I hope you’re going to have a very merry day tomorrow. I’m
going to give you a tiny present that you can use the next time you make
chocolate chip cookies, which I hope will be really soon.
I don’t know why, but it took me eons to figure out how to
make a CRISPY chocolate chip cookie, which I think are the best kind. Last
week I was baking and I remembered reading something somewhere about three
ways to bake chocolate chip cookies. The ingredients varied somewhat and they
came out either chewy, crispy or cakey. I couldn’t find the article anywhere. Was
it online, in a newspaper or in a book? Finally I found this.
I scrolled down to how to make crispy cookies and how
easy is this? Basically, you just make the original Toll
House Cookie recipe (that I’ve been using for decades) and cut 2 eggs to 1, the flour from 2¼ cups to 2 cups and cut the baking soda in half
to ½ teaspoon.
That makes a lot of sense. Eggs do make things cakey. When I
first started making blondies, I just added an extra egg to the Toll House
cookie batter and baked it in a 9" by 13" pan. That made really good, moist, cake-type
bars.
Less baking soda in the cookie recipe will make the
cookies rise less, I suppose, leaving a flatter and, thus, crisper cookie. And reducing the flour is interesting. I guess a less dry
mixture gets crisper… Maybe? Dunno. But I DO know that those three simple
adjustments – less egg, flour and baking soda – gave me the crispy cookie I was
after.
So next time you’re whipping up a batch of chocolate chip
cookies (mine were for the guy with the sleigh and reindeer), try this recipe (scroll down to the Thin and Crispy one) and
you may find your next favorite cookie recipe. Have a great holiday and I
wish you many sweet treats.
6 comments:
Mmm. These look great. Merry Christmas!
Thanks, Em.
Merry Christmas to my favorite graduated PASTRY CHEF!!! A big mwwwaaahhhhhh to you!!!!!
But I'm dying to know if you made those Christmas Eve tacos!
Rach,
I was smart. D(aughter) made the tacos, so they tasted especially good...since I didn't have to make them. My Texan relatives serve tacos for breakfast on Christmas. I LOVE that idea, but I would still want someone else to make them. :-)
Hi Sue,
Happy New Year! Back when I got out of college I worked in food product development for a large consumer products company. One of the things they made was chocolate chip cookies. They spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make them crunchy outside and chewy inside. It turns out that any chocolate chip cookie made with sucrose will be crunchy eventually (not stale, but crunchy), given the proportion of ingredient you usually find in them. Sucrose has particular moisture-retaining properties over time and, while eggs and such will make some difference in the texture initially, after a few days they'll be thoroughly crisp. If you want them crisp right away, though, that's a different story.
Happy New Year right back at you, Tom!
That's interesting about sucrose, but you're right. I want my cookies crispy immediately. I can't wait.
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