Double Chocolate Chip Cookies with Orange Marmalade
Universality in the kitchen is almost impossible to achieve. There is always someone at every gathering that is repulsed by lemon bars, confused by coffee flavored sweets, or would rather eat raw onions than cobbler. This is a source of endless frustration for me and for anyone who regularly cooks for others. There is truly nothing more demoralizing than presenting a fresh out of the oven ware to a group of friends and then making eye contact with a crowd of discussed guests who are trying to hide their pain out of propriety. In my efforts to avoid this horrific moment, I spend countless hours trying to sort out everything from the dietary needs to level of peculiarity in tastes. I want the recipients of my food to enjoy themselves to the fullest and not have to struggle through dessert.
Inevitably though I am confronted with situations in which I don’t have luxury of knowing a particular person’s or group of individuals tastes. In these instances I turn to the recipes seeped in familiarity and nostalgia. These recipes generally have an incredibly high success rate because the flavors are not only known but are comforting on every level. In the realm of nostalgic recipes, the chocolate chip cookie is arguably the ultimate. Chocolate chip cookies are so ubiquitous that they are ostensibly the representative for the entire cookie tree. They come in every shape and form from crunchy to gooey and it seems like every store or state have their trademark cookie recipe. I do have to confess though I don’t make these often. Although they are frankly the most requested fare from my family and friends, they just don’t feel as special as some of my other go-to recipes.
Unfortunately, this can be contrary to the general tastes of my guests. The chocolate chip cookie makes people feel comfortable, cared for, and safe. Unless of course you have friends with deep malintent who substitute raisins for chocolate chips and ruin everyone’s nice time. In any case, because I cook to bring joy to others, I have attempted to infuse some magic to an already nearly perfect recipe. This is not a tall order with this cookie because it is infinitely adjustable. In the aforementioned hundreds of batches of chocolate chip cookies that came out of my kitchen, I have tried what feels like countless recipes. Recipes that melt butter, add milk powder, require refrigeration, or have no wheat flour at all. These variations exist to produce slight differences in flavor and a wide range of textures. The key is to find a recipe you like that produces the result you hope for in a chocolate chip cookie and use the dough base as your starting point.
We prefer a chocolate chip cookie that is chewy and found a base recipe that fits this taste. If you prefer something different, just utilize the base dough from your favorite recipe and add the alterations described. For our purposes I use Martha Stewart’s recipe for Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. I have used this recipe for years and the dough is perfectly alterable as is needed. For this recipe we added multiple layers of flavor including two flavors of chocolate chips, Ginger Elisabeth vanilla orange marmalade, and a sprinkling of salt. This combination takes your childhood dessert and makes it fitting for your next get together. As always we encourage you to change the flavor profiles to your liking. These work great with various combinations such as raspberry jam and peanut butter chips for further nostalgic flavor. No matter what you choose we assure you that this recipe will remind you as it did me why chocolate chip cookies deserve their place on every table for future generations to come.
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies with Orange Marmalade
Ingredients
1 Cup Unsalted Butter
½ Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Cup Light Brown Sugar
2 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 Large Eggs
2 ¼ Cups All Purpose Flour
½ tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Kosher Salt
¾ Cup Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
¾ Cup White Chocolate Chips
1 Tub of Orange Marmalade (or jam of choice)
Maldon Sea Salt for Finishing
Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 F. Add butter and both sugars to the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Cream together until the butter and sugar become noticeably lighter and fluffy. Take your time with this. Add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time letting them incorporate after each addition. Add vanilla and salt to the mixture and combine.
2. Sift together flower, baking soda, and salt into a separate bowl. Then slowly add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture mixing until just combined. Do not overmix. Remove from stand mixer and add the chocolate chips, folding in by hand. This prevents them from breaking up with the paddle attachment.
3. Using a 2 inch cookie scoop, scoop out your dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets. The cookies will spread so place at least 2 inches apart on the pan. Then take a tablespoon measure covered in flour and press into the balls of dough to create an indent in the cookie. Into each indent spoon a heaping teaspoon of marmalade into the middle of each cookie. Then bake the cookies for 8-11 minutes until light brown on the edges but still soft in the middle. Cookies that are cooked correctly will look underdone coming out of the oven. After taking the cookies out, sprinkle with Maldon Sea Salt. Allow to cool fully so that the cookies harden and enjoy.