Chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips

I had free time on a Wednesday, and since this is probably one of the few times it'll happen this semester I decided to use it wisely. I went to an informal fireside talk by Representative Craig Hickman in the Bowdoin Outing Club - it was incredible to hear him speak about his experience with organic farming and his transitions between varied careers, ending up in the Maine House of Representatives (though still a farmer, poet, writer, etc). After dinner he gave a more formal talk as the keynote speaker of Bowdoin's MLK Day series of events/lectures. He moved seamlessly between the topics of Family, Community, and Prosperity, talking of his (and his family's) history and how farming can alleviate poverty by eradicating local hunger. He has a background as a performance artist (his first performance, actually, was at Bowdoin many years ago) so as you might imagine his speech and delivery were spell-binding. If you ever get the chance to meet him or listen to him, I cannot urge you strongly enough to do so. He was one of the most moving and inspirational speakers I've listened to.

Early in the afternoon Bowdoin facilities folks came and installed a new oven in our kitchen - Shannon had submitted a work order a couple days ago given our many oven troubles (although, I must say, regardless her chocolate tart was delicious). They responded much more quickly than I would have expected, and so today I had the opportunity to bake inaugural  cookies. After an extensive search for eggs and the long process of chopping at our rock-hard block of sugar with a knife, Sunita, Quinn, Shannon and I got to work.

I was in a chocolate mood and we were limited to one stick of butter, so we opted for this recipe.



Ingredients
1/2 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large eggs at room temperature
2/3 cup good unsweetened cocoa
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 pounds good white chocolate, coarsely chopped

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Add the vanilla, then the eggs, 1 at a time, and mix well. Add the cocoa and mix again. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt and add to the chocolate with the mixer on low speed until just combined. Fold in the chopped white chocolate.

Drop the dough on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, using a 1 3/4-inch ice cream scoop or a rounded tablespoon. Dampen your hands and flatten the dough slightly. Bake for exactly 15 minutes (the cookies will seem underdone). Remove from the oven and let cool slightly on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.



My comments/alterations:

• We didn't have 1.5 lbs of good white chocolate... We had a bit over half a cup of Nestle morsels, so we put those in along with some good old Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips.
• We didn't follow the directions to bake for "exactly 15 minutes," instead checking the cookies at 8 minutes then putting them in for another 2 or so. They didn't seem particularly underdone, so we took them out and I think that was a good choice:
• They harden a bit more than I would have liked out once they're taken out, so I might edit this blog post later with an update on that. But straight out of the oven they were delicious. The one issue was that the sugar remained a bit grainy in the cookie. Given that it started out as a brick, though, I was happy with that.
• The yield was as advertised - about 4 dozen cookies!