Violet Bakery’s Egg-Yolk Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of the annoyances with recipes that use either egg yolks or whites instead of whole eggs is that I have to figure out a use for the leftover parts or feel guilty about throwing perfectly usable egg. Since I don’t mind eating egg white omelettes, it’s easier if it’s an yolk-heavy recipe. If a recipe deviates from a traditional whole-egg path to use an egg part, it had better deliver something worthwhile in exchange.

I have a tried-and-true chocolate chip cookie recipe (linked version uses M&Ms, but chips can be swapped in) that appears to be universally well-liked (at least by my cookie eating relatives), but I was intrigued by the egg-yolk version from Violet Bakery. I scaled the recipe down by a third since I was experimenting, but otherwise kept to the original. The dough came together easily and quickly, and was easy to scoop without first being chilled. As instructed, I froze the dough balls before putting them to use. Since my family prefers smaller cookies, I used a 2-teaspoon scoop (#60) instead of a more standard 1.5 tablespoon (#40). To compensate for this, I cooked them at 375° F instead of the prescribed 355 °F.

I also knew I needed to cook them less. The instructions state to underbake them and let them finish cooking on the hot cookie sheet, which is fairly standard as far as these cookies go. I baked the first batch for about 13 minutes, which left them with a golden crust after resting (as pictured above), but the family felt they were a bit too crispy. For subsequent batches, I went down to 11, then 10 minutes. This left the cookies pale, but with a superior texture. Despite the richness of the yolks, they surprisingly tasted drier than my traditional whole-egg cookies. An interesting variation, but ultimately the family and I preferred our standard recipe.