A Baking Question.

[fings]

I decided to try making one of my holiday favorites tonight: Cream Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookies.

And they came out good, but not as supercalorificexpealidoecious as my Uncle George's.

I have noticed before in my chocolate chip cookies, too often the chips come out soft (after the cookies have cooled), unlike the hard little bits of chocolate they were going in. I want them to remain hard/crunchy, not become tender/flakey. These cookies I baked 15 minutes at 350F.

What should I try next time, to get them to come out the way I like? Bake slower at lower temperature? Faster at higher? Freeze the semi-sweet morsels ahead of time? Try a different brand of chocolate (these are Nestle Toll House)?

(I'll be bringing most of these in to work, but not to worry yolen, I'll save a few in the refrigerator for you.)

Comments

[stoopidfresh.livejournal.com]

dude, they sound goooood.

email me one, will ya?

yes..

[paulisdead.livejournal.com]

Please Wonka-vision one over to me.

I don't think i've ever seen homemade cookies that didn't turn out the way you mention. I always figured it was because big corporations have special strange choco-chemicals on hand.

If you figure out an answer, please post about it!

[retch.livejournal.com]

Ok, the way you get hard chocolate is by tempering it, which I believe is a low temperature process, i.e. incompatible with baking the cookies. So I don;t think it is possible. You let the cookies harden, right, that's a multi-hour process for the chocolate to cool down and become completely solid again...

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

You're right- tempering is a low temp process that will give you a hardened chocolate after melting. It's used for dipping and drizzling. It won't work for baking.

The problem with the chips is that Hershey's and Nestle's both do things to their chips to keep them soft and gooey because that's what consumer panels have been shown to want.

The two best chocolates for cookies of the type fings wants to get are Guittard and Merckens, both of which are available through King Arthur Flour Company (http://shop.bakerscatalogue.com/items/catC162subC163.html).

Also, invest in a decent ($10-$15 range) oven temp gauge to make certain your oven is reaching the temperature you are setting it at. That can be a major cause of all types of weird baking failures. No baking stones for cookies unless you preheat them.

Consider using the chunk chocolate instead of chips, as well. It holds form and crunch (so to speak) better than chips.

Good luck! =)

I can't remember how close to where I live you are, but if Somerville isn't far from you, there's a store there that sells Merckens. It's called 'Candyland Crafts' and it's at the end of the main drag in the Granetz Building near the library.

[fings.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'll look for the chocolate you mentioned.

Putting the cookies in the refrigerator overnight did help.

Chocolate in Cookies

[fenowyn.livejournal.com]

It does sound as if you're running into trouble with the tempering of the chocolate. Here's how chocolate melting/tempering works/what it's all about... When you buy chocolate in a bar, it's already tempered. This is a process by which the crystalline structure is formed carefully and uniformly throughout the chocolate, and that crystalline structure gives the chocolate its satiny color, its snap and also allows it to set up at room temperature. Chocolate contains crystals that melt in a range from just above room temperature all the way up to 120 F (for dark chocolate). At 120, you've melted all or nearly all of the crystals in the chocolate (in the form of cocoa butter in more expensive chocolates and couvertures, and vegetable oils and other fun stuff in cheaper brands.) Once those crystals have been melted, in order to get the chocolate to set up at room temperature in a reasonable amount of time (a couple minutes versus a couple days), the chocolatier needs to lower the temperature into the range where crystals will begin to form (around 85-87 F), and agitate the chocolate so that seed crystals will form, and be distributed through the chocolate.

Now obviously, you can't agitate the chocolate inside the cookies, and you can't keep the temperature low enough to keep the chocolate from going out of temper and still have your cookies bake. And although I positively *adore* Scharffen Berger chocolate (their current batch of 62% Cacao has a marvelous cherry taste right now) I have used it to make cookies, and yes, the chocolate stays a runny mess on the inside of the cookies.

I know this may sound like heresy, but you may want to go in the other direction with this from what other folks have said. The more expensive chocolates like Guittard and Scharffen Berger use a high percentage of cocoa butter, which makes them suitable for forming chocolates, but probably isn't necessary for cookies. You may actually have more success by finding a cheaper brand of chocolate chips, like the generic/store brands. Or, another possibility is to find some Wilton Melting Chocolates (Michaels Craft store ususally carries these) which are specifically formulated to be easy to mold and don't require the careful handling of regular chocolate.

The last thought is to make sure your oven is preheated and make small cookies. Those could feasably cook fast enough that the heat wouldn't fully penetrate the chocolate, and if there's a solid bit in the center, it should be able to build a crystal off that.

Hope this helps!

[retch.livejournal.com]

The problem with the chips is that Hershey's and Nestle's both do things to their chips to keep them soft and gooey because that's what consumer panels have been shown to want.

ewwww, I didn't notice he was using Nestle Toll House chips!

Yes, if you are going through the effort of baking your own, getting decent chocolate is a must.

I use Scharffenberger Bittersweet (70% cacoa, 10 oz bar) and Ghirardelli White (4oz bar) in what is otherwise basically the Toll House recipe (but with much better ingredients like european style butter and high quality vanilla) with different proportions (less baking soda, more vanilla extract, a bit more chocolate). Freeze the bar to make it shatterable, pound into a mixture of small chunks and chocolate dust with a heavy object (back side of a cleaver works well, as does a hammer from the toolbox),blend into the dough. Tastes delicious and leaves these awesome looking brown and white streaks all over the bottom of the cookies when they are done baking.

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

You sound like me with how you bake. Twice the vanilla (which I get from Penzeys), best butter I can find, etc. You work harder on your chocolate that I do, though. I do use Ghirardelli chips, though.

I think it was Cook's Illustrated that reviewed Scharffenberger and didn't find it worth the price differential, so I haven't tried it yet. I'll have to find that article. If you like it, though, I'll give it a try since you have obvious cooking sense from everything else you've said. ;)

[retch.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I just splash the vanilla in in large quantities because I love the taste... :) It is very much a by eye sort of thing ('maybe just one more splash over there...')

All the ~10oz bars of chocolate seem to cost fairly close at Whole Foods, Scharffenberger was actually cheaper than the other choice, on the occasions where this is another choice, heh. :)

I like starting with the bars, I used to use chips, but I found that the irregular chunks from shattering the bars are nice and I can't believe how pretty the brown and white streaks and swirls on the base of the cookies look.

Good butter is key too, the difference in the taste, and the appearance of the tops of the cookie is dramatic just between normal and european style butter. I always use European now.

:)

mmm cookies. I have all the ingredients in the house... Must be good, must be good. lol.

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

I suppose it would be very bad of me to say that I was just at Wegmans today to buy things for holiday cookies, then?

Oops- too late! >;P

[retch.livejournal.com]

:)

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

Ah- you're a West Coast guy. Well, having not been to the homeland recently, I can't say what compares to Wegmans. Nothing? Larry's is somewhat like it, but I don't know if they are where you are, and Wegman's is even better if you love to cook.

It's sort of like if Whole Foods had started in NY a hundred years ago and still wanted to be your family grocer. Most of the people who shop there a price-conscious liberals who will blow the budget for a good epicurean delight. They have awesome staples and then all these little markets that make a cook or baker do the SQUEE dance for hours... Of course, if you just wanted to look good and be pretentious, they could cater for you, too.

I run those people down "by accident" with my cart on a routine basis.

[yolen.livejournal.com]

Yay, cookies =D!!

[lousy-timing.livejournal.com]

Well said!

You know, when I replied to this, your user avatar and fings came up together... They look very nice like that. =)

[yolen.livejournal.com]

Yes, aren't we *cute*?! =)