Cooking For Engineers

[laurac]

I'm allergic to eggs too. I can tolerate them in cookies if I don't eat too many of them (I know, how do you define "too many"). But if your daughter can't handle any, you can just leave the egg out. You will have a more shortbread type texture (which would be fine with me, as I like my chocolate chip cookies crisp, but there are those "chewy" fans), but the taste in these cookies is in the brown sugar and chocolate pieces. You may have to add a little less flour, depending on your flour, and I would press the cookies flat, either with your fingers or the bottom of a glass dipped in flour. The egg helps them spread out. You could also add 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, to substitute for the fat in the egg. I do that frequently when not using egg.

If you really want chewy, you could substitute some ground nuts (walnuts, almonds, pecans) for some of the flour. About half a cup should do. (I'm one of those "just throw some of that in" type of cooks, so I frequently don't know how much of something I use. I go by consistency.) (So why am I posting on a site for Engineers?) A lot of people like to put nuts in their chocolate chip cookies, so it wouldn't be an odd taste.

[Hotlil57]

Is that ME cooking? I busted out laughing when I read the 'letting the butter soften and doing your business and remembering you were baking cookies'. Thank you for that; I'm not alone!

[Criztine]

[JuliaZ]

I've been making my version of these cookies for nearly 30 years now, and have a few preferences I thought I'd share.
- Use Splenda (3/4 cup) instead of the white sugar; this helps reduce the sugar somewhat if you have diabetics around as I do, and it makes a lighter, fluffier cookie that many people seem to prefer.
- Don't use the Splenda brown sugar substitute. It's half white sugar anyway, and the texture suffers quite a bit. I use dark brown sugar or light brown sugar and a tablespoon of either molasses or Grade A Dark Amber maple syrup.
- I usually add up to 3 Tbsp (not tsp) of Ceylon cinnamon powder. I also grate fresh nutmeg (a 1/4 - 1/3 of a nutmeg) into the batter. These were named "Chocolate Chip Love Cookies" by Buddy Guy at the Blushing Zebra folk club in Philadelphia in 1988, and that's what my family still calls them. I made about 20 dozen of these cookies a week for the Blushing Zebra in an apartment-sized oven. I lasted two years before I had to take a break, and then I got hooked on making banana muffins instead.
- I always use large eggs as others have noted
- I always use butter. Margarine is good for something, but it has nothing to do with food.
- I don't sift my flour but I don't exactly measure it either. I could make these cookies while nearly asleep and I know when it looks right. While teaching my 7 year old how to make my cookies, I discovered that I usually scoop ~2.5 cups of flour, not 2.25 as the recipe calls for. C'est la vie.
- I mix the chocolate chips in with my hand blender on low speed.. I've been using the same Kitchen Aid for 21 years now. My husband just got me a Kitchen Aid super-duper stand mixer for Christmas and I'm sure I'll have to ditch that habit to avoid having chocolate shards instead of chips. LOL

[lilibon]

I've found in making the cookies from the recipe on the back of the bag, that the more butter or margerine that i use, or extra brown sugar (use of either depending on the day!) greatly influences the texture/flavor of the cookies. The more of either makes a yummier cookie!
I've also only used a mixer once or twice, much prefering the texture and taste of the cookies when hand mixed.
Oh, yes, and thank you, I'm finally beginning to understand the mind of engineers, just from reading this one recipe (and here I was merely looking for a recipe for fudge!!) Fascinating! Thank you

lilibon

[robin]

I've been "using' the recipe from the bag for years with the following modifications: 1) I use butter-flavor Crisco (in the sticks) instead of butter-don't have to wait for it to soften; 2) I use half semi-sweet and half white chocolate chips, NO nuts; 3) I save the last couple tablespoons of the flour mixture to coat the chips before mixing them in - for me they seem to disperse into the mixture easier; and 4) most importantly, I scoop the dough up in rounded teaspoons full and roll the cookies in granulated sugar before placing on cookie sheet - gives the cookies a really nice crisp sugary outside with a chewy inside. They are still obviously homemade BUT the sugar gives them a fancy bakery look. I also used this last step on the rare occasion that I buy the freezer-block of toll-house cookies.

[My mother's recipe:]

I recently performed a taste test between the Toll House mixture you can buy in the refrigerator case in the Supermarket and the mix on the bag. Home made ones are better. It is possible to mix up your own and freeze little squares. This does help in portion control, and I am soon going to calculate the price: but I estimate that the price will come out to be for the price of one package, it might be possible to make 5 recipes. I wonder if anyone knows what other bad stuff might be in the prepared one to motivate us to make our own?

[Naomi]

Has any one ever made toll house cookies with peanut butter in them? Not the Pbutter chips actual peanut butter and if so could I have the recipe?

[Dragon Lady]

I substitute "SUPER CRUNCHIE" peanut butter for 1/2 of the butter, adding it AFTER the butter and sugar are already well blended.

This makes it CRITICAL that you chill the dough before baking.

I'm also a big fan of doubling the vanilla (in just about everything I make)..

[DragonLady]

And, of course, leave out the walnuts

[student]

Is it possible to substitute vanilla extract with vanilla essence? If possible, am i supposed to use 5 mL of vanilla essence in place of vanilla extract? Will the end product/taste be the same?

[GaryProtein]

What is vanilla essence? Do you mean the brown liquid stuff in the bottle that is 35% alcohol? If it is, that sounds like vanilla extract.

[Guest]

To the guy in Australia:

The warmer the butter the flatter the cookie.

This tends to not be an issue in places like Seattle where it never is that warm but I have moved to Thailand and found that if I cream my butter for the same amount of time as I am used to back in the States it has gotten too warm and the cookies turn out flat. That and the flour protein issue mentioned above will make for a flat cookie.

[Vince]

Hi, I recently bought a bag of chocolate chips to make this recipe, but then I realized that it was a bag of milk chocolate chips instead of the semi-sweet chocolate chips the recipe calls for. Can I still make the recipe with milk chocolate chips with success? Has anyone else tried this and are there any adjustments I should make? Thanks in advance to anyone who replies to this topic.

[Michael Chu]