Since my last cookie post, I've had a couple people send me their recipes. In addition, my friend, who works as a Principal Food Scientist enlisted the help of her whole building for suggestions. In her building, is the Cargill Bake Lab. Also, there is a guy who's title reads "Certified Master Baker". I'm not sure what the certifcation process involves but, back in the day, he made all the formulations for Mrs. Fields. I think I'm in good hands. The unanimous response from her building was that I needed to use cake flour instead of all purpose flour. It gives "shoulders" to a cookie. Today, I finally found said flour at Walmart (both Super Target and Cub were out when I tried to get it a week ago). His other sugestion was that I increase my flour by about 20% to increase my flour to fat ratio. Also, I was informed my all butter cookie is destined for failure in terms of shelf life. However, that does not concern me because none of my cookie attempts sit around this house for more than a day before we devour them.
Other suggestions included: using a convection oven (not possible for me), using a butter/margarine combination, using karo syrup or honey in place of some of the sugar (but then increase the flour to make up for the extra liquid).
Today, I just went with the substitution of cake flour, plus I added 20% more flour than I have been previously used. I'm also going to chilled the dough because that seemed to help a bit last time.
The results
They were okay. I watched them in the oven and I really thought this was going to be it. They were plumping up beautifully. But, by the time they were done, they fell flat. The taste is fine and the texture inside wasn't "cakey" which I was worried about. The outsides were a bit crispier than before, and they seems to be a tiny bit hard along the edges already.
I don't doubt that the above suggestions were accurate. I am not about to argue with a whole building of food scientists. But, it didn't create my perfect cookie. I think that second cookie batch I made (original recipe but with a chilled dough) was my best tasting so far. Perhaps I will just add a little extra flour to that recipe and see what happens. I also have, in my hands, one more recipe that is just a bit different than others I've recieved. After I try out those two options, I will pick my favorite and call it good. Too many wonderful recipes out there to get hung up on one...right?
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