allow me to confess something
it’s not embarrassing
at least not anymore:
when i was a kid,
still living with my gparents,
i had to wear the same outfit
two days in a row
before putting the clothes in the hamper
this was a horror to me
not from a fashion sense
not really anyway
but
it was embarrassing
to be asked by my classmates why
i was wearing the same thing
as the day before
it was humiliating the reason
was because we had to lug
laundry to the laundromat
five blocks from home
to wash our clothes
and to make it worthwhile,
to ensure that my clothes were
sufficiently dirty,
gma mandated that i wear the same
outfit
in retrospect
it was humbling
it didn’t physically hurt me any,
to be seen in the same
shirt and pants combo
over & over again
these days i don’t wash
my jeans after just one wearing
and lord knows,
i wore the same outfit for a week straight
in college during exams
and honestly,
there have been times
i’ve worn a cute outfit running errands
on a saturday
and will wear it all over again
to work
the following monday
repeats are fine
in fact
i’ve made a version of these cookies
multiple times
off & on
for years
i’ve made them vegan
i’ve made them exactly as the recipe states
and now i’ve made them asian
Soy Sauced Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Jacques Torres in the NY Times
note: this is what i served in lieu of fortune cookies at our chinese new year dinner party. it was fun having our friends figure out the secret ingredient. the soy sauce is subtle, dw can discern it, i wanted more impact. i might have to make these with an extra tsp or so of soy sauce. but for now, we’ve attempted it twice and we have plenty of cookies already formed in our freezer…
makes about 4 doz pingpong sized cookie balls, which obvi flatten out during baking
8 1/2 oz cake flour
8 1/2 oz AP flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 sticks vegan butter, i use earth balance, at room temp
10 ounces light brown sugar
8 ounces sugar
2 large eggs
4 tsp soy sauce, i use Bluegrass Soy Sauce
1 1/4 pounds chocolate chips or chunks
sesame seeds
in a bowl, sift all dry ingredients
in mixing bowl cream the vegan butter with sugars until fluffy. add eggs, one at a time until incorporated. add in the soy sauce. reduce speed, and in 3 batches, add in the dry ingredients, mix until just incorporated. gently, add in the chocolate chips or chunks. cover with plastic and refrigerate 24-26 hours. can be kept in fridge for up to 72 hours, if not used after that period, freeze them.
when ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F.
line a baking sheet with parchment paper. on plate, pour out some sesame seeds.
using an ice cream scoop, scoop out dough. i typically bake in batches of 6. roll dough around sesame seeds. bake for 18 minutes. allow to cool on sheet a few minutes, then cool completely on rack.
typically, we form the cookies and line them up side by side on parchment’d baking sheets, freeze them and then put them in freezer bags for quick desserts or snacks. if baking straight from freezer, add about a minute or two to the bake time.
BAM!
morestomach 
Funny the things that make such an impact on us when we’re younger. I will totally wear a cute outfit twice on the weekends (no use wasting it!) but I can imagine the horror as a kid. Those cookies though simply look divine. I’ve never tried a cookie with soy sauce in it but I bet they taste delicious!
Hello Jessamine & welcome!
i know the story sounded all dramatical, and repeating an outfit is so not a big deal, but at the time, it was all i fixated on!
i tried a soy sauce cracker once, from Trader Joe’s, and it was life changing. and since i think soy sauce is life SAVING, i figured it’d go well in cookies.
This sounds so interesting. I would never have thought to add soy sauce to cookies
Hello Andrea, and welcome!
me neither girl, and it’s amazing.
Ooooooh! I love the idea of adding soy sauce to baked goods! Salty, sweet, yum.
I remember thinking that wearing the same outfit two days in a roy was The End of the World. Now? There are days when I’m reluctant to take off my pyjamas before running errands as its just SO MUCH EFFORT.
RIGHT!? you get me, as i have rolled into the grocery store before, wearing pj bottoms like it was the hottest trend ever.
They sound great!
thank you!
Soy sauce and chocolate chip cookies sound like they would taste very well together. Very clever! Will have to try soon, love baked goods with sesame seeds.
thanks Cheri, please do let me know how they turn out for you
Ahhh! SO cool you posted these! I’m going to make them, I don’t usually jones for cookies, but I have been lately. I think because the weather is so icky I dont want to go to the store for my snack attack, just stay home, indoors. Love the sesame seeds too, they sound great and look so pretty!
I totally outfit-repeat….. once when my fashion-designer sister in New York told me that she will try to wash her super-dark jeans only a couple times in their lifetime to preserve the color, I took a note from her book and wash my own dark jeans only when absolutely necessary. I don’t feel at all embarrassed about it. Only about those times I dont realize I spilled food/toothpaste on a shirt and then wear it without a wash first…. 😦
warning: having these gems already prepared in the freezer and ready to bake at a moment’s notice is fabulous but could be detrimental to the size of one’s ass. i could give them away to friends and colleagues but that requires something called generosity, which i don’t have when it comes to SOY SAUCED CHOC CHIP COOKIES.
you know, i try not to wash my best jeans as well, but i do worry about them keeping their shape and so i dry clean them. though i do tend to steer clear of the super dark jeans for fear of fading…
MUST MUST try this.Anything with sesame seeds becomes an instant favorite with me.
When I first moved in with My Love I noticed he was diligently ironing his freshly washed work clothes every evening. This activity did not make hm happy. So I suggested that since men don’t particularly notice each others clothes anyway, and cuz he only sits in them for a few hours at a time, rarely even sweating on his upper lip, he should hang up his once worn clothes as soon as he gets home in order to preserve their freshness and save him from ironing them so soon again.
It worked like a charm. He now has his closet divided into the “once worn” section, and the not yet worn section. With his extra free time he is studying German.
anke, GENIUS idea. i love love the way his closest is organized.
Such an interesting recipe! I would make these again and again as well 🙂
thank you!
Oooh, anything to make sweet things a little obviously salty is a treat for me!
I fear that it betrays my work-at-home lifestyle that my response to the clothing situation is that I now have more of an “inside outfit” and “outside outfit” in rotation at most times.
having the salty with sweet thing is a revelation for me, and one that i keep trying to convince less adventurous eaters to partake in.
ah, the distinctly labeled clothes. i work in a casual work environment now, and i do have weekend casual clothes and the week day work casual clothes, sometimes they merge and other times i’m like, yeah that won’t fly in the office…
i do repeat alot of clothes, esp if they are cute and fit me well. and these cookies, such a lovely twist. if you are having a cookie problem, feel free to send it my way 🙂
ha! i really should start offloading our desserts because it is not a good idea to keep them around the house!
I might’ve just set the clothes asside and re-wore them again a few days later without washing them. It’s what I do now, because laziness wins! These cookies sound amazing. I sneak soy sauce into pretty much everything. Not sure why, just love the flavor.
hi kelly & welcome,
you sneak soy sauce in everything because it SAVES LIVES. i say it all the time. 🙂
That unexpected touch of soy sauce is just brilliant!
thanks Laura!
This is all kinds of genius — I love it!!
thank you!
Lan, you are so creative–I love it! I bet soy sauce would add such a subtle but GREAT flavor profile to chocolate chip cookies. And the photos are gorgeous. And I love your writing. Perspective is a weird but great thing, isn’t it? I can only imagine what the rude kids at school were like, but nowadays I’m with you…all about recycling the cute outfits! Not to mention…non-cute outfits too 😉
erika, you are so sweet, thank you.
in middle school a friend and i decided to bake chocolate chip cookies and accidentally put soy sauce instead of vanilla. i thought they were mindblowingly good. my family, not so much but hey, more cookies for me 🙂
amanda, what a great accident!
Whatttt?! Oh man these look so good! I can’t believe I also posted a savory/salty chocolate chip cookie recipe this week and hadn’t even stopped by to notice that you’d posted one too!
I love the sprinkle of sesame seeds on top. These sound divine.
(And I’m with you that it’s okay to wear clothes more than once until they’re reeeally dirty and reeeeally need washing—I especially do that with pants more than shirts, but I can also imagine it would have been embarrassing to have to wear the same shirt two days in a row! Your grandma didn’t at least allow you to mix up the order of the days you wore things?)
allison, you know it didn’t occur to me till i was older to switch it up on days. i was a very obedient child and when gma dictated that the clothes needed to be worn twice, that’s what i did.
Savory Cookies for the WIN!
How did I miss this when you first posted it? I love all of it. First, poor mini-Lan! Hilarious because you know I was wearing the same thing for a week in college too… and if I wear something cute and no one sees me I sure as hell will wear it again the next day. haha 😉 And YES, SOY SAUCE COOKIES. YES. YES. Just like when we first talked about this — I neeeeed to try this. They look so so good.
cynthia, i survived and now have the good habit of wearing an item of clothing a few times before washing. it’s something that i’m slowly teaching dw 🙂
Soy sauce in cookies! I can’t imagine what it’ll taste like! Must try.
mandy, please do let me know how they turn out for you if you try!
Just discovered your blog and I’m loving it. Soy sauce in cookies – woah. How does the final product taste? I’m so intrigued.
it’s very subtle. *i* couldn’t really tell, dw said he could. my friend Nuria said it had a fish sauce after taste, but we discredit her review because we had just had dinner and her palate may have been off. my other friends said there was a savory component to the cookie and it wasn’t unpleasant. it’s just different.
Hi Lan! I totally fell in love with your recipe when I first discovered it on my feed from feedfeed! Almost three years later, I’m featuring your recipe in my new blog, bellyfullife.com. Your recipe is part of my recipe launch series, noodles and cookies! Thanks for sharing such a wonderful recipe. I’ll be tagging you in my IG post soon!