In the first week of April the weather turned suddenly, unseasonably, insistently lovely. The sky was blue, the air warm and windless, and the sun beamed on the muddy ground with all the sweet impatience of June. Toward the fringe of the wood, the young trees were yellow with the first tinge of new leaves; woodpeckers laughed and drummed in the copses and, lying in bed with my window open, I could hear the rush and gurgle of the melted snow running in the gutters all night long.

In the second week of April everyone waited anxiously to see if the weather would hold. It did, with serene assurance. Hyacinth and daffodil bloomed in the flower beds, violet and periwinkle in the meadows; damp, bedraggled white butterflies fluttered drunkenly in the hedgerows. I put away my winter coat and overshoes and walked around, nearly light-headed with joy, in my shirtsleeves.

—Donna Tartt, The Secret History

I think, finally, blessedly, Spring is here. Though a chill remains, the flowers have bloomed and the sun’s strength continues to grow.
I think anyone who experienced the blizzards and deep freezes of this winter can agree that we are overdue for a lovely Spring.

I recently returned from Korea, where it was decidedly still cold, though a few early cherry blossoms had opened.

Upon arriving home, my first groceries were all from HMart and included 5lbs of my absolute favorite, jujubes (not to mention the 36 banana milks).
Korean red dates are sweet, chewy but fluffy, with a distinctive caramel flavor. They have wickedly sharp little pits in the middle and I can gnaw my way through half a bag rapidly. They can also be made into a delicious tea (daechu cha).

When given a choice, I usually reach for oatmeal raisin cookies over chocolate chip cookies, mostly because I love the chewy dried fruit and additional texture that they have. The caramel flavor of jujubes reminds me a lot of molasses/brown sugar, and I thought they’d be an interesting addition to chocolate chip cookies.

The best chocolate chip cookies, in my opinion, are chewy but soft in the middle, crisp with butter and sugar around the edges, with pools of chocolate and lots of salt. I simply cannot abide a cakey choc chip cookie.
The first round with this recipe, I used a higher protein flour and ended up with delicious, though not chewy nor crisp cookie bars. I knew the mix-ins were on point, but I wanted to play around with the dough more. A moderate protein flour allows the cookies to really puddle, giving the edges time to crisp as they spread while still keeping the center tender.

I used crushed pretzels and toasted hazelnuts along with milk and dark chocolate and jujubes; the combination is lifted by the fruitiness of the dates and anchored by the dark chocolate. Pretzels, themselves the product of the Maillard reaction, add to the nuttiness of the brown butter and hazelnuts.

This is a great base recipe and is very customizable to whatever picky bits you want to add.

Incredibly, I haven’t shared chocolate chip cookies on the blog since the day before I left for college, a fact which is deeply disturbing to my psyche (already, at any given time, teetering on the edge of sanity).
Let’s not revisit that post from 13 years ago for now. I might really lose my mind.

Jujube Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from Dessert Person by Claire Saffitz

ingredients:
225 grams (16 tablespoons) unsalted butter
28 grams (2 tablespoons) half-and-half
260 grams (2 cups) all-purpose flour
6 grams (1 1/4 teaspoons) sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
140 grams (1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons) light brown sugar
20 grams (1 tablespoon) molasses
150 grams (3/4 cup) granulated sugar
100 grams (2 large) eggs, cold
1 tablespoon vanilla paste or extract
142 grams (5 ounces) dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
142 grams (5 ounces) milk chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup chopped jujubes
1/4 cup crushed pretzels
1/4 cup toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
Maldon sea salt

directions:
Brown half of the butter, then pour over the other half of the butter while still hot; the residual heat will melt the second stick of butter and the mixture will also be cooled slightly by the addition of the second stick.
Whisk in the half-and-half.
Whisk in the sugars and molasses vigorously for 1 minute.
Add the eggs and vanilla while whisking continuously for 1 minute; the mixture should be glossy and some of the sugars dissolved into the mix.
Sift flour, sea salt, baking soda on top of mixture and mix in; the dough will be a bit loose.
Add in the mix-ins, saving 20 large pieces of chopped chocolate, and fold well.
Scoop out the dough using a cookie scoop.
Push 1 or 2 of the large pieces of chocolate onto the top of the dough balls.
Refrigerate for at least 24 hours, preferably 48.
To bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Space the cookies out well on parchment lined sheets.
Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and drop/bang the pan on the stovetop to flatten out the cookies; rotate the sheet and bake for an additional 8 to 12 minutes, until the edges are set but the center remains gooey.
Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 1 minute.
Then, using a large circular cookie cutter or glass, carefully swirl the cookies to make perfect circles.
Sprinkle with flaky sea salt.
Allow to rest for an additional 3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.