Nicole Modic's Baking Trick For Pillow-Like Chocolate Chip Cookies - Exclusive
Rest assured, you are not the only member of the cookie fan club. Its zealots include politicians and journalists (from Maria Shriver to Rudy Giuliani); comedians and actresses (from Jerry Seinfeld to Carmen Electra); celebrated culinary voices (from Bobby Flay to Martha Stewart); and even the Oracle in "The Matrix." But the club of bakers who have mastered the art of the soft, pillowy cookie is far less populated.
Nicole Modic is a card-carrying member. The food blogger and social media sensation goes by the name "kalejunkie," but if you follow her, you'll have picked up more than just salad tips and protein smoothie hacks. That's because Modic doesn't subscribe to diets. Follow her bible — that's her new cookbook, "Love to Eat," — and she'll teach you to eat intuitively.
"The way that I eat is intuitively in touch with my cravings," Modic told Mashed in an exclusive interview. "All of the recipes in my book are geared towards helping people get in touch with their intuition, [to] eat mindfully." Eating mindfully, she explained, means that all food is self-care — even, and perhaps especially, cookies. In fact, Modic's "Life Changing Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies" is one of her favorite recipes in her new book, right up there with one-pot Penne Arrabbiata and Middle Eastern lentil soup. What makes these cookies so life-changing? Once you learn how to make them, you'll never make cookies the same way again — because they're perfectly soft and pillowy.
It's all about when you add your egg
By decree of Martha Stewart, you must refrigerate your cookie dough before baking. Doing so makes for cookies that spread less on the sheet, and it adds depth of flavor to your sweet treats. Nicole Modic takes refrigerating her dough seriously, too. She, however, doesn't finish making her cookie dough before chilling it.
"In [my Life Changing Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies] recipe, the trick is that you chill the dough, and then after you chill the dough, it comes out of the refrigerator," Modic explained to Mashed. "That's when you add your egg, or flax egg, and the baking soda."
According to Modic, this makes for chocolate chip cookie bliss. "That is the secret to that particular recipe, which makes them come out very fluffy and very pillow-like — and also at the same time chewy and so delicious," Modic said. "That's a tip that isn't in any other recipes that I've seen, but I created along the way as I was developing that particular recipe."
Nicole Modic recently partnered with Del Monte. For more snack inspiration, check out Del Monte's website to save Nicole's original recipes, including her Stuffed Cucumber Bites and Loaded 7-Layer Dip.