The Perfect Cookie

I cant believe I am blogging about cookies.  I'm on the 8th week of Weight Watchers and have lost 14 pounds!  How can I even be thinking about cookies!!!   

When you’re having a tough day, what can cheer you up better than a warm, freshly baked chocolate chip cookie? It's something about the comforting, nostalgic fragrance of the cookies baking — that buttery-rich scent wafting through the air and stirring up fond memories. (Young or old, who can stop themselves from drooling?)

The perfect cookie means something different to each person depending on whether you lean towards the crispy side or the soft, chewy side.  Not saying one is better than the other; in fact, both are pretty fantastic, it just depends on what you’re in the mood for.

This is what the experts say:

1. Invest in a Scale
It’s important to weigh ingredients in baking, and a scale allows you to make a more consistent product, something that is especially important in a bakery. But at home this is also something that can affect the outcome of a cookie recipe.

2. Dark Brown vs. Light Brown Sugar
Dark brown gives it an extra bit of density and allows it to rise a little more than when you use light brown sugar.

3. The Ingredients
The quality of your ingredients is a very important thing.  It’s important to use high-quality products and use a good quality chocolate.

4. Don’t Overmix
Use a very low mixing speed.  People think that you need to cream the butter, and if you do it so much that the sugar and butter become a spread, then that makes it flat.  It should still be pretty chunky, and you should see a decent amount of butter and sugar. At that point, add the eggs and the vanilla. You'll still see some chunks of butter, and that’s when it will start to get creamier. Always do this on a very low mixing speed, 30 seconds.

5. What Type of Mixer to Use
A  Kitchen Aid is the best if you have one (my daughter has mine).  If you don't have a Kitchen Aid you either mix by hand or use an hand mixer. Before Kitchen Aids were invented mixing was done by hand or in my generation with a hand mixer and the cookies were still yummy!

6. Silpat or Parchment
The experts recommend using parchment paper because it allows the cookies to bake better. I have always used a baking sheet, but maybe I should switch.

7. Type of Oven
While a convection oven is best because the fan really helps in baking, you need to learn your oven. No oven is perfect, so you need to understand your oven and that just because a recipe says to bake something at 325 degrees, it doesn’t mean you have to do it.

8. Baking
It’s super important to under bake your cookies just a little.  I personally don't like hard cookies, and if a recipe says to cook for 20 minutes, bake it until 18 minutes and see how it comes out. And that extra two minutes might be what makes it crispy and not so great.

9. Turn the Cookies
This is something that also needs to be done at home to ensure even baking.  In order to insure that the cookies in the back do not burn, you need to turn them.  (I never knew that)

10. Last Tips
Play around and have fun. Try incorporating some of your favorite ingredients into cookies and see what happens. Don’t think too much about it, they’re cookies after all.