“How good does something have to be?” is a question my boyfriend often asks, usually after I have tweaked, elevated, or otherwise fucked with a classic recipe that did not “need” such modification. (It’s like he doesn’t understand what I do for a living!) I suspect these potato chipped chocolate chip cookies will elicit this question from him...until he tastes them, that is.
Potato chips in cookies seem like a gimmick at first. The salty-sweet thing feels a tad overplayed—though it is one of my favorite flavor combinations—but potato chips do more than offer an Instagramable food moment. They obviously add salt, but it’s the starchy, delicately crisp texture that makes them a true pleasure to consume in a cookie. The salt balances the sweetness, and the chip’s texture offers a subtle counterbalance to the doughy chew.
Lest you think this is yet another quirky Claire affectation, know that many women (some of them grandmothers!) have been making unadulterated potato chip cookies—with no other mix-ins—for generations. They hold their own as the star of the cookie, but you can use them in pretty much any drop cookie recipe that calls for mix-ins.
For example: If a chocolate chip cookie recipe calls for a cup of nuts (or even if it doesn’t), replace them with a cup of gently crushed potato chips. Actually, I would replace them with at least 1 1/2, if not 2 cups of crushed potato chips, as a thin and crispy potato chip lacks the bulky presence of a pecan.
To prepare the chips for cookie-fication, figure out how many cups of crushed chips you want in your dough. (For a standard chocolate chip recipe, such as the one you’d find on a bag of chocolate chips, this is 1 1/2 to 2 cups.) Multiply that amount by two, then add that amount of whole chips to a big zip-top bag and gently crush them. Measure out your 1 1/2 to 2 cups of crushed chips—depending on how salty you want your salty-sweet cookie to be—and proceed with your recipe as usual.