Molten chocolate cookies for tonight

Both pages describe big cookies, eight to a sheet, with a crisp exterior and a gooey center. Both print the same warning: “Be careful not to overcook these or you won’t get the fudgy middle.” Cover the dough and refrigerate it for at least 15 minutes, or up to overnight. If it stays in the refrigerator overnight, both say to put it on the counter for 20 minutes before baking.

The oven is 375°F. The company page also prints 190°C. Punch prints 375°F only. Bake 12 minutes, or until crusty on the outside but soft in the center. Leave the cookies on the sheet for 3 to 5 minutes to firm up, then serve immediately. Store them in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week. Reheat to bring back what the company page calls “the molten chocolate gooeyness” by microwaving them for 10 seconds. The company page marks difficulty 2/3 and a yield of 16 cookies, about 3 inches. It does not say what the 2/3 scale means.

She does not use the word underbaked, and neither page gives an internal temperature. The soft center is the doneness cue for the fudgy middle. Punch's cookbook headnote adds a sentence the company page does not: “I’ll whip up a batch and keep some dough in the freezer for those moments that require something special (or when a serious chocolate craving hits).” That reprint gives no freezer time and no bake-from-frozen minutes. We did not find that sentence on guittard.com.

David Tamarkin's Epicurious piece, published May 6, 2016, is a technique, not a dough formula. He started with leftover chocolate chip cookie dough already in the fridge. The opening story uses a toaster oven. Eight minutes later the cookie was golden and pulling away from the edges, and he let it cool for about 5 seconds. The center, in his words: “A river of melted dough.” He calls it hot, molten cookie dough streaked with chocolate, and he decided not to put it back in the oven.

After a week in the Epi Test Kitchen, the instruction he prints is a separate sentence from that toaster story: “Cookie dough baked in ramekins can achieve that molten middle (use 1/4 cup of dough per ramekin, and bake them in a small ramekin at 425 degrees for about 8 minutes), or they can be baked through (just add a few more minutes to the bake time).” He names one path “the under-baked iteration” and the other “the completely baked iteration.” The 425-degree line does not say toaster oven or full-size oven. He does not say how many minutes “a few” is, which dough to use, how long to chill it, or how to store a baked cookie. He gives no internal temperature.

For a dinner party he says to wait until you're clearing the plates, then slip the ramekins into the oven, on a rimmed baking sheet if that is easier. “Minutes later, when the cookies are (under)done,” he writes, serve them immediately. He likes them left in the ramekin. The baked-through cookie, he says, can be nudged out.

Pastry at Home's editors, on October 25, 2022, reprint Rose Levy Beranbaum's recipe from The Cookie Bible (Harvest, 2022). They call the filling a creamy truffle that melts on the tongue, and they say the cookies take more labor than most. The page prints Rose's note that chocolatier Zach Townsend crafted the cookies. We did not find a separate Townsend recipe. Rose's own line on the lava-cake idea is the distinction:

“Several years ago, I created a chocolate lava cake for my book Rose’s Heavenly Cakes with a ganache truffle for the center to ensure that it would have a flow even if overbaked.” The cookies, she writes, use that same concept. She calls the centers lusciously, enticingly creamy. The page says fourteen 3-inch cookies, in two batches.

The clocks are printed separately. We are not adding them into a total she did not print. The ganache is refrigerated until firm, 30 minutes or longer, and the header says the centers can be made several weeks ahead and frozen. At least 1 hour before making the cookies, take the ganache out, shape the balls, and freeze them until completely frozen, 30 minutes to 1 hour. The dough log is refrigerated until firm, a minimum of 1 hour, up to 24 hours. Set the oven rack and turn the oven on 30 minutes or longer before baking. Unbaked shaped cookies can be wrapped and frozen for up to 1 month. She calls for pastry rings, and the page says disposable ones can be made from foil. We are not copying that method.

Bake at 350°F / 175°C for 14 to 15 minutes per batch, until the edges are firm when pressed gently with a fingertip but the centers still feel soft. The centers dip slightly out of the oven. Cool on the sheet 10 minutes, then at least 5 minutes more before eating. “A warm cookie will be more liquid in the center, but for the best flavor, allow them to cool completely.” Airtight, they keep up to 5 days at room temperature, up to a week refrigerated, or 2 months frozen. She also says they keep moist and chewy if stored airtight. No internal temperature is on the page.

The copyright line on the page reads 2022, Rose Levy Beranbaum, reprinted by arrangement with Harvest. We read this reprint, not the book.