Alton Brown’s “The Puffy”
As you all know, I love Alton Brown. I’ve made a few of his recipes recently including his overnight cinnamon rolls and his famous chewy chocolate chip cookie. He did a great episode of Good Eats where he created three very different versions of chocolate chip cookie by making slight variations of the Nestle Tollhouse recipe.
To say I really enjoyed “The Chewy” is an understatement. It is delicious. I can’t rave about it enough. I decided to try out another recipe from the episode “The Puffy”.
I didn’t have any butter flavored shortening, so I ended up using 1/2 butter and 1/2 shortening. Other than that, I followed the recipe exactly. These cookies were very puffy when they came out of the oven, but they deflated quite a bit as they cooled. The cake flour gives these cookies a great texture and this is another great chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I much prefer The Chewy. I just like chewy cookies.
The Puffy – from Alton Brown – I got 4 dozen cookies using my cookie scoop1 cup butter-flavored shortening – I used 1/2 cup shortening + 1/2 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Combine the shortening (and butter), sugar, and brown sugar in a bowl, and cream until light and fluffy. Sift together the cake flour, salt, and baking powder; set aside.
Add the eggs 1 at a time to the creamed mixture. Add vanilla. Increase the speed until thoroughly incorporated.
With the mixer set to low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine well. Stir in the chocolate chips. Chill the dough (I chilled the dough overnight). Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 per sheet (I used a my regular sized cookie scoop to get smaller cookies). Bake for 13 minutes (mine baked for about 9 minutes) or until golden brown and puffy, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool and store in an airtight-container.
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These are absolutely GORGEOUS! I’ve never seen a treat so perfect! So impressed!!
Beautiful job! I love the addition of chocolate and peppermint on the bottom for additional texture!
Oh my goodness those are so pretty!
OMG these are adorable!! Great job.
wow, these are so pretty and look delish!
how great are these! you can’t buy something that looks so nice.
Thanks everyone. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out. Everyone loved them.
Wow, I’m impressed. Those look great. What did you do with over 100 meringues?? 🙂
Hallie – I took half to a holiday potluck and the other have came to my in-laws with us for Christmas. They’re going on the cookie tray. The good thing is they keep well and go fast! And Hubby loves them so I have a hard time keeping his hand out of the bag of these guys.
These are beautiful!
Hi, these look great and I want to try them as gifts this year. Thanks! One question, how do you “paint” the red coloring into the bag?
Ali,
Using a small paint brush, I dipped it into the food coloring and painted stripes on the inside of the pastry bag prior to filling it with the meringue.
These as well as your Raspberry Meringue Cookies look wonderful. I wish I had come upon these before the holidays as they would have made a great addition to my cookie plate!
i realize these were posted 2 years ago… but i just found them and they look wonderful! so pretty!