Last year, pan-slammed chocolate chip cookies were declared Best. Cookies. Ever. by social media tinkerbells. The technique involves slamming a pan of half-baked or just-baked cookies against the counter so that the air bubbles from baking soda and beaten eggs that lift the dough pop, flattening the cookies. Their tops then ripple like waves on a lake when a stone hits the surface. A dramatic look for mouthwatering photos.
But do they taste good? Well, of course. Because they're chocolate chip cookies, which all taste good to some degree. When deflated, pan-slammed centers become dense like a cross between raw cookie dough and chocolate truffles. Extra buttery, sugary and chocolaty, they're designed to be devoured quickly. They're as indulgent as the act of posting pictures of them.
Those ooh-look-at-me cookies are an easy pleasure, a hard sugar high fast and fleeting. But sometimes you need a cookie with substance, something you have to chew that reveals its depth and complexity with each bite. Something that makes you feel you can handle anything.
That's what these cookies do. Chunky with crunchy walnuts, chewy with oats, fudgy with chocolate, these bake into thick, craggy disks with crisp edges and tender centers. They're not technically chocolate chip cookies because they're filled with chopped chocolate, but they deliver the same nostalgic comfort.
Chopping the chocolate by hand gives you the obvious joy of big, melty chunks, but, as important, slivers as thin as splinters that season the dough throughout. Untoasted whole walnuts have a tannic edge to their nuttiness that balances chocolate's richness while highlighting its bittersweet side. And oats_lots of them_add a nuanced natural earthy sweetness to the white-and-brown-sugar base. Each bite gives you everything at once and also something new. You might hit a mother lode of chocolate or a walnut's crackle, but always with the foundational oatmeal chew of a nicely salted, buttery cookie.
It's not that these are the best cookies ever. They're the best cookies right now. Because chocolate chip cookie trends are a reflection of our times in America. We need fortitude heading into 2020 and, so, these hearty, nutty chocolate chunk cookies.
When we were slamming pans the last few years, we needed a cookie that helped us look away from harsh realities and into screens of magical dough wrinkles. Pan-slammed cookies helped us escape reality; these chunky ones will get us through it.
