It’s Here! The Official Doubletree Cookie Recipe

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So it apparently took a global plague, but the Doubletree Hotel FINALLY released their famous and very secret cookie recipe!

If you’ve ever stayed at a Doubletree Hotel, you know that you receive one of these delicious cookies, fresh from the oven, upon your arrival. According to Hilton, more than 30 million of these cookies are consumed every year, and the cookies were the first food baked in orbit on the International Space Station.

Good choice. 🙂

There have been many copycat recipes over the years, but in light of these troubling times, Doubletree decided to release the official recipe last week.

Chocolate chip cookies would be on the menu for my last meal, so I will never pass up a chance to try a new recipe. So I was excited to make these.

 

First up, here is the recipe, from Hilton’s website:

DoubleTree Signature Cookie Recipe

Makes 26 cookies

½ pound butter, softened (2 sticks)

¾ cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

¾ cup packed light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 ¼ teaspoons vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

2 ¼ cups flour

1/2 cup rolled oats

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Pinch cinnamon

2 2/3 cups Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 3/4 cups chopped walnuts

Cream butter, sugar and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes. 

Add eggs, vanilla and lemon juice, blending with mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then medium speed for about 2 minutes, or until light and fluffy, scraping down bowl. 

With mixer on low speed, add flour, oats, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, blending for about 45 seconds. Don’t overmix. 

Remove bowl from mixer and stir in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Portion dough with a scoop (about 3 tablespoons) onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper about 2 inches apart. 

Preheat oven to 300°F. Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, or until edges are golden brown and center is still soft. 

Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet for about 1 hour.

Cook’s note: You can freeze the unbaked cookies, and there’s no need to thaw. Preheat oven to 300°F and place frozen cookies on parchment paper-lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake until edges are golden brown and center is still soft.

I got busy mixing my batter. One of the things my husband decided to do with his free Coronavirus time was to completely overhaul my pantry a few weeks ago. He’s a foot taller than I am, so I couldn’t find ANYTHING I needed to make the cookies, even when standing on a chair looking down on each shelf. 🙂

I never did find the baking soda this recipe calls for, so I learned a new baking tip. You can substitute baking powder for baking soda. You just triple the amount the recipe calls for. So I did that.

The recipe said to make each cookie about 3 tablespoons of batter, so I measured that out. That is bigger than I usually make my cookies, but I always like to follow a recipe to the letter the first time I make it.

I also used parchment paper, as called for in the recipe. I normally use a foil lined cookie sheet, sprayed with nonstick spray. But these cookies have a LOT of butter in them, which means the cookies will tend to spread, and maybe they needed a dry parchment paper to hold onto so they didn’t flatten out too much.

I normally use shortening in my cookie recipes because I like a bulkier cookie, and cookies made with butter tend to bake up flatter. So because of the size of these cookies, I only put six on a sheet at a time, not knowing how much they would spread.

I found that at this size, I needed to bake the cookies a bit longer than called for in the recipe to get them as brown as I like. For subsequent batches, I only used 2 tablespoons at a time and baked them for the time called for.

These cookies are really delicious. I had my husband try them since he travels a lot more than I do, and I can’t remember the last time I stayed in a Doubletree Hotel. He said they were spot on.

I really like the addition of a bit of oatmeal and cinnamon to the batter. My daughter smelled them before taking a bite and said they smelled really “complex.” 🙂

If you have time on your hands during these stay-at-home orders, try a new recipe. You probably already have everything you need in your pantry. These cookies are delicious.

I think it’s really weird that our grocery store is completely out of flour right now. We have a little bit of toilet paper on the shelves, but no flour. Not. One. Bag. Has this virus suddenly turned everyone into an artisan baker? 🙂

I think an anthropologist would and should be having a heyday studying what is and isn’t available on grocery shelves these days. I remain baffled by the bottled water hoarding, and really don’t get this flour shortage. Are that many people really baking every day now? If you do need some flour, you can get it online. I love both White Lily Flour and King Arthur Flour.

I used King Arthur Flour for this recipe.

Baking a batch of warm cookies can’t solve everything, but it sure isn’t the worst way to spend an afternoon. 🙂 So give these Doubletree Cookies a try!

And I’d love for you to follow me on Pinterest!