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This is the second time I’ve used rye flour to make chocolate chip cookies. The first time was because Dori Greenspan’s description of the Mokonuts Cafe and Bakery’s Rye-Cranberry Chocolate-Chunk Cookies was so enticing that I decided to put aside the prejudicial notion that rye was strictly suitable as the chosen sheath for hot pastrami with mustard and give rye flour cookies a try. 

I liked what I scarfed and evangelized on the subject here.

So when I came across L.A. icon Karen Hatfield’s (chef/owner Sycamore Kitchen) Chocolate Chip Rye Cookies I decided to see if my first success with rye flour cookies was a fluke. After all, I still had plenty of rye flour leftover from my Greenspan foray into the subject.

The Greenspan cookies (though amazingly delicious) are filled with shards of melted chocolate and laced with pinpoints of poppy seeds giving them a complex texture blasting with diverse flavors. Making it hard to say exactly what rye flour brings to the recipe.

Rye Flour Cookies

However, the Hatfield recipe doesn’t stray too far from what you expect from a chocolate chip cookie. Making it far more suitable for a taste test. What I found is that the rye flavor is subtle, a bit nutty, and definitely offers an intricacy not achieved with all-purpose flour alone chocolate chip cookies.

However, I also discovered (with research) that rye flour has long been considered a challenge to bakers because of its low gluten content, which can make it more difficult to work with and produce a crumb that can be gummy. But if you experiment with using a mixture of rye and wheat flour in recipes (I read) then you can turn that gummy texture into an advantage.

In the end I I decided that rye flour delivers cookies that have a crisp crust surrounding a chewy-textured center, providing the perfect protection to pockets of molten chocolate. It’s positively the best of the standard-style chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. GREG



Expand Recipe…

Chocolate Chip Rye Cookies 

By: Greg Henry

Print This Recipe Total time Yield 18Published December 29, 2018

Contrary to the source recipe I chopped the chocolate chunks into variable sizes, leaving many of them quite large for a “marbled” effect. You may chop the chocolate into ¼‑inch chunks as the original recipe specifies if you like.

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 5 ounce dark brown sugar
• 4 ounce granulated sugar
• 4.3 ounce all-purpose flour
• 4.3 ounce dark rye flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt (plus extra for sprinkling)
• ½ teaspoon ground caraway seed
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 ounce (70%) chocolate (chopped into chunks)

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Directions

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl whisk together the flours, baking soda and powder, ¾ teaspoon salt and caraway seed.

Add the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture and continue to beat until fully combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat until almost fully incorporated. Add the chopped chocolate and stir to combine. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, and up to 3 days.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Scoop the dough (about 2 tablespoons or 45 grams for each cookie) and space the cookies a few inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle each cookie with a little kosher salt. Bake the cookies until they are crisp on the edges but still soft in the middle, about 15 minutes, rotating halfway through for even baking.