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Mark S Guest
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Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 3:51 am Post subject: |
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I used to work for W. Richard Stevens. Rich was a PhD in Computer Science and was a UNIX Guru, and in particular a TCP/IP Guru in particular, and wrote a number of books on the topic. (http://tinyurl.com/r3gtg)
But I think he was even more of a genius and expert when it came to baking his chocolate desserts and his cookies would disappear from the lunchroom where we worked within minutes.
Here is the recipe that he used. Note the details on the technique which he says are very important.
http://www.kohala.com/start/recipes/ultimatecookie.html |
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LAN3
Joined: 24 Mar 2006 Posts: 28
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 7:30 am Post subject: |
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Mmm, I love to use half brown sugar, half white in the cookies I make, especially oatmeal scotchies. The exception is cookies where molasses is an ingredient, although the one I have that comes to mind calls for brown sugar anyway!
I was just going to point out that Alton Brown had an episode called "Three Chips for Sister Martha" (the title is a reference to "three quarks for Muster Mark," a Finnegan's Wake phrase from which the discoverer of quarks drew their name-- I figured the enginerds among us could appreciate that) in which he is blackmailed by his TV-sister to produce three variations of Toll House cookies, which he does without actually referring to the Toll House brand or its precise recipe. The website doesn't mind, though, so click that link to get 3 variations on the recipe: thin, puffy, and chewy. (Note that some introduce ingredients not found on the back of your chips bag, such as bread or cake flour!)
Also, while I do subscribe to Michael's mixer+neglect method of softening butter, I have also been known to throw cold (from the fridge) sticks of butter in the mixer and turn it on a medium-low speed-- that'll bat the butter around for a few minutes and soften it mechanically. From there, drop the speed so you don't get sugar everywhere, add the sugar, and up the speed when you can back to medium or whatnot. The sugar blends in no time. This rather assumes you can put up with the noise. |
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guest Guest
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Posted: Tue Sep 05, 2006 4:02 pm Post subject: soft or crispy |
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The trick to the texture of the cookie is in how long you bake it. You can see from the picture of finished cookies with the comment "Some of the early results from the first three batches" that the cookies came out at different levels of done-ness. The darker cookies were either cooked longer or the oven has hot spots. Before the cookies cool, or even right after cooling, the darker cookies will still be soft. But by the next day they will be hard and crispy. I prefer soft, chewy cookies, so I undercook mine slightly (in my oven at 375 I cook for just under 8 mins, instead of the 9-11 suggested by the recipe). They stay chewy for days. |
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anjlgurl Guest
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Posted: Wed Sep 06, 2006 12:16 am Post subject: temp... |
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I have found that not only does the toll-house recipe make the best cookies ever! it makes the best cookie dough ever! (if you intend to eat the dough raw, leave out the eggs, and add 1-2 tablespoons of liquid, either water, veggie oil, or milk)
Also, I found that leaving the dough in the fridge overnight and baking them while the dough is really cold keeps them from spreading and getting really thin. |
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Guest
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Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 3:39 pm Post subject: Butter and Temperature |
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One thing you may not have considered is whether or not you cooled the dough after mixing and before spooning it onto the cookie sheet. This also greatly effects the shape, size and consistency of the finished product (I would actually argue it has almost as great an impact as the flour.) Might want to retest checking this. Cooled (refrigerated) dough makes a more soft thick cookie while warmer dough (specially in a hot kitchen) makes for a thinner crispier cookie. |
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Pan Cookies Guest
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Posted: Thu Sep 07, 2006 11:53 pm Post subject: |
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I take a recipe like this, or oatmeal cookies (I must try this with a sugar cookie recipe), and spread it into a 9x13" cake pan. One pass in the oven for about 25 min (until golden brown on top- is that vague enough for this site?) and each square you cut is equal to 2-3 cookies. All the cookie goodness without the endless switching and cooling of pans. |
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:13 am Post subject: Re: Butter and Temperature |
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Anonymous wrote: | One thing you may not have considered is whether or not you cooled the dough after mixing and before spooning it onto the cookie sheet. This also greatly effects the shape, size and consistency of the finished product (I would actually argue it has almost as great an impact as the flour.) Might want to retest checking this. |
Actually, I did consider this. Since refrigerating makes a pretty big difference when making peanut butter cookies, I chilled at least two pans (about a dozen cookies) from each batch and baked them and noted the results. In the more butter rich recipes (thinner cookies), I found that refrigerating did result in cookies that were noticably thicker. The unrefrigerated ones really spread out nice and thin. As I increased the amount of flour, I noticed that the increased thickness of the cookies wasn't as noticably different when baked from warm or chilled dough - so I did not remark on them in the recipe. |
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LAN3
Joined: 24 Mar 2006 Posts: 28
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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I figure that in your basic cookie, you've got the elements that make the cookie want to spread out (mainly the butter and other fats), the elements that make it rise (baking powder/soda, steam released from the butter and the liquids), and elements that make it want to be firm (the small amount of gluten created in the mixing process, the egg proteins), and how the cookies turn out will be a matter of timing and temperature-- you figure that baking soda will execute its oven rise at a certain temperature, egg proteins will firm up, and the butter will melt, all with certain timing, and if you give any of those a time advantage, the cookies' shape will reflect the difference. Certainly cold butter will give the cookies more time to rise before the butter has time to spread the cookie's mass out.
A friend of mine doesn't use the cookie technique when she bakes-- she adds all the ingredients (well, except for oats and chips, that sort of thing) to make the batter, and then stirs in chips and whatnot. In her experience, it turns out a crisp cookie on the thin side, but now I wonder if it isn't just the timing of when she makes things. I wonder about these things because another friend gave me, as a gift, a large mason jar containing the dry ingredients of a cookie recipe, and since I won't easily be able to separate the sugar from the rest to cream it, I guess I'll find out what happens when the dough is formed without creaming. |
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Guest
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Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:36 pm Post subject: Never tried NTH recipe |
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We are dealing with food allergies, and I've found an excellent standard recipe: the one on Crisco paper wrap.
skip egg, replace flour with gluten free flour mix, replace refined sugar by plain organic vegan sugar (plus a dollup of molasses), replace crisco by coconut oil, skip nuts, and use a safe chocolate chip ('chemical' free)
The recipe leads to 48 cookies. Roll the luckwarm batter in your hands into perfect marbles of dough (about 1in across) and place on cookie sheet. Then play with cooking time and cooking temp to create either crunchy or chewy cookies.
People are crazy about my cookies, and still refuse to believe there are nut free, dairy free, wheat free, gluten free, egg free, refined sugar free...
Plus they look extra cool, with a perfect round shape, and smoothed-in chocolate chips.
Ness
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we dont need 'chemical' in food to enjoy GOOD food. |
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Molly Guest
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Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2006 1:09 am Post subject: Chocolate Chip recipe |
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I'm not trying to be a smart aleck or anything, but I know the true for sure story about how chocolate chip cookies came to be. It was actually a last minute effort to save time. Mrs. Wakefield was making chocolate-butter drop cookies(popular at the time), and she needed to melt the chocolate before she mixed it into the cookies in order to make them. So instead of melting them, she just broke up the chocolate into little bits, dropped them in the batter, thinking that they would melt into the cookie to make the chocolate-butter drops. But she got chocolate chip cookies instead, so she served them, and everybody liked them. And then they just got popular, so yeah. That's basically it. |
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guessme
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 1
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Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 5:55 am Post subject: Granulated sugar |
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Does granulated sugar means white sugar? If it is, why is the ingredients picture, the top left bowl, which is the most likely the sugar, is brown? BTW, I'm in Australia, I only see white sugar, caster sugar, icing sugar, raw sugar and brown sugar in supermarket shelves.
Thanks |
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LAN3
Joined: 24 Mar 2006 Posts: 28
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Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 6:09 am Post subject: |
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Granulated sugar is common white sugar, table sugar; the word granulated refers to the coarseness of the sugar crystals, to distinguish it from the finer caster sugar and much finer icing/powdered sugar.
Check this page out for more names for the different grades of sugar:
http://www.foodsubs.com/Sweeten.html
As for the picture-- I note that the recipe calls for 3/4 cup of each granulated sugar and brown sugar, and judging from the size of the bowl pictured, I'd guess that Michael measured the white sugar in first and the the brown sugar on top.
Brown sugar is different from white sugar only because of a small amount of molasses, and molasses is always good in cookies (well, tends to make them softer or more moist), so if you only have brown sugar, don't hesitate to make it, unless you're in need of a hard cookie. |
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Michael Chu
Joined: 10 May 2005 Posts: 1654 Location: Austin, TX (USA)
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Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 7:52 am Post subject: |
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LAN3 wrote: | As for the picture-- I note that the recipe calls for 3/4 cup of each granulated sugar and brown sugar, and judging from the size of the bowl pictured, I'd guess that Michael measured the white sugar in first and the the brown sugar on top. |
That's exactly what happened. I weighed the granulated sugar first and then scooped the brown sugar in until I had enough. Unfortunately, my plan of splitting the bowl in half didn't work out as I had to keep scooping out more brown sugar. |
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bbailey_70 Guest
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Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:05 am Post subject: chocolate chip cookies |
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I just did some experimenting and verified the chilled vs. room temp dough effect on thickness. Also, I used two cups of light brown sugar, and yielded the same results as 1C white & 1C brown. I also used chocolate & peanut butter morsels for a delicious variation. |
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Thor
Joined: 24 Jul 2006 Posts: 112 Location: Camp Hill, PA
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Posted: Mon Sep 25, 2006 9:54 pm Post subject: Sacrilege In The Supermarket |
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Forgive me good cooking people, for I have strayed! I have found true evil in the dairy aisle in my supermarket. I have been weak. And it is YUMMY!!!!
Nestles places Toll House Chocolate Chip Dough Bars right next to the eggs. The refrigerated dough bars are ready to bake. They come scored so that the perfect amount of dough for a single cookie can be broken off from the bar. All you have to do is bake them.
I usually have a package in the freezer. So when the mood hits, I break off as many cookies as I want to cook, and throw the remainder back in the freezer. And voila, time to break out the milk.
I know this sounds wrong in the context of this most excellent website. And I haven't (and probably won't for this one) checked the ingredients list for additives that may not be healthy. But what pre-packaging does in this case is provide portion control. Toll Houses are one of my favorites, and as previously mentioned, I am weak. So when I cook a batch from scratch, I tend to eat them until I no longer feel well. Then the following morning I sneak a couple for breakfast. So if I can limit how many I cook, I also limit how many I eat. The going rate is two cookies per head. Unless it's my birthday. Then we make the whole batch.
I have not experimented with making and freezing the dough myself. If anyone has any experience with this endeavor, please let me know. |
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