Remember back in May when I went to visit Jacques Torres Chocolate in NYC? I certainly do. That was a great day – filled with lots of chocolate, cookies and other delicious culinary treats! 🙂 Well while browsing the food blogosphere a few days ago, I found a recipe for the famous and incredible Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies. These were pretty unbelievable so try to replicate them I would!
The recipe, which I found on Crepes of Wrath, calls for cake flour and bread flour, instead of regular, old all-purpose flour. Cake flour has much lower protein content, which provides a very light, delicate texture. I didn’t have bread flour, so I just substituted all-purpose flour. I think they still turned out really light, fluffy and delicious. 
This recipe also requires you to plan ahead a bit since you should refrigerate the dough at least 24 hours. This process allows the butter to chill after being warmed up so much in the preparation process, which will help the dough not spread when baking. Chilling the dough also allows the gluten in the flour to relax and set, resulting in soft, fluffy cookies.
Another point about these cookies, they are very chocolatey, so make sure you have really good quality chocolate. Clearly Jacques Torres chocolate would be ideal. They do sell the kind of chocolate chips used in the cookies sold at their stores online here. If you just can’t wait to try them out and don’t want to sit around for the mail, try Scharffen Berger or Valrhona chocolates which can often be found at Whole Foods or other stores. I liked Sydney from Crepes of Wrath’s recommendation of using two kinds of chocolates – semi-sweet and 60% cocoa, so I went with that.
They turned out pretty darn delicious, especially when still warm. I think they were not even chocolatey enough though, so in the recipe below I pumped up the chocolate factor a bit. Be sure to have a glass of cold milk ready! 🙂
Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies
Active Time: 45 minutes; Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes, plus 24 hours to chill the dough
Yield: 18-20 large cookies or about 30 medium-sized cookies
- 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour
- 1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
- 2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 12 oz 60% cocoa bittersweet chocolate chips
- 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
- sea salt or fleur de sel, for sprinkling
1. Sift together the flours, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
2. In the bowl of your mixer, cream together your butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time, until combined, scraping down the bowl after each egg. Add in the vanilla and mix just until combined. Gradually add in the dry ingredients, just until combined. Fold in your chocolate until evenly added throughout the dough.
3. Press plastic wrap against the dough, making sure it is completely covered, and refrigerate for at least 24 hours, or as long as 72 hours.
4. When you are ready to bake, bring the dough to room temperature so that you can scoop it out, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheets with cooking spray. Scoop dough out onto the sheets (size of dough will vary depending on the desired end size of the cookies – about 1 tablespoon for medium-sized cookies, or golf ball-sized for large cookies).
5. Sprinkle the cookies lightly with a bit of fleur de sel or sea salt (this adds a nice salty finish, brings out the great flavor of the chocolate, and provides more texture). Bake 10 minutes for medium-sized cookies, or 18 minutes for larger cookies. They may be slightly undercooked at this point but they will continue baking on the baking sheet. Let cookies sit for 2-3 minutes on baking sheet, then allow to cool on a wire rack for 2 more minutes (yes, this part is hard since they smell and look so delicious, but wait it out!).
5. Enjoy! Store in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 2 months.
Chocolate is a key ingredient in many foods. In fact, it ranks as the favorite flavor of most Americans.