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Produced by Aimee Nishitoba, Photography by Christie Vuong, Food Styling by Eshun Mott, Prop Styling by Nicole Billark.
Made with butter, sugar, flour and little else but chocolate chips, this recipe from food scientist Jennifer Pallian is essentially a shortbread cookie. The fat completely coats the flour particles, which prevents gluten from forming, which in turn results in absolutely zero chewiness. Instead? Pure buttery, crumbly bliss
1 cup (277 g) unsalted butter, at 60 to 65F
1/2 cup (57 g) icing sugar
1/4 cup (53 g) packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups (255 g) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (128 g) mini dark chocolate chips
Position rack in centre of oven, then preheat to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
Combine butter with sugars and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on low until combined, then increase speed to medium-high. Beat for 5 min, scraping down sides of bowl halfway through. Beat in vanilla. Decrease speed to low. Gradually beat in flour, scraping down sides of bowl once or twice. (The dough will have the consistency of coarse crumbs at this point.) Stir in chocolate chips.
Turn dough out onto a sheet of parchment. Gather into a ball, then roll into a 2 1⁄2-in.-wide log. Slice into 1⁄2-in.-thick rounds. Arrange rounds on prepared sheets about 2 in. apart.
Bake, one sheet at a time, until edges are golden, about 9 min. Transfer sheet to a rack to cool for 5 min, then transfer cookies to rack to cool completely. Repeat process with remaining dough.
Rotate dough log as you cut the slices so that it doesn’t flatten on just one side. If the dough starts to crumble while you’re cutting it, press the pieces back together and reroll them into a log.
Removing leaveners makes this cookie dense, buttery and shortbread-like. Meanwhile, smaller chips prevent the chocolate from melting into the dough too much, while a blend of brown and icing sugars balances flavour and texture.
Jennifer Pallian is a food scientist, recipe developer and blogger at Foodess. She lives in Vancouver.
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