A week ago, I was sitting indoors on a cold and rainy night. I was up to my eyes in papers and Times New Roman type, and I decided to drop everything and bake not one...but two batches of cookies! For the dark skies and puddles lining the sidewalks, I baked Double Chocolate Chip Cookies from Baking with Em & M. For me, I baked these delicious sugar cookies. In all honestly, I am not that big of a chocolate fan. I like the stuff, but I prefer a simple chocolate chip recipe to other forms of chocolate decadence (fudgy chocolate brownies, red velvet cake, and...oh wait, are you drooling?).
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| Chocolate cookies before cooking! |
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| And after! (I think these pictures contain the sugar-lacking batch. That's why there's much taller than expected.) |
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| The final product! (Yes, I played with Preview's color modification features...) |
Funny thing, I also learned that sugar is kind of a necessary element in certain recipes. Okay, I'm not as foolish as I sound. In certain recipes, such as those for cakes or muffins or breads, I've been able to cut the sugar down by 1/4 at least with no real harm. But M's Double Chocolate Chip Cookies do not apply. Cutting down the sugar in these suckers leads to disastrous results--cookies that look normal on the outside but crumble to (delicious chocolate) sand upon first bite. However, for those who are interested, I managed to save the recipe. It turns out you can re-add more sugar with an electric mixer after everything's been said and done! The cookies were saved, and everything ended happily ever after.
For me though, the real highlight of the night were the sugar cookies. They are everything you could ask for in a sugar cookie. They were crispy on the outside, and chewy on the inside. And I mean chewy.
Cook's Illustrated explains the science behind the cookie. To achieve a crackly top, baking soda reacts with the water in the dough, releasing carbon dioxide that rises to the cookie's top and leaves little cracks. But the baking soda's addition is more than just aesthetics; they balance out baking powder's rising power. Baking powder does most of its rising before the cookies go in the oven (to make a point, adding too much baking powder would cause mound shaped cookies). From what I understand, this rising action occurs better in more acidic environments; here's where baking soda comes in. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) makes the dough more basic, thus reducing the rising effect of the baking powder! And voila, this perfect pairing gives you nice flat cookies with crackly tops!
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| Before squishing... |
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| ...and after squishing! |
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| Here are the cookies at 7 minutes into the baking process. Rotate them now. |
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| After another 4-5 minutes in the oven, they look like this! |
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| Remember that baking soda-baking powder combination? Yeah, that's the magic riiiight there. |
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| Mmm, chewy on the inside! |
Chewy Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Cook's Illustrated Recipe for Chewy Sugar Cookies, Nov 2010
Recipe makes approximately 32 sugar cookies
Ingredients:
2 + 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 + 1/2 cup white granulated sugar for baking
1/3 cup white granulated sugar for rolling
2 oz cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces
6 tbsp butter, melted and still warm
1/3 cup of vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
Recipe
[0] Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Set aside one bowl; fill it with 1/3 cup of sugar for rolling later.
[1] Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Mix with fork. Set aside.
[2] Cut the 2 oz of cream cheese into 8 uniform pieces. Combine with sugar in a medium bowl. Pour the warm, melted butter onto the sugar-cream cheese mixture. Combine using electric mixture on low. Add oil to mixture; use electric mixer. It's okay if there are some small cream cheese lumps. These will be resolved later.
[3] Add egg, milk, and vanilla to the bowl with the sugar-cream cheese-butter mixture. Combine with electric mixer until smooth.
[4] Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Mix using a rubber spatula until dry ingredients have completely been combined with the wet.
[5] Take a tablespoon of dough into your hand. Roll into ball. Coat it with sugar until a visible layer of granulation appears; be generous with your sugar coating! This will give the cookie some extra crunch and make it prettier after baking.
[6] Place the sugar-coated dough ball onto a baking sheet coated with parchment paper. Repeat this process until the sheet is covered with dough balls, about 2.5 inches apart. Using the bottom of a drinking cup (or your measuring cup!)
[7] Bake for 7 minutes. Rotate the pan 180 degrees. Bake for another 4 minutes; the total baking time should be 11 minutes. The cookies' edges should be set and may just begin to brown. Any more than that, and you've over baked them.
[8] Set cookies aside to cool, and then serve. Cookies are best eaten fresh, but you can keep them around for around 3 days before the chewiness disappears and the staleness kicks in.
