One of Maida Heatter's specialties was replicating cookies she'd tried at other places and naming them after whatever it was that inspired her. Her Big Sur Cookies are an example. They're huge, not unlike the state of California, and their texture is varied much like the geography of Big Sur with its rocky cliffs, beaches and forests. Only in this case instead of rocks, sand and trees its nuts, oats and chocolate chips.
Lemon Juice In Cookies
One interesting ingredient in Big Sur Chocolate Chip Cookies is a tiny bit of lemon juice. The lemon juice is not there for flavor, but rather as a leavening agent. It makes the dough more acidic so that it will react with the baking soda. A little baking powder would also work, but the lemon juice provides a less dramatic puff. Lemon juice is also used in the Hilton DoubleTree Chocolate Chip recipe. The hotel cookies are similar to the Big Surs, but thicker and chunkier. Maida's are supposed to be thin and crisp and are much larger in diameter.
Making Big Sur Chocolate Chip Cookies Crsip
While the cookies were always good, I never had much luck getting them crisp until I started doing a few different things. And when I did get them crispy, they still had chewy centers, which was fine. I'm not sure if the Big Surs were supposed to be crisp through and through or just crisp around the edges, but
1. REALLY pack the brown sugar. A higher proportion of sugar makes cookies crisper
2. Make sure you sift the flour and measure very carefully since ¾ cup sifted flour weighs less than ¾ cup unsifted. If you don't sift the flour, you'll be using more of it and the cookies won't have as high percentage of sugar.
3. Bake the cookies on a non-insulated cookie sheet.
4. Cook for as long as possible. These cookies get pretty brown, so it's tempting to take them out early. 16-18 minutes would have burned my cookies, but at 15 minutes they were nice and brown but not burnt.
If you can't bake the cookies for 15 minutes without the edges burning, it may be a good idea to bake at a lower heat.
5. Remove the cookies from the cookie sheet immediately and let cool and crisp on a rack.
6. If you are still getting chewy cookies, reduce the heat to 325 degrees F. and bake longer.
Recipe
Big Sur Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, softened (¾ cup) (170 grams)
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- ⅔ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed (140 grams)
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar (65 grams)
- 2 large eggs (medium would be okay too)
- 1 ½ cups sifted all-purpose flour (190 grams)
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp ground cinnamon
- ¼ cup quick cooking rolled oats
- 1 ½ cups walnuts, chopped
- 1 cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- With an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy..Add the vanilla and lemon juice and then both of the sugars and beat to mix.
- With mixer on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time, increasing speed after eggs are added. Scrape sides of bowl often.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients.
- On low speed or by hand, add the dry ingredients and then the rolled oats, scraping the bowl as necessary with a rubber spatula and beating only until mixed. Stir in nuts and morsels. The batter is pretty sticky.
- Spread a pastry mat or a big sheet of foil or parchment on the counter to drop your portions of dough on.
- Use a ¼ to ⅓ cup measure to scoop out big mounds of dough. Shoot for 12, but you can make up to 15. They'll be sticky. Dampen your fingers a little with some water to prevent sticky, and shape into neat mounds. At this point you can also chill the mounds if you want to shape them even neater while cold.
- Otherwise, just proceed with the recipe. Arrange mounds 4 inches apart (give them room to spread) on parchment lined baking sheet. You can leave them as mounds if you want chewy centers, or if you are trying to achieve crisp cookies make them evenly flat.
- Bake two sheets at a time for 16 to 18 minutes (I prefer baking one sheet at a time), reversing the sheets top to bottom and front to back as necessary to ensure even browning. Bake until the cookies are well colored; they must not be too pale. Watch carefully.
Anna says
Sue, after a day, mine lost all their crispiness as well. They still tasted good, but they were almost cakey.
Sue says
A follow up to my comment yesterday. I just had a half of one of these cookies for breakfast. (I know it isn't the breakfast of champions. haha!) Anyway, they're not at all crispy today, but I actually like them better today which is not usually the case for a CCC. I don't know....it's like the flavors have melded a little and the cinnamon isn't as prominent, but is somehow a little more complex.
Sue says
Hi Anna!
Since we've been having the crispy cookie discussion I had to make these cookies. No big surprises. Mine came out pretty crispy except for the centers which I would say are chewy. I baked them on flat cookie sheets instead of air bake cookie sheets. Overall I'm sort of underwhelmed by these cookies. I'm glad I tried something different though.
Anna says
Bruce, I'm genuinely interested in hearing how your Big Surs turn out -- especially with the fancy cookie sheets. If yours come out crispy, you'll have to let us know exactly how you did it.
I'm tempted to make a small batch today and try a) packing the brown sugar more firmly so that I get a higher proportion of sugar and b) removing the cookies from the sheet very quickly.
bruce says
New design looks great. The Big Sur CCC recipe is now queued on my to-bake list. I'm a fan of the thick and chewy CCCs, but it's always good to mix things up. I usually use a pair of Vollrath flat cookie sheets, will be interesting to see how these turn out.
You mentioned the Levain Bakery cookies; Food TV recently aired an episode of Bobby Flay's Throwdown show pitting the Levain CC cookie vs Flay's concoction.
Dolce says
Hello Anna,
This is a recipe I have not tried, but if I do, I will let you know if they turn crispy or chewy. I have to say I don't like to use baking mats (silpat or similar). When I bake French macarons, a silpat won't do it, they crack and don't rise. So since the unsucessful macarons, I don't use baking mats. Maybe that's the reason?
Sarah says
Love your new blog look!
Niki says
I have to say that I love love love soft chewy cookies w/ a slight bit of crispiness on the edges, so maybe this recipe is the one for me!!!
Anna says
Thanks for the blog feedback. I made the font bigger and the banner smaller so it won't clog up blackberries. More improvements to come.
About the cookies, I let the first batch sit on the sheet for about 3 minutes and the second for 5. Maybe I should have transferred them to a rack sooner. I'll try one more time.
Sue, believe it or not I used a non-insulated cookie sheet this time and still got chewy cookies. I'm hoping maybe it was a result of not moving them to the cooling rack fast enough, but we'll see.
Maybe the magic formula is a) long (carefully watched) cook time, b) removal from cookie sheet quickly, and c) non-insulated cookie sheet. Argh, now I have to make these again. Luckily they were very tasty.
Cookie Mama, I had a link, but my new theme didn't highlight it. Now it's highlighted. Yet another thing for me to look at.
Katrina says
I totally thought my brother's computer was messing up (it does that!) and sent me to a strange, new blog I'd never seen before! Looks great!
Your Big Sur's look just like mine did. And turned out the same--too soft and the ones I tried baking a little longer were just getting too dark around the edges. Sometime I'll have to try Sue's suggestion and use the non-air bake sheets! Now I'm totally curious!
CookieMama says
Where's the recipe? Sounds great!
CakeSpy says
Verrry interesting! But wait. First--great new look! You know, I personally think that the chewier version sounds even more toothsome.
beth says
Love, love , love the new look!! Haven't tried the Big Sur, but I want to. I have one of Maida's books (the Big Sur is in it) and I have to admit that I've had more than a few "flops". Of course the cookies were eaten, but not what I had expected them to be. I think a lot of it had to do with my measuring skills. Thanks to you Anna, I now own a scale and I use it whenever a recipe includes weight measurements. I think I should try Maida's book again.
Anj says
Beautiful upgrade, Anna. It just get better and better.
clumbsycookie says
Hey! There's a new cookie and a new header!
Rina says
Wow, I love the new design Anna!! This must have been a lot of work, great job!
sweetie says
how long did you let them stay on the hot cookie sheet before transferring to the rack for cooling? i think that can make a difference in the chewy v crispy results
(beautiful new design!)
cookienurse says
The blog looks great!
Sue says
Hi Anna!
It looks like you're having fun updating your blog!! Nice job!
I haven't made these cookies, but I recently made some cookies that were supposed to be crispy and they were chewy. I baked them on air bake cookie sheets, which I think you often do as well. I tried giving them more time, and while they were crispy on the edges I still found them chewy, and an hour later the crispy edges had turned chewy as well. I was so bothered by the lack of crispiness in those cookies that I made a second batch a week or so later but baked them on flat cookie sheets, and guess what!? They were crispy!
I've been super busy lately and haven't blogged in awhile, but I'll get back to it soon!
Sue