chocolate chunk ghraybeh

If you happen to have gone online or turned on a TV in the last few months, you probably already know about “The Cookies,” Alison Roman‘s delicious shortbread taking the world by storm. Homemade chocolate chip cookies with crispy edges and gooey centers will always be a favorite of mine, but there’s also something so wonderfully nostalgic about making these crunchy shortbread-style cookies at home.

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The thing is, chocolate chunk shortbread remind me a little of the kind of chocolate chip cookies you eat from a sleeve, the ones that are programmed by food scientists to taste so delicious you can’t eat just one, the ones my mom used to pack for us in our school lunch boxes along with a PB&J sandwich. My mom is a fabulous cook who has always kind of hated baking, and so when it comes to childhood nostalgia, Chips Ahoy and Famous Amos tug at my heart strings a little harder than Nestlé Tollhouse. And that’s why, for me (and I’m guessing for many people who love them!), Roman’s cookies are magic.

But this post isn’t exactly about the cookies—it’s just about these cookies, my chocolate chunk ghraybeh, inspired by Alison Roman’s recipe. Ghraybeh is a Middle Eastern type of shortbread, made with clarified butter (AKA samneh in Arabic or ghee) instead of sweet cream butter. And since butter makes up so much of shortbread’s structure, this makes all the difference. With clarified butter, all of the water has been boiled off, and the milk solids have been separated out, leaving only butter fat, pure and simple. This means that, as long as you don’t introduce a bunch more water in your cookie dough, shortbread that’s made with clarified butter have a melt-in-your-mouth factor that’s off the charts.

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Developing a recipe for ghraybeh that truly tastes like chocolate chip cookies presented a few puzzles, because I didn’t want to just make a batch of ghraybeh that happened to have chocolate chunks in them.

The most important puzzle is that ghraybeh absolutely must be made with powdered sugar, because there is no water present to dissolve grains of sugar as they bake. That means that you can’t use brown sugar, which is a real problem when you want something to taste like chocolate chip cookies. I might even argue that the brown sugar is a more essential ingredient to their iconic flavor than the chocolate chips. I mean, they’re obviously both important, but seriously, if you had to choose between a sugar cookie with chocolate chips in it, or a chipless chocolate chip cookie, which would you rather eat?? If you don’t say the latter, you should really spend some time reflecting on your life and your priorities.

So I solved the powdered sugar problem by adding a little bit of molasses to the dough, which adds the flavor of brown sugar, without any of the graininess. It’s important, however, not to add too much molasses, which could change the texture of the cookies and make them less melty by introducing moisture to the flour. But I found that exactly 1 1/2 teaspoons adds just the right amount of flavor, without sacrificing texture. And since vanilla extract is about 33% alcohol, a measly 1/2 teaspoon also won’t make much of a difference. So we’re good on moisture content, or lack thereof.

Salted butter, a key component of Roman’s cookies, is the second puzzle I encountered while adapting my recipe to hers. When clarifying butter, the salts rise and sink with the milk solids. So I opted for adding salt to the dough instead, which has the same overall effect, and ensures consistent batches.

Finally, I ran into a slight problem slicing through before baking. Ghraybeh are incredibly delicate cookies, and so introducing chocolate chunks into the dough is like… throwing a bunch of chocolate chunk shaped wrenches in the works. But I have found an easy solution, which doesn’t mess with the ghraybeh’s integrity. First, chop your chocolate into small bits, not big chunks. Second, don’t chill the dough too little or too much before slicing. Too much and the chocolate gets chalky and difficult to chop through, but too little and the dough is too soft and crumbly. I found that exactly 45 minutes in the refrigerator does the trick. Third, even if you didn’t listen to my advice, and left your chocolate in big chunks, and refrigerated the heck out of it, all you need to do is just decisively! whack! through! the dough!

I prefer these cookies with decent-sized chocolate chunks (as you can see from the photos), and so I use this technique whenever I make them. Simply place the knife right above the log, and really whack down as fast as you can with your sharpest, heaviest knife (keep your non dominant hand behind your back for this). If you saw back and forth in a careful little mincing motion, your cookie dough will crumble apart. Instead, whack at them like you’re Julia Child having a bad day, and they’ll be just fine.

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