The Honest Guide to Bill Granger's Chocolate Chip Cookies
I've made these cookies enough times that I can do them in my sleep now. They're not fancy. They're just very well done basics. The original recipe comes from Bill Granger's early Sydney café days and shows up in his cookbook and various interviews over the years. It's a brown sugar-heavy, butter-forward drop cookie with a crispy edge and a chewy center that holds up okay through the day. Here's what I use when I make them. You can adjust it slightly depending on how crunchy or soft you want them, but the ratios are solid. 115g unsalted butter (room temperature)
170g dark brown sugar, packed 85g caster sugar 1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 220g plain flour 1 teaspoon baking soda
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A pinch of salt 200g good quality chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate block Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line two baking trays with parchment paper. Cream the butter and sugars together until it looks light and fluffy, maybe two minutes with a hand mixer. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together, then fold it into the wet mix until just combined. Don't overwork it. Fold in the chocolate last.
Scoop tablespoons of dough onto the trays, spacing them out because they spread. Bake for about 12 to 14 minutes. They should look slightly underdone in the middle when you take them out. Leave them on the hot tray for a couple of minutes before moving them to a rack. That residual heat finishes the center without drying them out. I learned the hard way that the oven temperature matters more than the recipe does. My first batch came out flat and crisp all the way through because my oven runs hot. I dropped it to 170 and switched to the middle shelf. That fixed it. Also, if you're using a fan forced oven, reduce the temperature by about 20 degrees. That's standard but easy to forget. The chocolate choice changes the result noticeably. I use a 60 percent cocoa block chopped roughly by hand instead of pre-bought chips. The chunks melt unevenly, which gives you those gooey pockets people talk about. Chips hold their shape too well and you end up with uniform little pools of sweetness instead of variety.
One thing the recipe doesn't warn you about is the butter. If your butter is too warm when you cream it, the cookies spread faster than they set and you get greasy edges. Room temperature means cool room temperature, not melting territory. If your kitchen is hot in summer, chill the butter for ten minutes before starting. I've lost a batch to a 30-degree kitchen once and had to throw it out. If you want them softer, underbake by another minute. If you want them crisper, go the full 14 minutes or even a bit longer. There's no penalty either way since these are forgiving cookies. They keep in an airtight container for about four days. After that they start going stale from the inside out because the brown sugar pulls moisture from the flour over time. Not a disaster, just noticeable.
