3.31.2010

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Tips & Tricks to Mix By

A Giant Chocolate Chip Cookie. real. close. up.


There are so many chocolate chip cookie recipes floating around in this world, so for a traditional chocolate chip cookie I like using Nestle Toll House’s recipe (without nuts & using different chocolate chips). Here are 5-ish serious tips to make your chocolate chip cookie the best it can be.
  1. Have your ingredients & especially butter at a cool room temperature (65 degrees F). At this temperature butter is most malleable and will create the most amount of air bubbles as its mixed. The more air in the dough, the more rise in the oven, and the fluffier and more delicious your cookie will be.
  2. Beat the butter & sugar together at a lower speed (about 2 minutes with a mixer paddle attachment). Add the sugar in slowly, this creaming process adds even more air bubbles (imagine the granular sugar making air bubbles in the butter), but don’t mix so long that your butter warms up.
  3. Use unsalted butter, it is generally fresher, takes out the question of how much salt to add to your dough (sometimes I add a bit extra salt, it adds amazing flavor to your cookies!) and has a lower water content which allows for more air bubbles, more fluffiness, yay!
  4. Don’t over-mix your dough, it will warm it up which means less fluffy cookies.
  5. Use good chocolate I generally use Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chips.
  6. And here’s the real secret: refrigerate your dough for 24 hours! (or at least over-night if that’s as long as you can hold out).
I’ve tested this theory with a few different cookies: chocolate chip, chocolate chip made with butter and shortening, and peanut butter cookies. This is how it played out:
  • For the cookies with shortening, I would not recommend refrigerating at all. It brings out the shortening flavor, which isn’t great. And the shortening alone, makes the cookie pretty fluffy as it bakes.
  • Peanut butter cookies often need 30-60 minutes in the fridge to thicken up in order to form for baking, but over-night didn’t do anything for the flavor. The peanut butter flavor is so present in these, not much other flavor needs to come out in them ;)
But with traditional chocolate chip cookie dough a long refrigeration time makes the final product taste soo amazing! It really does, give it a try! They will end up fluffy, chewy and flavorful.

This NY Times article, talks about some of these techniques as well as where I first read about the refrigeration theory. The article actually recommends 36 hours, but seriously who can wait that long?



3.28.2010

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookie Recipe

I hope all this peanut butter and chocolate chunk hype has gotten you excited for...


Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies/Donna Cookies/ Pants on the Ground Cookies

Ingredients:
  • 1 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour (sift before measuring)
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt (a pinch more if using coarse salt)
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup Skippy smooth peanut butter
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar (you could use dark or light. I use light because I like the “lighter” taste. If you like a darker, more molasses taste, try dark brown sugar).
  • 12-16oz Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chunks
*Have all ingredients at room temperature

Sift Together: flour, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. Beat (in a mixer or large bowl). Slowly beat in the sugars and mix for about two minutes until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla. Mix until combined. Add in the peanut butter and mix until combined. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined, but don't over-mix it. Stir in the Guittard semi-sweet chocolate chunks (or whatever chocolate you want, or nothing at all, let the peanut butter cookie go naked!)

They will likely be too sticky to form into balls, so stick the dough in fridge for at least 45 minutes. Refrigerating dough actually brings out and improves the flavor of the cookie (more on this in another blog).

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Once the dough is solid enough to handle, roll into golfball-size balls. If you leave the cookies plain, you can roll into balls and with a fork press down gently on the dough, making a cross hatch pattern. Otherwise roll into a ball and pat gently to a disc, this way they come out nice and thick.

Place on ungreased baking sheet and bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes. Let cool on baking sheet for a couple of minutes then transfer to a cooling rack...or your mouth.


Photo by SF Food Wars crew member, Bryan Haggerty

3.22.2010

This hair doesn't need a Bumpits

Woke up with a strange and enormous poof in my hair...


Which means the Chocolate Cookie Situation put on by SF Food Wars went down Sunday afternoon at Mighty in SOMISSPO (If you don't know, better ask somebody!)

After a night of dancing at Butter on Friday, I fell asleep with visions of sweet cream butter and sugar dancing in my head. The next morning I set out to bake enough cookies to feed 250 cookie lovers. 10 hours, 4lbs of chocolate, and one jumbo jar of Skippy (smooth!) peanut butter later, I was done! After the first couple of batches I was on autopilot and with the company of my best friend in the kitchen, it was a piece of...cookie.



As the 20 cookie competitors began setting up Sunday morning I was happy to see mine was the only one with peanut butter and that all the bakers' creations looked (and mostly tasted) amazing and unique. The Pants on the Ground Cookies simultaneously, stood out and fit right in, with the competition.

Thanks SF Food Wars for such a fun cookie-loving event and letting me share my cookies with people that truly appreciate a bangin' cookie.

Created by Ms. Jen Kuropat

...Plus, proceeds from ticket sales go to the SF Food Bank.

3.04.2010

Cookie Competition Prep


It has become obvious as I sit in the office nine to five, five days a week, that my college escapades are over.

And so, here begins the blog on my new self-indulgent escapades....

in the kitchen on my quest to make a career out of baking. My goal is serious but probably as bad for my health as my college antics were, replacing booze with butter.

My path is not yet known, but it seems my first stop will be at SF Food Wars Chocolate Cookie Situation. My Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookie recipe has been perfected but the pressure is on to mix and bake so that each cookie (100 + of them) may reach its full potential of chewy deliciousness.

Here is one of the two crucial ingredients (5lbs of it!)

Guittard Dark Chocolate Chunks from Berkeley Bowl
Since the 'Chocolate Cookie Situation' competition pays homage to the party antics of JWOWW & The Situation from The Jersey Shore, the cookies are officially entered as Pants on the Ground Cookies. Not only will bakers be battling for the best cookie title but also out on the dance floor, fist-pumping Jersey style. Wish me luck!