Chick-Fil-A Chocolate Chunk Cookies At Home

Cookie science. Occuring in my house daily for the past few weeks. I've attempted to re-create the Chick-Fil-A cookies in the past and while the cookies were good, they never tasted like a CFA cookie. I've scoured the internet looking for others trying to imitate the same cookie and I've read a lot of books trying to figure out just what sodium acid pyrophosphate is and what it does. The CFA cookie ingredient list isn't too difficult and luckily ingredients are listed by weight, so it's easy to figure out the ratios between the ingredients. While I won't say these are an exact replica of the CFA cookie, there are the closest I've gotten. I think the CFA cookie is defined by the fact that 1) it practically falls apart when they hand it to you 2) it sticks to the roof of your mouth as you eat it 3) it's FULL of chocolate.

 The oats in the CFA aren't really noticeable. If you dissect the cookie, the actual cookie part isn't sweet and isn't very good. The chocolate is good, but isn't overly sweet. It's definitely not Hershey's milk chocolate. I used Hershey's milk chocolate and chopped it into chunks and it was overly sweet for the cookie. Since beginning this cookie science experiment, I've been checking the labels of chocolate in grocery stores in an attempt to figure out which brand of chocolate Chick-Fil-A uses. The chocolate doesn't have vanillin in it, but that fact hasn't helped me out so far.

I started this cookie science by reading the ingredients on the Chick-Fil-A website, then I modified one of my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, the Baking Illustrated Chocolate Chip Cookie. The results weren't stellar as you see here and here. However, I've come a long way since then. First, the cookie is thick and chewy. It sticks to the roof of your mouth and it isn't super sweet without the chocolate. It has white sugar and molasses (which makes brown sugar) instead of a mixture of white and brown sugars. It contains oats. It has milk chocolate chunks and semi-sweet chocolate chips. It weighs 82 grams. I tried all-purpose flour, cake flour, white whole wheat flour, whole wheat flour, and finally, bread flour. I tried using melted butter and crisco, cold butter and crisco, and varying ratios of butter and crisco. I used sorghum instead of molasses, which was a bad idea. I also used baking soda and baking powder. I literally made about 10 batches of cookie dough before ending up with this recipe. I weighed everything with my kitchen scale because it was easier to keep the ratios in order when the ingredients are listed by weight. One day when I'm ready to eat chocolate chip cookies again, I will figure out roughly how much these amounts are in cups and tablespoons.

Chick-Fil-A Chocolate Chip Cookie Copycat Recipe

9.5 oz bread flour

3.0 oz water

6.0 oz semisweet chocolate

3.0 oz milk chocolate, chopped into chunks

4.5 oz Crisco

2.5 oz butter, cold

1.0 oz molasses

8 oz white sugar

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

6 grams baking soda

6 grams salt

4 grams vanilla

2.75 oz oats

Cream Crisco, butter, molasses, sugar, vanilla until light and fluffy. Add eggs and mix until combined. Add soda, salt, oats, mixing well. Add flour, then stir in most of the chocolate chips and chunks. Freeze (absolutely necessary or the cookies spread!) the dough for one hour, but preferably overnight. Scoop 80 gram portions out and flatten into 2 inch wide x ¾ inch thick discs. Dot the surface of the cookies with remaining chocolate chips and chunks. Bake at 400 degrees for 8 minutes.

Homemade Oreos #2

I made homemade Oreos once before, but I like for things to be authentic. If I'm going to make an Oreo, I want it to be an Oreo. I don't want something to have a lot of junk the real deal doesn't have in it. When a joke was made about an Oreo the size of a pancake, I took the challenge to heart. I wanted to make a huge Oreo and I wanted it to be like the real deal. Nabisco doesn't use animal products in their Oreos (who knew?!) so I didn't want to either. The end result was a salty, sort of sweet, super chocolate-y cookie that was a little crumbly and difficult to transport. The texture was off, but that could probably be altered by mixing the cookie ingredients with a food processor and using a little water.

Homemade Oreos 

1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup cocoa (I use Hershey’s special dark)

¼ tsp salt

1 cup white sugar

½ cup crisco

½ tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream Crisco and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add cocoa, salt, vanilla, then flour, mixing until combined. Roll into a log shape with parchment paper and chill 30-60 minutes. Cut into slices 1/8—1/4 inch thick. Alternatively, you can roll the dough out and cut the cookies out with a 2-inch cookie cutter or scoop small teaspoon sized amounts on a cookie sheet and bake. All three methods work about the same. Bake for 12 minutes and allow to cool completely. Top one cookie with cream filling, then gently press another cookie on top of the filling to spread the filling to the edges.

Cream Filling

½ cup crisco

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups powdered sugar

Cream Crisco and vanilla. Add powdered sugar slowly and continue to whip until light and fluffy.

Periodic Table of Cupcakes

I've always wanted to make a periodic table of some food item. Cupcakes are fun and everyone likes cupcakes, so we made a periodic table of mini cupcakes. Just for fun. The marketing people at the school called and asked why we made this after they saw it on Twitter. My only answer was "just because we're nerds." I think that sums it up.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Cupcakes

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcakes. I have been on a PB&J kick for quite some time. I've been using PB2 instead of peanut butter in my greek yogurt and since Chris doesn't like peanut butter, I never buy it because I'd eat the entire container. I'd been craving a wholesome peanut butter and jelly sandwich for quite a while, so I made these cupcakes to satisfy my craving.

The cupcake is a fluffy white cupcake that I wanted to mimic fluffy white bread. I then made peanut butter buttercream and swirled grape jelly into it. The cupcakes were topped with flourless peanut butter cookies.

Fluffy White Cupcakes
makes 24

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups white granulated sugar

1 t salt

1/2 cup crisco
1 cup milk
2 eggs
1 t vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, salt, baking powder in a bowl. Add crisco and 2/3 cup milk. Beat vigorously for 2 minutes. Add eggs, the rest of milk, and vanilla, beating for 2 additional minutes. Divide into cupcake pans, filling each liner about half full. Bake for 16-20 minutes or until cupcake springs back when lightly touched.

Peanut Butter Buttercream
1/2 cup crisco

1/2 cup peanut butter
2-3 cups powdered sugar
1-2 tbsp milk

Cream crisco and peanut butter. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time. Thin with milk until desired consistency is reached. To swirl peanut butter frosting with jelly, spoon frosting into a large piping bag and beside it, add the jelly. Squeeze a little of the icing out of the piping bag until the jelly begins swirling with the frosting.

Homemade Peeps

I love Peeps. They were my favorite Easter candy growing up. I've learned that a lot of people don't like them, but I really don't get it. So yummy and it's like eating sugary air. A few years ago I got put into the hospital after having a marshmallow gun fight with my freshman roommates. The doctor didn't think anything about the marshmallows, but come to find out, I was having intestinal issues due to the marshmallows. Since then I'm not supposed to eat marshmallows, but I usually splurge around Easter for a few Peeps. This year, I decided to make my own....because they can't be as bad for you, right?!

You see a lot of blogs about homemade Peeps and fun things to do with Peeps, besides eat them, but these really weren't difficult. The hardest part is obviously piping them into chick shapes. I read that the Just Born company can make like 100 peeps a minute or something crazy like that. It definitely took me longer than that, but these homemade Peeps don't even taste like store-bought Peeps. People (I almost said peeps!) who don't even like Peeps will like these...seriously. They are like eating soft, vanilla flavored, sweet air with just the smallest amount of chew.

Homemade Peeps
makes a lot, like 20-30
adapted from Martha Stewart

2 1/2 tsp (1 envelope) unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup cold water
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup water

Add gelatin and 1/3 cup cold water to a mixer bowl and allow to soften for about 5 minutes. In a saucepan, add 1 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water, allowing to heat until the mixture reaches 238 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove the mixture from heat and pour into the mixer bowl with the softened gelatin. Whisk the mixture on medium-high for 8-10 minutes until soft peaks form. Transfer the marshmallow to a large piping bag and begin to pipe the chick shape on parchment. Cover with sanding sugar immediately (don't forget the bottoms!) and allow to set.

To pipe the chick shape, pipe an oval and continuing piping near the front of the oval to make the body.  Once you've built up the body, press into the marshmallow mixture and stop piping, but pull away from the chick to make the beak. It takes a little getting used to, but try to do this in one continuous motion and they will look close enough to chicks to be considered Peeps.

To make your own sanding sugar, add white granulated sugar to a ziploc bag and add a few drops of gel food coloring. Close the bag, then rub the mixture between your hands to distribute the color.

Pulled Pork Forever

Cornbread waffles topped with pulled pork, raspberry chipotle barbecue sauce, gorgonzola aioli

Pulled pork, fried egg, hickory spice barbecue, american cheese open-faced sandwich.

Pulled pork, homemade ricotta, raspberry chipotle barbecue sandwich with a spinach, craisins, almond, gorgonzola side salad.

How To Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You - Edible Book Contest

I entered the Edible Book Contest with a cake based off the book How To Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting To Kill You.

I didn't place, but it sure was fun making fondant cats. :)