A gob of a chocolate cookie for Valentine's Day
Thanks to Maida Heatter for the Whopper recipe, and for teaching me how to bake
Bonjour! Bonjour!
I’m looking forward to Valentine’s Day, but not for any of the usual reasons. What’s got me excited is the prospect of pizza night chez us. I’ve mentioned it before, but Michael loves making pizza and he makes really good pizza. Here’s a post from when we were in Paris for National (that nation would be America) Pizza Day and it includes the recipe from Modernist Cuisine that he uses for the dough. He’s going to have an audience of fans — friends who requested pizza night — and while I’m dreaming up toppings for the pies, I’m also thinking about dessert. No one really needs a dessert after pizza, but hey — it’s not just pizza night, it’s Valentine’s Day, and so we must have a dessert and it must be chocolate.
I’ve decided on Maida Heatter’s Whoppers (scroll down for the recipe). Whoppers are as over-the-top as the name suggests. They’re chockablock with chocolate and nuts and for me, they’re packed with memories. My ties to Whoppers go back decades.
A Gob by Any Other Name Would Still Be As Chocolate-y
I could barely sleep the night before I began my short-lived job as an assistant baker at the Soho Charcuterie, a stylish Manhattan restaurant that opened in the mid-70s, closed in the mid-80s and was groundbreaking at the time for its look (all white); its food (then recently coined New American); and its owners (two women, a rarity then). Part of my restlessness was excitement — I couldn’t believe I’d gotten this job. Most of it was knowing that I was completely unqualified for it. The person who interviewed me knew that, too — a split-second into our call, I confessed to having no experience or training. But I’d been baking at home for a while, loved it and promised that I’d make up in passion what I lacked in skill. They must have been desperate for an extra pair of hands because I was told to show up the next day. Nervous about being late, I arrived a half-hour early, bought a coffee, sat on a nearby bench and counted down the minutes.
That first morning was rough. I had no idea how a kitchen worked. I didn’t know the language, the rhythm, the choreography. I was slow and tentative, a rookie trying to be invisible when I needed to be bold, but I got lucky: My first assignment turned out to be Chocolate Gobs! While I’d never had a Gob from the restaurant, I was up to the task of making them because I’d baked hundreds of nearly identical cookies at home. One look at the recipe, at the mix of chocolates, the coffee and the double dose of nuts, and I knew immediately that Gobs were just a teensy tweak away from a cookie created by the cookbook author Maida Heatter, the person whose books I credit with teaching me how to bake.
Back then, I’d have said that Gobs were among the best cookies ever; decades later, I wouldn’t oust them from their perch in the pantheon. They were deeply, darkly, fully and profoundly chocolate. They were made with bitter unsweetened and semi-sweet chocolates and chocolate morsels, too. They had very little flour and not all that much butter. They had some instant espresso, vanilla extract and salt, not enough to disrupt the flavor of the chocolate, but just enough to heighten it. (Although, I confess, I increased the amount some.) And they had pecans and walnuts folded through them — the nuts were textural ticklers and, because they took a while to chew, they kept the flavor going. The longer you munched on the nuts, the longer the taste of the chocolate that surrounded them lingered.
Gobs were big, bumpy and reliably unpredictable. You couldn’t control their shape and you wouldn’t want to — their crests and crannies were a part of their irresistibility and a boon to an uncertain baker. Their tops had a matte-satin crackle and their interiors were soft, moist and a little chewy. Nothing about the cookies was dainty, but they were so smartly conceived that they pulled off the trick of being simultaneously elegant and hefty.
A Cookie for the Queen of Baking
I didn’t know Maida Heatter, but I considered her my mentor. Other bakers did, too: Martha Stewart said, “Everything I know about baking, I learned from Maida Heatter.”
In those days, I had two of her books (Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts and Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts) and they were both ragged around the edges and full of my handwritten notes and comments like “Wow!” and “Super!” The covers of the books showed the baking goddess surrounded by cookies and tall cakes, mousses, muffins and puddings. They were the only photographs in the books and I didn’t need more: Maida Heatter’s recipes were so good that I could imagine what they’d look like from her words. I trusted her words — she wrote with precision. And her voice, which I could hear in my head as I worked, was confident and encouraging. I set out on a recipe knowing that Maida Heatter wanted me to succeed and that she’d be there with me making certain that I did.
I’d always hoped that I’d meet her so that I could thank her for the joy she’d brought me and for her lessons, too. I came close — I was in the audience in 1998 when she was honored by the James Beard Foundation, but all I could glimpse from my far-away seat was the top of her brilliantly white head. Heatter died at the age of 102 in 2019, the year a compilation of some of her most beloved recipes was published in a book called, Happiness is Baking. I got to write the foreword to that book and with it my chance to say how grateful I was to her.
Happiness is Baking includes her recipe for Chocolate Whoppers with a story I must have read decades ago but had forgotten. She wrote that the Soho Charcuterie was one of her favorite restaurants in New York and that once, after a meal there, she was served “a dish of huge, gorgeous dark chocolate cookies.” Heatter says that just as she was about to ask for the recipe, she was told, “These are yours.” Indeed, as she learned, they were, with a few “little changes,” made from her recipe, the one I’d made at home all those years ago. She incorporated the “little changes” from the Gobs into her Chocolate Whoppers, bringing the treasured cookie full circle and making me wonder if, even though I was at the restaurant only a short time, I might have been there when she was. Is it possible that I might have baked a cookie for Maida Heatter? I’d love to think I had.
Here’s the recipe to bake for any one you love.
Happy Valentine’s Day and happy every day —
CHOCOLATE WHOPPERS
Recipe by Maida Heatter
Adapted from Happiness is Baking and from earlier editions of her books that included this cookie
GOOD TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START
About the yield: Before these cookies were Whoppers — named because of their size: each has almost 1/3 cup of dough — they were dainty two-bite sweets and the recipe, pretty much always the same, yielded three times as many cookies. I’ve given you directions for both. And I’ve chimed in in ITALICS.
About the chocolates: It’s interesting to me that we don’t see as many recipes with unsweetened chocolate as we did decades ago, when Maida Heatter was creating desserts. I usually have some unsweetened chocolate in the house, but not always and so I use all dark chocolate — usually bittersweet, darker than what Maida Heatter recommends, but what I like.
About the flour: In some earlier recipes, Maida Heatter specified “1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour”; later she omitted the sifting.
About the nuts: Earlier recipes called for 8 ounces (2 1/4 cups) walnuts or pecans, broken into medium pieces. Later, the Whoppers had a generous cup (113 grams) each of walnuts and pecans. Oddly, the walnuts were to be toasted but not the pecans. This seemed like a typo to me and so I piled both nuts on a baking sheet and toasted them together.
Makes 12 to 36 cookies (see above)
INGREDIENTS
6 ounces (170 grams) semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (see above)
2 ounces (57 grams) unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped (see above)
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
1/4 cup (32 grams) all-purpose flour (see above)
1/2 teaspoon (fine) salt (I use sea salt)
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup (150 grams) sugar
2 teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips (or chocolate chopped into 1/2-inch chunks)
Generous 1 cup (113 grams) toasted walnuts, chopped or broken into pieces (see above)
Generous 1 cup (113 grams) toasted pecans, chopped or broken into large pieces (see above)
DIRECTIONS
If you’re going to make the large cookies, you’ll want to use two baking sheets, so adjust the racks to divide the oven into thirds. If you’re making the smaller cookies, adjust the rack one-third down from the top of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheet(s) with parchment paper. (DG: Maida Heatter used foil for her cookies.)
In the top of a small double boiler over hot water on moderate heat, melt the semisweet and unsweetened chocolates and butter. (DG: You can use a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water or you can do this in a microwave oven.) Cook, stirring occasionally, until melted and smooth. Remove the bowl and set aside to cool slightly. (DG: Originally, the recipe called for cooling the mixture completely.)
Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt, and set aside. (DG: Earlier recipes called for sifting — Heatter, like so many of us, seems to have switched to whisking.)
Working with a mixer (use a paddle attachment, if you have one), beat the eggs, sugar, espresso or coffee powder and vanilla at high speed for a minute or two. (DG: If I remember correctly, Heatter’s beater of choice was an old Sunbeam. Her directions here read: In a small bowl of an electric mixer …) On low speed, add the melted chocolate and butter (which may still be quite warm) and finally the dry ingredients, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula as necessary to keep mixture smooth and beating only until blended.
Stir in the chocolate morsels and nuts.
If you want to make small cookies: Drop dough by heaping teaspoonfuls 1 inch apart (these barely spread at all) onto the sheet.
If you’re making Whoppers: Use a 1/3-cup measuring cup to portion out a scant 1/3 cup of dough for each cookie; put 6 mounds on each sheet. Do not flatten the tops.
To bake the small cookies: Bake for 10 to 12 minutes (DG: absolutely no longer than 12 minutes and closer to 10), reversing the position of the cookie sheet if necessary during baking to insure even browning. Tops will be dry and crisp. Centers should remain soft and chewy. Do not overbake. With a wide metal spatula remove cookies to cool on a rack.
To bake Whoppers: Bake for 16 minutes, reversing the sheets top to bottom and front to back once during baking to ensure even baking. The surface of the cookies will be dry, but the insides will still be soft. There is really no way to test these; just use an oven thermometer before baking to be sure your oven is right, and then watch the clock. Transfer the sheets to racks, cool for 5 minutes, then carefully lift the cookies onto the racks to cool until warm or at room temperature.
You might want to let these stand, or chill them a bit, until the chocolate morsels reharden before serving. Or you might like them best while the chocolate morsels are still soft (DG: yes!).
STORING: Wrapped individually, the cookies will keep for 2 to 3 days.
📚 You can find more recipes in my latest book Baking with Dorie.
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I loved reading this. You are my Maida Heatter. I’d always been afraid to bake and Baking from my home to yours changed all of that. Happy Valentine’s Day! 💕
I love her books, never made these, must remedy that soon. I’m in Scotland, and not 100% sure where I bought my first book of hers, but I’m pretty sure it was the chocolate one. She was and still is such a friend in the kitchen through her writing. 💖. Dorie, your writing reminds me of her. I hope you did make her a cookie, that would be just perfect.