Cardamom Scented Chocolate Chip Cookies
Happy Chocolate Chip Day!!! (or is it on May 15th?) You should always have a good chocolate chip cookie recipe. Whether it’s something you that you develop on your own, or find something that you love, keep one in your baking arsenal. Usually when we think of chocolate chip cookies, many of us think of the good ol’ Toll House cookie. This recipe came about in 1937 at the Toll House Inn which was owned by Ruth Graves Wakefield and her husband. She wanted to make some of her favorite cookies for her guests but was missing a key ingredient. But she did have on hand a semi-sweet chocolate bar (made by Nestlé) which she crumbled up and mixed into the dough. She thought that the chocolate would melt and spread out into the mixture. To her surprise, the chocolate held its shape which she thought was weird but decided to serve it anyway. It was a big hit, and thus the Toll House Chocolate Crunch cookie was born. Now right on the bag of Toll House chocolate chips, it lists the date of origin at 1939. That’s when Ruth and Nestlé settled into an agreement where she could get chocolate for life and Nestlé got to print the recipe on some of its packaging. Here are a couple of links (here and here) that you should check out to find some additional info. Exciting stuff!!!
On to some recipes. Now everyone should be familiar with the tried and true Toll House Cookie recipe. If not, just go check out a bag of Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chips. Now I won’t be making those, but I did come up with a couple of recipes — Chocolate Chip Molé cookies and Cardamom Scented Chocolate Chip Cookies. Let’s talk about the latter one here. The recipe isn’t too far from your basic cookie recipe, save for one step where I infuse some melted butter with the cardamom. Not too complicated, right?. Here’s what you need:
2 sticks of unsalted butter
- 12 cardamom pods
- 2 1/3 c. flour
- 1 t. baking soda
- 1 t. salt
- 1 c. sugar
- 1/4 c. brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 c. chocolate chips
1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan with the cardamom. When melted, let simmer on the stove on low (if it is too high the butter will burn!) for about 30 minutes. The cardamom should swell. Set aside to cool and re-solidify.
2. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F.
3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt into a large mixing bowl. In the bowl of a mixer, cream together the cardamom butter, sugars, and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
4. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix well until just combined. Do not over mix! Gently fold in the chocolate chips.
5. Drop cookies onto a sheet pan and bake for about 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. Eat up!
Notes — This does have a lower proportion of brown sugar when compared to other recipes. I did this so that the cardamom could stand out and not be overpowered by the molasses in the brown sugar. You can change this if you like. . . You may have noticed that the cookies in the pictures are a little bit dark. There is a good reason for this. I was out of brown sugar, so I tried to make my own which should just be some regular granulated sugar and some molasses. Now I don’t know why I didn’t use a measuring cup, but I ended up putting waaaay too much molasses. But the cookies still tasted great and you could still taste the cardamom throughout, just not as much as it should have. Hence the previous “note”. The second batch turned out better. . . You could try this with some other herbs / spices. I’m sure cinnamon would be great in this or maybe some cloves. Maybe some peppercorns to make a variation on pfeffernüssen. Lemon peel and ginger sound good too!
This entry was posted in Cookies, Culture, History, Mishaps, Recipe and tagged Chocolate, Cookies, Culture, Food, History, Mishaps, Recipes.
August 4, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Great ideas! I love that you infused the butter with cardamom. I bet it would also be great making a short bread cookie with said butter!
August 4, 2011 at 2:30 pm
I luv trying to infuse a little bit of something extra into recipes. I really like your idea of using some infused butter in some short bread!
August 4, 2011 at 6:05 pm
I’d love to try baking with cardamon it smells so exotic!
August 4, 2011 at 6:36 pm
thanks for visiting my little chunk of space! the cardamom does give the cookies a nice little kick.
August 4, 2011 at 6:44 pm
This is such a nice idea! Cardamom is such a nice flavour, perfect in curry… apparently perfect in cookies too, these must be lush.
August 4, 2011 at 6:52 pm
It does give them a nice flavor! Thanks for stopping by!
August 5, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Never thought to add cardamom. Bet it pairs well with the chocolate.
August 6, 2011 at 8:47 pm
I am obsessed with chocolate chip cookies so it’s no surprise that I was very pleased to find this recipe. I’ve baked hundreds of different choco chip cookies but never have I tried this one out. It looks exceptionally tasty. I can’t wait to give it a go. Thanks for sharing :)!
August 6, 2011 at 8:53 pm
thanks for stopping by! hope you like the result!
August 7, 2011 at 2:00 am
I love cardamom so much. What an awesome idea to put it into chocolate chip cookies. I have a sweet treat linky party going on at my blog and I’d love it if you’d come by and link your cookies up. http://sweet-as-sugar-cookies.blogspot.com/2011/08/sweets-for-saturday-29.html
August 7, 2011 at 10:10 am
thanks for the visit! i’d be happy to stop by!
August 18, 2011 at 9:38 am
Genius! I never thought of that before. Putting cardamom on cookies is such a great and a unique idea.
August 18, 2011 at 10:28 am
Genius recipe! I never thought of adding cardamon to the cookie recipe! Thank you for sharing!
October 7, 2011 at 12:25 am
I’m a huge fan of cardamom! I will definitely try this recipe (or a variation thereof). Thanks for posting! Intrigued by your newer post of peach drop cookies, as well….
October 7, 2011 at 9:18 am
thanks for stopping over! i really do like the combination of the the chocolate and the cardamom.