Orgasmic Chocolate Chunk Cookies

If Don Draper was designing a campaign, the advertisement for these would have read something like this- *Cookie seduction. Bake these cookies and serve them warm to the person you love, you will have them hooked for eternity* 

Maybe he would have been more suave than this. What do I know about ads, I just bake cookies! 

When I am cooking in the kitchen, the sights, the smells are quite erotic to me. No wonder food and sex have so much in common. They both work towards satiating our cravings and fulfilling our desires. And sexy food like this, yes I'm talking about your good old Chocolate chunk Cookies, has the power to buckle my knees in just a matter of one bite. Who'd have thunk it?! 

Prepping for the time I bake these cookies in my kitchen is almost akin to foreplay. When you go through the recipe, you'll know what I'm talking about. These cookies are not your average cookies. They are so much more and then some. These cookies are sinful, I tell you. Once in a while treat definitely, cause they are pretty rich. The aroma of them baking was driving me insane while I waited patiently to click the pictures. Confession: I had 2 of these while taking pics and nothing has ever felt so right in my life. 

Every picture I took, almost every step of the way, the only words that came to my mind were, 'this is so darn sexy', 'sexiness overload', 'I so want to bite into it'..... you get the drift, right? 

These are the best cookies I have ever tasted in my entire life. I should know, I am cookie obsessed! Don't believe me, check this out, and this and this and this! 

So what makes these cookies special you might ask. I've used melted brown butter in them. Have you ever browned butter in your kitchen? IF not for these cookies, just for the experience of it, try browning some butter. If you don't fall in love with everything in this world right then and there, then you're probably from another galaxy far far away. Brown butter has this intense, nutty, buttery and rich fragrance that I think they should start using in perfumes. Its definitely an olfactic pleasure. Come, let me tempt you to the path of baking phenomenal orgasmic chocolate chunk cookies

Makes: 32 cookies  

Time taken: 30 mins + overnight cooling

Complexity: ***

You'll need

100 gms + 100 gms butter (softened at room temperature. I used salted, and keep both butters separate) 

1 cup brown sugar

1/4th cup plain sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 cup chocolate chunks or chips (dark, semi sweet)

1 tsp instant coffee granules

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

pinch of love

Method

We'll begin this process by first browning the butter- the second sexiest thing of all. The sexiest being biting into these cookies. In a skillet/ pan, take 1 portion of the butter. And place it on lowest heat. 

The butter will start melting in a matter of seconds. Do not stir the butter at any time. Just swirl the pan gently.

In a minute or so, the butter will start to foaming  

And bubble. Let it keep going, no stirring.

In about 30 seconds, the butter will start to darken in colour and the foam will begin to settle. Now take a spatula and stir it around gently. Once the butter is a dark golden, turn off the heat. 

We want the butter to be a rich amber colour, slightly darker than honey- take a look at this. By this time, the aroma of the butter was driving me insane and my mind was trying to conjure recipes where I could use this brown butter all the time. 

Transfer the butter in a separate bowl otherwise it will continue to darken from the heat of the pan. 

Allow it to cool for atleast 15 mins or so. We don't want to add hot melted butter to the cookie dough otherwise the dough will not come together and the Cookie Gods will be displeased. Also be extra careful, the butter is quite hot. Don't burn your hands. 

Meanwhile, take your bars of chocolate to cut out chunks. Or you can use chocolate chips. Chips are too mainstream for me. I prefer chocolate strewn through all the nooks and crannies of my cookie. So I took a chocolate bar, and with a sharp knife, cut it into sticks like this. 

And cut them across into chunks like this. These chunks were about 1 cm in size for easy scooping out later. A cutting board full of chocolate chunks! Its like I died and went to heaven! 

Once the butter is cooled enough- almost close to room temperature, we can start to mix our cookie dough. I used my food processor for this. You can do this manually or with a standing mix with a paddle attachment. Add in the other butter thats softened. Mine was softened slightly more cause of the heat here but its all good. 

Next add in your mix of brown and white sugars.

Carefully, pour in the browned cooled butter. Look at that gorgeous liquid gold. Make sure you include all the milk solids that have settled down in the bowl. Thats where the richness comes in from. 

Mix the butter and sugar till the sugar is completely dissolved in the butter. This incorporates a little bit of air as well in the batter. Make sure you scrape down the sides before and after every step. 

Next, crack in 2 eggs and add in the vanilla. Make sure there are no shells in the batter.  

Whisk this for a minute. Look at the teeny tiny air bubbles, this indicates we have incorporated a good amount of air in the dough. 

In a separate bowl, to the flour, add in the baking soda 

and the instant coffee granules. If you don't like coffee, don't worry, you wont taste it in the cookies. The coffee just intensifies the chocolate-y flavour. And if you do like coffee like God intended you to, feel free to add in 2 spoons to get that rich coffee flavour. 

Whisk this all together so the baking soda and coffee are well incorporated with the flour. 

Dump this mix onto the wet ingredients in two batches. 

When the first batch is partially mixed, add in the second batch as well. This way there won't be any lumps of flour in the dough. 

The dough all comes together in about 30 seconds or so. More mixing results in activating the gluten in the flour mess up the texture of the cookies. 

Now add the chocolate chunks to the dough and fold them in with a spatula or a wooden spoon. Do not whisk at this point of time. 

Transfer the cookie dough in a bowl and cover it with a wrap. Chill overnight or atleast 1 hour before baking. 

The next day, after dreaming of baking and chomping down the cookies, I was more than ready to bake them. To bake, preheat your oven at 150C or 300F. Take the dough out of the fridge and with an icecream scoop, scoop out the dough and place it on a lined baking tray. I couldn't find my scoop today of all days and ended up having to use a rounded spoon. Worked fine for me, except there was a slightest variation in the thickness of the cookies. No one's complaining though! 

Place the scoops atleast 2" apart. Cookie lining all done and they are ready to bake. Finally!! 

Place them in the oven for 10-12 mins till the edges are golden brown. Very carefully, transfer the cookies from the baking tray to a wire rack to allow them to cool. 

The cookies come out soft but within a couple of minutes, they turn crisp on the edges. If this is not perfection, I don't know what is. 

The first cookie I bit into, ate more than half of it before I realised I was still to click pictures! The texture was stunning! That intense butter-y aroma was incredible. Soft and chewy in the centre and crispy edges with those chocolate shards/ chunks all over and the slight hint of coffee. 

I had to pack some to share with a friend. "Joey doesn't share food!" and I really didn't want to share these! And I don't care if this sounded mean. 

I just wanna keep eating these. To damn with fat hips. These really are the best cookies of them all! 

Here's me eating a second one, which is when I realised I should just stop taking pics and relish the goodness of these. Afterall, its not everyday that you have orgasmic Chocolate Chunk Cookies. Indulge! 

*This is an inspired recipe