Experimenting with Tartine Salted Chocolate Rye Cookies

We have a solid collection of cookbooks. Sadly, I rarely use any of them. These days, internet has millions of recipes, and one can always google for variations and inspirations, and combine the recipes into what feels like a dish one would like to make. 

Recently, a package appeared on our door step, containing a gift from a friend, the Tartine Book No. 3. It is a gorgeous book, and Tartine is a gorgeous bakery, but it is still a cookbook. So I wondered what would happen with it, would it collect dust. As I started to read the book, I found Chad Robertson's writing so refreshing. Down to earth, inquisitive, explorative. In the book he explores usage of different types of flour, and that speaks volumes to me. Since we got your grain mill, a large part of my baking has been about combining flours from different types of grain.

The friend who gifted us the book was raving about the salted chocolate rye cookies and confessed that they were actively looking for opportunities to make the cookies again.

In my first two attempts I followed the recipe faithfully. The cookies were DELICIOUS and super fudgy. So good that I made the recipe again within a week or so. But... the cookies did not look like the cookies from the book. In the book the cookies had a body and shape, and my cookies were as flat as Kansas. So I wondered whether i was either doing something wrong, e.g. did not cool the dough enough, or maybe the cookies could use more flour. I decided to double the flour and what came out was close to perfection - very chocolatey, very fudgy, soft, yet with enough body and shape to look attractive. 

These cookies are plain awesome as it. I do plan to tinker with the recipe some more, just because that is what I do. For example I am pretty sure some walnuts would be an awesome addition. Before we go there, let us record this attempt so that it can be recreated.

Ingredients

• 454g (2 2/3 cups) dark chocolate, preferably 70% chocolate
• 57g (4 TBS) g unsalted butter - this amounts to about 1/2 stick of butter
• 170g rye flour, freshly milled if at all possible - this amounts to about 1.5 cup
• the original recipe calls for 1/2 of the flour I used, 85g (3/4 cup)
• 1-2 tsp baking powder
• I used 2 tsp and the recipe worked out great
• 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
• 200g (4 large or 3 extra large) eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g muscovado sugar
• The original recipe called for 340g muscovado sugar
• I used dark brown sugar instead of muscovado with success
• Flaky sea salt for topping (optional but really nice)

Procedure

I pretty much followed the recipe from the cookbook

1. In a double boiler melt the chocolate and the butter, Set aside to cool a little.
2. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, the salt, and the baking powder. Set aside.
3. In a mixer, using a whisk attachment, whip eggs on medium-high speed. Add the sugar slowly and keep mixing until the volume increases significantly. The volume will almost triple.
4. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the melted chocolate-butter mixture and the vanilla.
1. Make sure that the chocolate is cool enough so that the eggs don's coagulate.
2. Use a spatula to scrape the wall balls.
5. Stop the mixer, add the flour mixture and mix it in on a low speed until just combined.
6. The dough will be quite soft. Transfer the dough in a metal bowl or use your mixer bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for about 30 minutes.
1. If the dough is in the fridge too long, it will harden and will be hard to scoop. In that case, let is warm up sufficiently, e.g. to the room temperature, so that you can work with it,
7. Preheat the oven to 350F
8. Line two baking sheets with parchment.
9. Scoop the cookies with a rounded tablespoon onto the baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches of space between the bowls.
1. I used a small ice-cream scoop, which is a bit larger than the tablespoon, and had to bake the cookies 3 minutes longer.
10. Optionally, sprinkle a few salt flakes on top of each cookie. 
1. I used salt from the bay of Piran, simply because I had it.
11. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the cookies are baked through and have a rounded top from puffing up.
12. Remove the baking sheets from the oven, let cool slightly, then continue to cool the cookies on a wire rack to cool completely.