Tamales
Rick A. Martínez
87 ratings with an average rating of 4 out of 5 stars
87
5 hours 45 minutes
Piloncillo Chocolate Chip Cookies
Updated May 9, 2024
- Total Time
- 1 hour
- Prep Time
- 5 minutes
- Cook Time
- 50 minutes
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:About 17 cookies
- 6ounces/170 grams piloncillo
- ⅓cup/67 grams granulated sugar
- ½cup/113 grams unsalted butter (1 stick), melted
- ½teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) or ¼ teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- 1large egg
- 2teaspoons pure vanilla extract or vanilla paste
- 1⅔cups/211 grams all-purpose flour
- ½teaspoon baking soda
- 1heaping cup/170 grams bittersweet chocolate chips or chunks (preferably 72 percent cacao or higher)
- Flaky sea salt or kosher salt
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (17 servings)
163 calories; 6 grams fat; 4 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 26 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 14 grams sugars; 3 grams protein; 97 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
- Step 1
Grate piloncillo using the large holes of a box grater. The grated piloncillo won’t look or feel like dark brown sugar; it will more closely resemble grated hard cheese and will have crumbly, irregular shapes with some larger split pea-size pieces. (The larger pieces will taste like and have the texture of broken bits of toffee inside the baked cookie.)
- Step 2
Whisk grated piloncillo, granulated sugar, butter and kosher salt in a large bowl until evenly mixed. Vigorously whisk in egg and vanilla until mixture lightens in color and becomes almost ribbony but with undissolved pieces of piloncillo, about 1 minute. This step is very important and will give your cookie a shiny top, like a brownie, that will crisp as it bakes.
- Step 3
Add flour and baking soda and, using a wooden spoon or rubber spatula, mix until dough comes together and no floury bits remain, about 30 seconds. Stir in chocolate until evenly distributed. Dough will be soft and may be warmer than room temperature. Refrigerate for 30 minutes (or up to 5 days; see Tip) to enhance flavor and allow the dough to firm up. Meanwhile, if baking right away, with racks in the upper and lower thirds, heat oven to 350 degrees.
- Step 4
Portion out balls of dough (about 2 generous tablespoons each) and space about 2 inches apart on 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. (You can also form dough into table tennis-size balls with your hands.) Do not flatten; cookies will spread as they bake. Sprinkle each ball with flaky or kosher salt.
- Step 5
Bake cookies, 2 sheets at a time, switching the pans halfway through, until edges are brown and firm but centers are still soft, 16 to 18 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely.
Tip
- Cookie dough can be made up to 5 days ahead; store in an airtight container and chill. Or portion into balls, cover with plastic and freeze up to 3 months. Let dough come to room temperature before baking.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
AP
Diamond is actually much lighter so the recipe is correct. When I first started using Diamond by weight, it looks like crazy amount of salt but the lightness gives much better distribution especially for baking recipes.
Alice
Any place that has a significant Latino community will carry this in regular grocery stores. Goya makes a version that’s sold in my local grocery chain. It says both panela and piloncillo on it.
Cicely W.
FYI, I was met with bafflement at my local Latin grocer (in the DC area) when I asked for piloncillo. Here there are more Central Americans than Mexicans, and they call it panela. Like most things, you can also buy it online.
Lauren Kerr
I just made these, and there’s got to be something off about the proportions of flour to sugar and butter. I followed the recipe to the letter, and even after chilling the cookies spread out to millimeter-thin pools that had no substance and had to be scraped off the parchment. 237 grams of sugar, 113 grams of butter, and only 211 grams of flour? I’m a very experienced home baker and I’ve never had a disaster like this with a NYT recipe. Also, SO MUCH EFFORT to grate all that piloncillo agh.
Lauren Kerr
And… my bad. I doubled everything in the recipe except the flour… oops! Will try making it again because it seems awesome.
Jon
If people are having trouble grating piloncillo, you can microwave it for 30 seconds and you will be able to grate or chop it much more easily. Also, don’t worry about whether you are getting piloncillo in the traditional cone shape or panela, which is typically sold as a flatter disc, only the shape is different.
Steve
Grating solid piloncillo is a lot of work potentially hazardous to your knuckles. Buy the granulated form instead.
laura
Even after using 1/2 teaspoon of Diamond Crystal and sprinkling with flaky sea salt, I still felt this needed more salt to balance the bittersweet chocolate. I used 60% (less than what was recommended) and could barely taste the cookie itself.
Lisa
This is absolutely delicious! I shared small boxes of them with my Father friends on Father’s Day and they loved them. I grated the sugar in a food processor which worked great and I ordered the special sugar online.
laura s
I often find chocolate chip cookies too sweet, so I omitted the white sugar. i gently tapped my dough balls down because I know the sugar affects the spread. They were fine, though I couldn't discern the piloncillo flavour. Not sure why the piloncillo needs the onerous grating process since it gets melted in the butter. I may soften it up in microwave next time, as a reader suggests, and then melt it with the butter.
Leigh
The various brands of panela must vary in either moisture content or density.. I bought Goya brand, and when I grated it on the large hole side of my box grater, I ended up with a pile that resembled coarse wet sand without any larger, hard bits. None the less, the cookies were delicious. Thanks for the weight measurements - it made mixing the dough much easier.
dena
Use a serrated bread knife and cut the piloncillo on a cutting board. Much easier and still leaves chunks.
Michael Ulysses
Great recipe! I found using a serrated knife to shave the piloncillo resulted in bigger shavings and more chunks. Once you get into the cone a bit it’s pretty soft. If you’re using an Anova precision oven go with 325 for 14-15 minutes on the convection/rear element setting.
Kelley M
Piloncillo melded a bit too much with the rest of the wet ingredients, so no noticeable chunks - but no matter. These have been declared the new favorites by the toffee loving husband, so it's a winner.
ingridemma
Smashed the piloncillo with a mallet (oddly therapeutic) Refrigerated the dough for a day and a half Measured the dough into 16 50-gram portions Very slightly smushed to accommodate the salt Baked at 325 convection for 16 minutes, rotating pans halfway through Rested on pan for 10 minutes Oh my GOODNESS! BEST CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE EVER!
Sandita
Fabulous cookies with amazing texture.
kop
Made these today, was a bit disappointed. Grated piloncillo was too soft, fluffy and homogeneous and disappeared into the dough during baking, making the cookie very sweet. If I were to make it again, I would grate half the piloncillo and chop half to get the larger bits.The cookies also spread out a lot and did not form a shiny top at all. Overall, it’s a lot of work without the expected pay-off.
Ann O'Rourke
I made these cookies today and they are terrific! I used one 4.0 oz bar of Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate (60% cacao) and 1/2 oz. (1/3 bar) of Lindt Dark Chocolate (78% cocoa). The flavor is wonderful and the cookies are so light and crispy! I just added this recipe to my list of favorite recipes for 2024!
DrLynn50
First time I baked these I grated the Panela and the second time I used a mallet to get larger chunks. first time I used scharffen berger semi- sweet chunks and the second time I cut Fortunato 36% milk chocolate into chunks. Both times I did press down on the cookies before baking so as to distribute the Maldon sea salt flakes better across the top. Bake times: 17 minutes in my oven.waiting in feedback from my daughter, grandson, son-in-law as to the 2nd bake as my daughter likes milk chocolate.
JBB
I ordered the Panela from amazon as I didn't know where to look for it in the east Midlands in the UK. It arrived in a plastic tub so by the time I had scraped out the 170g with a knife it already looked pretty grated up to me and the cookies turned out delicious.
Tracy
I used the coarse grater disk in my food processor to save my fingers and make grating the piloncillo fast and easy. Delicious cookies.
dhwsmith
Box grater gave no lumps, only fluffy sugar. Same for coarsest grater of the KitchenAid. Did get some few lumps when I used the grating disc for the food processor. Maybe the sugar is different from different manufacturers. I browned the butter.
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