“Think back to the cookies of your childhood, and you’re sure to conjure images of soft favorites, eaten straight from the jar – if not warm from the oven.” – Martha Stewart
Looking for a foolproof chocolate chip cookie recipe? This is the one. Containing Bourbon, muscovado sugar, and Irish cream chocolate chips, our cookies are deeper in taste, mostly due to molasses toffee flavor complimenting the rich characters of chocolate and Bourbon.
The Right Whiskey For Your Cookies
The selection of bourbon really depends on your personal preference. For this cookie recipe, we used Redemption Bourbon, which features a sweet taste with notes of vanilla and caramel. An affordable selection, Redemption’s mash bill consists of 75% corn, 21% rye, and 4% malted barley, aged in new charred oak barrels. The high amount of corn gives the bourbon a classic sweet taste, while the rye adds a light spice flavor.
During the recipe’s development, we tried rye whiskey, but immediately noticed a huge difference in taste. Rye whiskey gave the cookies too much of an unpleasant peppery bite, while the Bourbon made them taste smooth, yet caramelly.
Does The Bourbon Evaporate During Baking?
Redemption bottles its bourbon at 84 proof, which means for our readers from Europe that it contains 42% of alcohol (ABV). The reason for bringing up the alcohol content is the myth that all of the alcohol evaporates during cooking or baking. Melting the sugar in Bourbon on a stovetop and baking cookies from fourteen to sixteen minutes on 375 ºF still leaves the alcohol retained in the cookies at levels from 70% to 80% of its original content before heat processing. Considering the temperature being set to 375 ºF, the exact percentage of alcohol content after baking depends on the baking time, the cookie’s surface area, and how “strong” the alcohol you use.
Bourbon Chocolate Chip Cookies
Equipment
- Small microwave-safe bowl
- Two medium-size bowls
- Hand mixer
- Small saucepan
- Mixing spoon
- Two baking sheets
Ingredients
- 1 stick of unsalted butter
- ¾ cup demerara sugar
- ¾ cup muscovado sugar
- ¼ cup white granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp bourbon whiskey
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tbsp bourbon vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp fine salt
- 12 oz of Irish Cream chocolate chips (one packaging)
Instructions
- Turn on the oven, set it at 375 °F. Also, heat the saucepan to medium-high temperature.
- In a small bowl, microwave the butter until it melts.
- Add demerara and muscovado sugar to the saucepan, pour two tablespoons of bourbon whiskey over it and whisk for one minute. Remove from heat and whisk until the sugar dissolves. Add the melted butter to the saucepan, mix it with caramelized sugar and let the mixture cool down to lukewarm.
- While the butter caramel is cooling, sift the flour to a medium-size bowl. Stir in the baking soda and salt.
- Transfer the sugar-butter mixture to the other medium-size bowl. While blending with a hand mixer, add bourbon vanilla extract, two eggs, and white granulated sugar.
- Continue adding the flour mixture in parts to liquid ingredients. For mixing and avoiding clumps, we recommend using the hand mixer again.
- Grab a wooden spoon and stir in the chocolate chips.
- Line two baking sheets with a parchment paper. Scoop heaped tablespoons of cookie dough onto the sheet pans. For chewy, soft cookies bake for fourteen minutes, for cookies with crunchy edges bake for sixteen minutes.
- Take the sheet pans out of the oven and let cool.
Recipe Tips:
- Apply butter to the baking sheets before lining them with parchment paper for better attachment.
- When baking the cookies for the first time, don’t be scared if they appear raw out of the oven. They reach a nice texture during the cooling down process.
