ON THIS WEEK’S episode, senior Test Kitchen editors Shilpa Uskokovic and Jesse Szewczyk are here to introduce Bake Club’s first ever vegan offering: Jesse’s Chocolate Chip Cookies with Olive Oil and Sea Salt.
If there’s one thing we know, it’s that chocolate and olive oil are a match made in heaven. (Just look at our Chocolate–Olive Oil Cake for proof!) Both have that delightful fruity-meets-bitter complexity. Plus, the added bonus of olive oil is that it keeps baked goods moist for days—including cookies! Jesse’s goal in making this cookie was to make sure it came out perfectly chewy with a crisp exterior, all without the addition of eggs or butter. And he did just that!
Jesse walks us through all the nerdy development details that make this cookie a hit, including a primer on the role of fat in a cookie, the best way to chop your chocolate, and what exactly did he mean when he said to cook the flour to a “desert sand” hue? Shilpa and Jesse also tackle listener questions and end the show by chatting with a true baking icon: the one and only Dorie Greenspan (of xoxoDorie who has just published her latest cookbook).
Listen now to the behind-the-scenes intel on these delicious vegan chocolate chip cookies that will inevitably make it into your holiday rotation this year.