispy-crust edges. Puffy-light honeycombed transition zone. Soft-chewy collapsed center.
Achieving that holy trinity of textures using only home ingredients, processes, and sizing has been the driving force for over a decade years of refinement. Since ‘09 I have continually updated a spreadsheet that tracked iterations and compensated for egg mass variations. Over scores of empirical tweaks the ratios slowly converged to curiously pure egg-mass multiples: 1, 2, 3, 4, e, π .
As Bob said the week I locked the recipe with elegant coefficients, "it's like God embedded the recipe in the very fabric of the cosmos."
Thus, the Cosmic Cookie.
Daves Cosmic Cookies
The egg sets the baseline unit for all other ingredients; 1 egg mass = 1 unit.
INGREDIENTS
1 egg
2 white sugar
3 brown sugar
4 AP flour
e unsalted butter [2.72]
π chocolate chips [3.14]
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla extract*
PROCESS
whip / cream / mix / scoop / freeze / bake / eat
1. Crack and weigh a whole egg for the working egg mass.
2. Add half of white sugar to eggs, whip until frothy, then set aside in separate bowl. (Note the ratios are 1:1 for egg & sugar in the whip, easy math.)
3. Cream fridge-cold butter and remaining sugars (1 more part white, 3 parts brown) until hella fluffy, add vanilla* once mixture softens.
4. Add eggs to creamed butter/sugar and whip just until wet ingredients are homogenous, everything should be sticky and light.
5. Sift / whisk together all dry ingredients except chocolate. Add to liquid mixture and pulse mixer until dough is 80% combined. Do not fully mix or the final steps will over work the dough.
6. Fold in chocolate chips, hand mixing until dough is even and fully homogenized.
7. Scoop dough into 90 gram / 1/4 cup / #12 disher / ice cream scoop hemispheres, arrange in any sealable/coverable container for chilled storage. Seal.
8. Freeze dough completely before baking (typically ≥ 8 hrs).
9. Bake at 370-375° with frozen hemispheres round-side-down** on sheet pan (not insulated!) lined with silicone sheets or parchment. Cookies are done when surface glossiness & sheen disappear from center of cookies, 17+/-2 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and slide liners+cookies onto counter to cool. Note that the centers are intended to collapse into goo, the final shape should be a sort of caldera. Eat once cookie temperatures are under 110°F, about 15-20 minutes after removal from oven. Ideal cosmic cookies have three clear textural zones: crispy & chewey caramelized bottoms and edges, puffy and light mid-body, and gooey centers.
I've been testing these as my standard recipe since March 2017 and they've been consistently great. I hope your batches also turn out wonderfully. Good luck, and enjoy!
* There is secret cookie sauce added to my vanilla. You'll still have to ask for the secret ingredient...
** Round-side-down makes the best final shape but carries the risk of rolling & slumping asymmetrically, reducing output consistency. Truth be told, I usually bake flat side down as the compromise between perfection and reliability seems reasonable.
Addendum: while I do not condone using volumetric measurements for this recipe, persistent requests from friends & family have pushed me to finding the nearest possible volume equivalents. These assume you have magically selected an average 50g egg. Still pretty nice numbers, none of that “plus 2 teaspoons” nonsense. This is very, very close to the target ratios if your egg is 50g.
VOLUMETRIC INGREDIENTS FOR NON-SCIENTISTS & HEATHENS
1 egg
1/2 cup white sugar (1/4 + 1/4)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 + 1/3 cup AP flour
1 stick + 2 tablespoons (10T) unsalted butter
1 cup chocolate chips
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla extract*
