These Monster Cookies require a pound of butter. And yes, it’s worth it

[Archisonic]

@atl

Here in the Bay Area, we lost Specialties, a chain sandwich place. The sandwiches were okay, but they had cookies much like these – best 900 calorie cookie I’ve had.

The one in Milpitas was my regular lunch spot when I had to commute down there several years ago (4 days a week for 3+ years ). Nice layout of tables for communal-ish seating. And ALWAYS got the chocolate chip cookie - half for dessert and half for the sometimes 2 hour / 52 miles trek back up peninsula (which could start at 97 degrees and end a chilly 59 degrees home in gloriously foggy Ocean Beach). At some point I think I switched to Eric’s, which had better sandwiches and side salads, but no bakery .

[Shuck]

@Hanglyman

It’s frightening to think of the long-term economic consequences of letting the virus run wild (supposedly for the sake of the economy!).

I was scared about this months ago, but it’s just getting worse and worse, more and more impossible to return to any kind of normal life, the economy getting continually fucked by the lack of response to the pandemic. Even after the vaccine, it’ll take at least six months, from what I’m reading, before it gets distributed and we can even start to put everything back together again. (Assuming people even get the vaccine.) There’ll be nothing, in theory, stopping new restaurants from opening, even with chains everywhere, but they’ll be starting from zero at that point, so it’ll be years from then that they finally reappear. Other types of businesses will find it impossible to return, though, as chains will have monopolized their market.

[Pseudothink]

Monster Cookies, you say?

[Malarkey]

Specialties is gone??? Well, darn! When I worked on Spear Street, they were right there on my way home every night. What a heavenly smell! And they had a mean Asian salad, too!

[dculberson]

My favorite Belgian waffle recipe has two sticks of butter for four waffles. Yummmmmm

I forgot to include the link:

True Belgian Waffles

They end up with a crispy sugar and butter crust that’s amazing.

[AnthonyI]

M&M “Monster Cookies” was most likely the first recipe that my mother ever downloaded from the internets back the the mid-1990’s. .

[Tom_Cartney]

A pound of butter? My heart can’t take anymore!

[Thermironic]

We had Specialties here in Sacramento too. Sandwiches were so-so, coffee on the positive side of the “well, it’s not starbuck$” scale, but their cookies… oh their cookies. Little coronaries in dough shells. I was crushed the morning I drove by and saw the permanently closed sign. My preferred location probably provided jobs for 25-30 people too, which was what really made it hurt… it was a busy joint.

Restaurant margins and cash-on-hand figures ought to be a big honking clue about how frequently Americans are used to skating by on externalized costs. When a chain like that goes toes-up, that’s a big red flag about how we expect businesses to operate over here.

[mgrey]

Baker’s percentages are the only thing that matters. 7 c of AP is around 2 lbs, so this is a 50% butter weight. Totally normal.

[orenwolf]

@marence

Christina Tosi is a delight.

She really is. In an industry where female chefs are often overlooked as executive chefs, she managed to work her way up, mixed with employers willing to foster her talent and take a chance on her skills, and even support her first restaurant openings.

But most of all, she seems to be consistently great at taking my favourite bits of childhood (cereal milk for one!) and turn them into massive indulgences that adult me totally doesn’t need for health reasons, but desperately wants nonetheless

[kennykb]

@mgrey

Baker’s percentages are the only thing that matters. 7 c of AP is around 2 lbs, so this is a 50% butter weight. Totally normal.

Yeah; I compared with what I use for basic butter cookies - essentially the Culinary Arts Institute recipe - and shrugged.

Although I’ll make 10-12 dozen little cookies from that amount of dough, dividing into six portions with different mixins (plain, ginger, lemon poppy, chocolate, date, nut - or various others depending on what I happen to have in the kitchen). Doing it that way and bringing it to a gathering makes it look as if I’ve been baking for a week!

[marence]

Find people to share with and bake away! Or freeze portions.
There’s nothing wrong in indulgence, in moderation. That being said, I only make my cheesecake to take somewhere, because if it’s in my refrigerator (or freezer!) I forget about moderation. Or anything else but cheesecake that is not yet eaten.

[Flossaluzitarin]

Also, the (63% dark, Guittard) chocolate chips and (Texas!) raw pecans.

[aerohydro]

I’ve actually made a batch of the Monster Cookies for a cookie competition held at the college I work at. Didn’t even place!

Four points:

1. If you’re using a stand mixer which has a 5 quart (5 litre) sized bowl, then the quantities called for in this recipe will simply overwhelm it. (Trust me on this!) Next time, I’ll use “half recipe” quantities which are listed on the Youtube video and at Christina Tosi’s website.

2. I found it difficult to locate chocolate chips or chunks which have a high cocoa %, and that affected how the cookies turned out. Might have been better to have taken a slab of good quality cooking chocolate (say with 62% cocoa) and then manually chop it up into little pieces.

3. Unlike the chefs in the video, I didn’t have an ice cream scoop to make the individual cookies, so I simply dumped the cookie dough onto a piece of baking paper and then divided that dough into half, and then half again, and then half again, etc, till I got the required number of cookies.

4. In the competition, one of the judge’s comments about the cookies was that they were a bit underbaked in the middle, so next time I make these, I might try to make each cookie slightly smaller, and/or bake them for slightly longer.

Cheers,
Paul