- These cookies are a problem.
Do they put these cookies in hotels?
They wouldn't be able to kick them out,
be like, girl,
(knocking)
it's check out time.
Hey Tasty fam, my name is Kiano,
I'm the founder and editor of Jikoni.
And today I'll try to upgrade the famous
DoubleTree Hotel chocolate chip cookie.
For those who haven't heard,
the Hilton has recently released their cookie recipe.
Now there's some mixed reviews about it.
Some really, really good,
and others, not so much.
It's all okay.
There's always room for improvement.
And that's what we're focusing on today.
Self improvement.
But like, for a cookie.
(upbeat music)
So I have the recipe written down.
I'm gonna make it exactly as it's written down,
give it a try,
and then see where there's room for improvement.
So first things first,
my butter is at room temperature,
so it can whip nice and fluffy.
White sugar, light brown sugar, almost equal parts.
There's a tablespoon more of white sugar.
a lot of cookies start off this way.
Cream together yo' butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
(mixing) If you don't have a stand mixer,
you can always use an electric hand mixer.
And if you don't have one of those,
you got the mixers you were born with.
All right, this looks right to me.
I have two large eggs room temperature.
It's kind of rule of thumb when you're baking,
your ingredients that could be in the fridge
are at room temperature.
Some vanilla extract,
and it also asks for lemon, to activate our leavener.
It's not really gonna flavor the cookie to taste like lemon.
(dripping)
Like, four drops.
You're gonna beat it some more.
First on low for 30 seconds,
go for another two minutes.
(blending)
Like what am I doing with this lemon?
I don't like wasting things, so mm.
All right, this is looking mighty fluffy.
And now onto the dry ingredients.
Two and a quarter cups, all purpose flour,
and then a little bit of oats, like a smidge.
Half a cup of that's goin' in there.
Some baking soda.
Now this is why they wanted the lemon,
but it's a cookie.
It's not cake.
But you know, in it goes.
Some salt, a teaspoon of that.
And the last ingredient, cinnamon.
So I'm gonna mix this on low speed for 45 seconds,
being careful not to over mix,
which I could feel like 45 seconds is a lot.
It's been like 20 seconds and it's already incorporated.
So I wanna stop mixing.
Can I stop mixing dear God, I cannot.
I cannot let this go for 45 seconds.
These cookies will be Frisbees.
So this recipe calls for a very particular brand
of chocolate chip so that's what we are going to use.
Two and two thirds cup of chocolate.
There's only so great the cookie can taste
if your chocolate is meh.
One and three quarter cup of walnuts,
this is more walnuts than I've ever seen
going into any single baked good.
Just with a spatula I'm gonna fold this together.
I've never made a chocolate a chip cookie dough
this pale before.
Baking sheets lined with some parchment paper.
Normally I chill my cookie dough before baking it,
but this doesn't ask for that.
Scoop, then drop.
So it's about three tablespoons of cookie dough per cookie.
This dough,
the recipe says you can freeze it if you want to.
And these guys, these are going into the oven
300 degrees between 20 and 23 minutes.
So it's kind of a lower temperature,
bake 'em until they are golden on the edges,
and nice and tender in the middle.
(mischievous music)
Cookies are out the oven and they are,
they're the same color as my parchment paper.
They're not lookers.
I wouldn't swipe right.
It's a lot of walnuts lookin' back at me.
(upbeat music)
These are worse than I thought they were gonna be.
(laughing)
I really thought they're gonna be like fine.
(drops cookie)
These cookies fell flat in many ways.
But I have some ideas of how we can build
on the foundation of this recipe,
and make them the best version
of themselves that they can be.
It is a cookie make-over y'all.
Time to make the cookie upgrade.
First thing is the butter.
I am going to brown the butter.
It's gonna help bring out this nuttiness
that the other cookie wasn't having.
Pop this on some heat, medium, medium low.
The goal is not to burn the butter,
I wanna nice light caramel.
It's like the butter is seasoning itself when it browns.
Keep a very close eye on it,
'cause once it hits that line from brown to burnt,
you can't come back.
In the meantime,
I have a baking sheet lined with parchment.
Toast the walnuts.
In the original recipe they weren't giving me flavor.
Just like my butter I'm gonna brown them.
I'm using significantly less walnuts
'cause I don't want them to overpower the main star.
No oil, no anything, they go in dry,
there's a natural oil in the nuts.
350 degrees, five to seven minutes.
Also keeping a close eye,
watch after your butter, your nuts,
like they are your children.
Butter is beautiful, golden brown,
like you will smell it.
Check these walnuts, these are awake.
That's all you're doing in the oven,
you're just wakin' 'em up.
I have my butter, beautiful and brown.
It's gonna carefully pour.
Now you wanna be careful not to get all those
burnt milk solids in there.
Brown and white sugar, but I am switching the quantities.
Brown sugar makes cookies soft.
So I'm doing two to one ratio of brown sugar to white sugar.
So I have one cup of brown sugar,
and a half a cup of white sugar.
All you need is a whisk.
The butter is already melted,
so this should come together really easy.
Every stir it's just like fragrance, fragrance, fragrance.
Oh, if you see any brown sugar lumps,
just break them up with the head of your whisk.
You want your food to talk back to you,
this is telling me it's gonna be delicious.
It's using it sexy phone voice like,
hey girl, how you doin'?
I'd like to introduce myself,
my name is brown, brown butta.
Brown butter is magic y'all.
I'm adding in eggs,
same as last time,
two large eggs, room temperature.
Look at this beautiful, beautiful brown.
And you know this stuff is done
once your batter slowly flows into each other.
I really want to accentuate the flavors we're working with.
There's just one teaspoon of almond,
and this will really help bring out a true nutty flavor,
same amount of all purpose flour as before,
the same amount of oats, and baking soda.
Give it a good gentle fold using a spatula.
For the salt I'm going to be using some sea salt.
Sea salt is a beautiful compliment to chocolate.
It's okay if there's little speckles of white flour.
Chocolate chip cookies, key word chocolate.
The best chocolate you can find
is the chocolate you want to use.
I am using this bar,
halfway between semi-sweet and dark chocolate.
And cut this chocolate into chunks.
Little bits, not where it's like a complexity of chocolate.
You'll have a chocolate shard,
a chocolate sliver, slide 'em on in.
I'm gonna put in these walnuts,
and woo,
(pouring)
fold 'em in until it's nice and evenly distributed.
So I'm gonna cover and chill this dough
for two hours or overnight.
It's chilled, it is firm,
I am so excited to finally bake these.
So each cookie dough ball is around two ounces each.
Working quickly, you're just gonna compress
it together in that curvy part of your hand.
Just shape it into a quick little ball,
you don't wanna play with this too long,
'cause your chocolate will melt.
I can smell all the beautiful flavors in there.
So just a tiny sprinkle of sea salt on top of these cookies
is gonna help bring out that chocolate flavor.
I'm going to bake them 350,
so hotter than last time, for 12 to 15 minutes.
(upbeat music)
Wow,
look at them.
First noticeable difference is shape and size,
complex in texture, there's so many things going on.
It is just like a happy party.
I do have to wait for them to cool,
but not an hour,
maybe just 15 minutes so they can relax.
(upbeat music)
This is the best part about a warm cookie,
is just breaking it.
Oh, man.
Mmm.
These are wicked.
These cookies are a problem.
Do they put these cookies in hotels?
They wouldn't be able to kick them out,
be like girl,
(knocking)
it's checkout time.
What I love about this upgrade is that there's so many
things you can do to this recipe to make it better
with the exact same ingredients.
Upgrading doesn't always have to mean spending more money.
I hope you give my upgraded DoubleTree
chocolate chip cookies a try.
And if you do, show me the goods,
I wanna see the cookies you're making.
And until next time, I bid you ado.
(upbeat music)