The biggest decision on a cookie baking day is just which of the thousands of recipes out there to make. There are hundreds of cookbooks dedicated solely to cookies and if you search for cookie recipes on-line, you might be looking through the list so long you’ll run out of time to bake.
I try to cut down on my choices before looking for the perfect recipe by deciding how much time I want to spend in the kitchen. Of the six general categories of cookie, some definitely take more time than others. Drop cookies like chocolate chip and oatmeal and bar cookies like brownies are the quickest to make. Refrigerator or rolled cookies like butter and sugar cookies require some patience while you wait for the dough to firm up in the fridge. Hand formed cookies like Mexican wedding cookies and pressed cookies like spritz take a bit more time and effort (and in the case of pressed cookies, need some extra equipment you might not have laying around the house).
Next I look to see what ingredients are in my house. Cookies can be made from just three ingredients (nuts, eggs and sugar make a great macaroon) or you can get very extravagant and add such hard to come by ingredients as rose geranium jam or parched benne seeds. Most of the time you can come up with a pretty tasty treat if you have butter, flour, sugar and eggs.
As I stared into my cabinets, trying to decide between ginger shortbread or coconut huckleberry bars (or, as my stomach growled in anticipation, both), I thought back to past batches and wondered what made some of them soft and cake-like, some crisp and crunchy, and still others chewy and dense. There was only one place to find the answer, so I headed to my bookshelf and pulled out On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. Sure enough, he had the answer.
Much of the texture of cookies can be found in the flour. The type of flour, the ratio of flour to water, and how much you “work” the dough all affect the consistency. Interestingly, both bread flour (high gluten content) and cake flour (low gluten content) help keep cookies from spreading, but for different reasons: the first because of its high gluten content and strong protein network and the second because its starch is more absorbent, removing some of the moisture from the dough. All purpose and pastry flour tend to allow the dough to spread more.
More flour than water makes a crumblier cookie, like a shortbread. More water than flour, as in drop cookies, makes cookies more cake-like if they are slightly undercooked and more crispy and crunchy if they are slightly overcooked.
Sugar also plays an important textural role. When creamed together with butter and beaten in with eggs, it helps incorporate air into the batter making the cookies lighter. When the proportion of sugar to liquid rises, only some of the sugar dissolves in the dough. However, as the cookie bakes, more of the sugar dissolves, liquefying the dough and causing it to soften and spread. Then when the sugar cools after baking, it re-solidifies and gives the cookie a candy-like snap.
Other sweeteners, like honey and molasses, cause the dough to spread more and then firm as it cools. This leads to a moister, chewier cookie.
Eggs, fat and leavening each play a smaller role in cookie texture. The more eggs, the more cake-like the final product will be. Butter tends to make cookies spread more than margarine or shortening (but you will never catch me using anything but butter in my cookies, I don’t care if they spread to Montana, they will still taste better). Leavening, which can simply be incorporating air bubbles into your sugar-butter-egg mixture, allows cookies to rise slightly, giving them a lighter, cakier texture.
Armed with this information, I decided to try an old stand-by: Oatmeal Raisin with Coconut and Chocolate Chips, which are quite delicious but often come out too cake-like for my taste, and see if I could make the recipe a bit chewier.
Now a good scientist would change one ingredient and see what happens, then change another one until she got the desired results. I am not a good scientist and I wanted to achieve a chewy cookie right away (and not do the dishes from 5 batches of “experiments”), so I changed the whole dang recipe.
I substituted honey for some of the brown sugar. I reduced the number of eggs. I didn’t beat the sugar, butter and eggs for as long as I usually do. And I didn’t use any baking powder. The batter tasted delicious.
Then I waited. Twelve minutes seems like an awfully long time when you’re waiting for the results of such an important experiment.
The buzzer finally sounded and the cookies looked like delicious golden mounds but still I waited and let them cool just a bit (no need to burn the roof of my mouth just for the sake of journalism).
At last, they were the perfect temperature. The chocolate chips were still melted but my mouth was safe from second degree burns. I broke one in half and it looked good, denser than the original recipe, but not crumbly or hard. I took a bite. They were perfect (okay, maybe not perfect but it was a warm fresh baked cookie; you can’t get much better than that). I tried another one just to make sure. Yes, I had achieved what I set out to do. I now had a chewier, but still completely delicious version of my old stand-by. I also had two dozen fresh baked cookies to keep my spirits up as I impatiently wait for Spring.
Vicki Reich cooks and bakes and longs for Spring in Sagle, ID. She’s much rather be riding her bike to work off all the cookies she ate than going to the gym, so she’s somewhat thankful that the rain is quickly melting the snow.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Coconut and Chocolate Chips
Makes 2-3 dozen
8 T. butter, softened
½ c. sugar
¼ c. packed brown sugar
¼ c. honey
1 egg
1 c. all purpose flour
2 c. rolled oats
½ t. cinnamon
Pinch of salt
½ c. shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)
¼ c milk
½ t almond extract
½ c. raisins
½ c. chocolate chips (optional)
Preheat the oven to 375F
Cream together the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and honey (I use an electric mixer). Add the egg and beat until just blended.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, oats, cinnamon and coconut. Alternately add half the dry mixture and half the milk to the butter mixture, blending after each addition. Add the almond extract. Stir in the raisins and the chocolate chips by hand.
Drop by the teaspoon onto an ungreased baking sheet (or better yet, make the investment in a silicone baking sheet like a Silpat (you won’t regret it) and drop the dough onto this miracle of modern cookware). Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown on the edges. Cool for 2 minutes on the pan then transfer to a cooling rack.
Eat while watching the snow melt.
