I love, love, love chocolate chip cookies. I’ve played with my chocolate chip cookie recipe countless times and ways, baking a chocolate chip cake, brownies, even cupcakes. But I hardly ever mess with the original recipe. Until now. I thought I’d try adding in a teaspoon of soy sauce, some marshmallows and also feuilletine, an ingredient with a Corn Flake-like consistency that I recently purchased.
The marshmallows added such a lovely gooey texture; I don’t know how I ever ate cookies without them. The feuilletine definitely offered a distinct touch, but I think the flakes are better sprinkled on last in order to preserve their crunchiness. The soy sauce brought a lovely touch of smoky earthiness. I randomly came up with the idea, but when I Googled it, I saw that Joy the Baker had already thought of it, so I was glad to see that it does, indeed, work. It definitely adds that je ne sais quoi. This is why I love chocolate chip cookies so much: You can experiment. Next time, I want to try pretzels, black sesame seeds or even some cereal.
Some like to call these cookies “everything but the kitchen sink,” but I call them twisted, like my own Frankencookie that I dreamt up.
Twisted Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes approximately 2 dozen large cookies
Adapted from a recipe by Martha Stewart 1¼ stick (10 Tbsp.) butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. soy sauce
¾ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chocolate chips (60-percent cocoa for a richer taste)
1 handful mini marshmallows
Sea salt for sprinkling
½ cup feuilletine*
• In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter with both sugars until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
• Add the eggs, vanilla, soy sauce and salt. Beat until well-mixed, then add the baking soda and flour.
• Stir in the chocolate chips and the marshmallows.
• Place the dough in the refrigerator to chill for at least 30 minutes.**
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Make 1-tablespoon-sized mounds of cookie dough and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper equally spaced apart.
• Sprinkle sea salt and feuilletine on the tops of each dough mound just before baking.
• Bake for about 12 minutes, or until the cookies are golden around the edges. Let the cookies cool completely on the baking sheet.
• Keep in an airtight container up to 4 days (if they are not consumed immediately!).
*Feuilletine can be purchased here: http://www.lepicerie.com/.
**The cookies spread more if they are not chilled; my later batches spread a bit more since they were left out waiting to be baked. This does not affect the flavor.
This article appears in January 2013.
