Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Makes about 24 cookies

Cookies When I started working on this recipe, I wanted to create the ultimate chocolate chip cookie—a serious task, considering that they're just about the most famous cookies around! I started to play around with a pretty traditional recipe, but I just wasn't getting the combination of crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside that I was after. I ended up increasing the ratio of granulated sugar to brown sugar and using melted butter, and when the staff ate all 24 cookies in as many seconds, I knew I had my recipe.

1 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 cup chopped bittersweet chocolate
1 cup chopped white chocolate
3/4 cup chopped toasted pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a sheet pan well and set aside. Place the butter and both sugars in the bowl of a mixer and beat on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, until smooth, about 3 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs and vanilla extract, and beat well. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed until all of the ingredients are incorporated. Increase the speed to medium and mix just until the dough is smooth. Remove the bowl from the mixer and let the dough cool for a few minutes (it will be a bit warm because of the melted butter). Add the bittersweet and white chocolates and the pecans, and mix well by hand.

Place heaping tablespoonfuls of the dough on the prepared pan, making sure you give the cookies enough space to spread as they bake. Bake until light golden brown, about 10 minutes. Let the cookies cool on the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack or paper towels and let cool completely—if you can wait that long.

Buy the Book!

Caprial's Desserts
by Caprial Pence and Melissa Carey
Ten Speed Press, 2001
$32.50 (CAN $52.00)
Hardcover, 272 pages
ISBN: 1-58008-285-8
Recipe reprinted by permission.