Sometimes it's hard... boiled!

Today’s cookie is an extra special collaboration between three baking bloggers. Anna (Cookie Madness), Katrina (Baking and Boys), and I shared the same idea of how we wanted a certain cookie to be, so we started with a base formula then made adjustments to the ingredients and technique until we agreed that the cookie had achieved our vision. Several stomachaches (and many emails) later, we ended up with a delicious cookie.

And so with an ocean and some US states in the middle, this is our cookie:

We hate wasting ingredients so to start, we made a very small batch yielding 2 cookies. Once we fine-tuned that, we scaled it up to 8 cookies. For those of you who don’t need 8 cookies, we’ve included the small batch version as well. The first recipe makes 8 large cookies, and by large, we mean 1/4 pound each. These are big, fat, sturdy cookies that are perfect for wrapping decoratively and presenting to friends. What’s great about these cookies is they hold up well. The cooked egg keeps them fresher longer and gives the middle an interesting moist yet crumbly texture. The technique we used to build the cookie also plays into that. We made the whole cookie in a food processor and started by cutting cold butter into flour. The cookies take about 20 minutes to bake. You can bake them in a regular oven or if you own one, a convection oven.

RECIPE:

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 12. 4 oz all purpose bleached flour (2 ¾ cups spooned and swept)
• 8 ounces cold unsalted butter, cut into small chunks (16 tablespoons)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 hard boiled egg*, cut into big chunks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips

Amazing Hard Boiled Egg Chocolate Chip Cookies (Small Batch)

• 3.1 oz all purpose bleached flour (2/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon flour)
• 2 ounces cold unsalted butter (4 tablespoons)
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/4 of a hard boiled egg*
• 1 tablespoon lightly beaten egg
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Small handful of chocolate chips

Combine flour and butter in food processor. Pulse until mixture is mealy and coarse. Add the salt and baking soda and pulse to mix. Add both sugars and hard boiled egg. Pulse again until mixture is mealy looking. Add in the raw egg and vanilla and pulse until mixture just begins to come together. Dump mixture into a bowl, add chocolate chips and shape into balls. You will see egg whites in dough – they’ll disappear as the cookies bake. Bake on a parchment lined cookie sheet at 350 degrees F. for 20 minutes or until cookies appear lightly browned around edges. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes then transfer to rack to finish cooling.

The first batch makes 8 big cookies, the small batch makes just 2.

Important: Let cool completely before serving. The texture gets better as the cookies cool. It’s even better if you cool the cookies, freeze them, then thaw them.

Note: If you have a convection oven, try convection baking for 18-20 minutes. Anna tested in both types of oven and liked the convection oven texture a lot.

* About the hard boiled egg: I don't know where this idea came from first, but it's used in some ancient European recipes. It's not uncomun to use this technic in some bakeries to achieve a certain cookie texture, it's more usual to use just the hard boiled egg yolk, but the whole egg is also used.

You can do it like this and just mix the egg in the food processor or if you want you can also pass it thru a sieve or grind it before adding it to the dough. Other alternative is instead of hard boiling it, you can microwave beated egg for a few seconds (about 20-30 for a whole egg) until it gets the consistency of a omelette. You can then grate it, or cut it in small chunks and proceed as we say in the recipe.

It was so much fun creating a cookie in 3 different kitchens! We really had a blast with this one!

Check Annas's cookies here (she even made a Cookie Q&A) and the ones Katrina made are here!

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