Good, cozy plan

Fundamentally speaking, baking chocolate chip cookies shouldn't be complicated. But with the many ways to do such a thing: brown the butter, rest the dough 3 days, use part pastry flour and part bread flour, find chocolate feves/wafers, choose to use expensive chocolate, use only whole wheat flour (still a great choice) or simply decide which recipe to follow---and it can easily become a bother. Not so with these cookies. There's one caveat though, which is also why I chose to bake them: they use egg yolks, which I found, sitting in a lone cup in the fridge after making omelets with an extra white. The recipe, from The Violet Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak includes only yolks to add a delicate richness to the cookies, and manages to do so without getting too fussy. You can swap in a bit of whole grain flour, dial down the sugar a hair, add nuts, use whatever chocolate to your liking, and also eat them on the same day, while stocking the dough in the freezer for later which, to me, sounds like a good, cozy plan for fall. 

Egg Yolk Chocolate Chip Cookies

From: The Violet Bakery Cookbook by Claire Ptak

Notes: The recipe can be easily divided by 3!

250g (1 cup plus 1 tablespoon) unsalted butter, softened

200g (1 cup plus 2 tablespoons) light brown sugar

100g (1/2 cup) sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 egg yolks

325g (2 1/3 cups) all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

250g (1 1/2 cups) dark chocolate, chopped


Line a small baking sheet or pan with parchment paper.


Beat butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer until combined but not too creamy. Add the vanilla and the egg yolks and mix well.


In another bowl combine the flour, salt, and baking soda and whisk well. Add this to the butter and egg mixture along with the chocolate, and mix until just combined.


Scoop individual portions of cookie dough onto the lined baking sheet or pan (I used a standard medium cookie scoop)

Cover with plastic wrap and freeze for at least 1 hour, or up to a month (after an hour or two, remove balls to plastic freezer bag).

When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 355°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper and arrange the cookies evenly on the pan, leaving enough space between each one so they have room to expand during baking 

If you are baking from frozen, allow the cookies 5 to 10 minutes out of the freezer before placing in the oven.

Bake for around 18 minutes, until the center of each cookie is slightly soft and under-baked, but the edges are crispy and golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 10 minutes then cool further on a rack.