General Baking Tips

I know that a little bit of magic is responsible for my cookies turning out as well as they do. Or maybe you could call it "love." But there are some practical things I do that many home bakers don't do, and these things make for a better cookie:

1. Weigh ingredients. Especially flour and eggs. A cup of flour is 5 oz. One large egg (cracked) is 1.75 oz.
2. Rotate the baking pan half-way through. 
3. Do not over-bake. It takes some practice to know when to take cookies out of the oven. When in doubt, err on the side of too soon. An under-baked cookie tastes way better than an over-baked one (most of the time).
4. Taste nuts, especially walnuts, before adding them to the batter. Rancid walnuts are gross and are probably a big part of why kids (and adults) think they don't like nuts in cookies. I get mine in bulk at the co-op and store them in the fridge.
5. Always toast nuts before adding them to the batter. So much more flavor that way.
6. Use parchment paper. Then you don't have to deal with greasing cookie sheets or scraping ruined cookies off the pan. I save the used parchment paper and use it again on similar-smelling cookies.
7. Use good butter (like Hope Creamery). And please don't use Crisco. 
8. Use good chocolate. The best chocolate chips I have found are Ghirardelli 60%. And I've tried a lot of chocolate chips. 
9. Use an oven thermometer. Seriously.
10. Enjoy it.

I'll probably think of more. And maybe I'll write little posts explaining why each of these things is important. 

Conversions

This post is mostly for my own reference, since I'm sick of looking this stuff up everything I mess with a recipe. Basically, volume measurements are unreliable. I want to be able to reproduce my recipes nearly exactly, so I convert volume measurements to weight instead. I'll be adding to this.

Ingredient	Volume	Weight
All-purpose flour	1 cup	5 oz
Granulated sugar	1 cup	7 oz
Brown sugar, packed	1 cup	7 oz
Egg, large, whole	1 egg	1.75 oz
Egg, large, white	1 egg white	1.05 oz
Egg, large, yolk	1 egg yolk	0.6 oz

Green tea cake

Some friends are having a Japanese-themed birthday party and asked me to bake a cake. No further instruction or suggestion beyond "awesome." So, I'm making green tea cake. I practiced today so I don't bring something inedible to the party.

Recipe attempt #1
Loosely adapted from Cook's Illustrated's fluffy yellow layer cake recipe.
10.9 oz. cake flour
3 Tbsp corn starch
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
4 Tb powdered buttermilk
4 tsp matcha
1 3/4 cups sugar
10 Tb butter, melted and cooled a bit
1 cup water, lukewarm
3 Tb vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
6 egg yolks (about 3.75 oz)
3 egg whites (about 3.15 oz)

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare two nine-inch round cake pans by greasing the bottoms and sides, cutting a round of parchment paper for the bottoms, greasing the paper, and flouring the inside of the pans.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, powdered buttermilk, matcha and 1 1/2 cups of the sugar in a large bowl. Set aside.

Combine butter, water, oil, vanilla, and egg yolks in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Whip the egg whites in a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until foamy. Gradually add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar, then whip until the whites hold a stiff peak. Transfer the whites to a bowl.

Without bothering to clean the mixer bowl, dump in the flour mixture. Running the whisk on low, add the butter mixture gradually, then mix until just combined. Scrape the sides and mix until all the flour is incorporated (10-15 seconds).

With a rubber spatula, fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to lighten the mixture. Then carefully fold in the rest of the whites until there are no more streaks of white.

Split the batter between the two prepared cake pans. Tap the pans against the counter to release air bubbles.

Bake about 25 minutes, rotating the pans half way through. Cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove the cake from the pans and cool on rack completely.

Frosting

I used Cook's Illustrated's creamy vanilla frosting, plus a teaspoon of matcha.


Problems

I think I over-beat the egg whites a bit, which made them difficult to fold in. But it doesn't seem like this had an impact on the texture of the cake.

I might up the amount of matcha. The batter was a lovely green, but it didn't taste much like green tea. After tasting the actual cake, I think I'll add a teaspoon more.

The side/bottom of the cake is a tiny bit crunchy. I think it will soften after sitting frosted a while, though. I baked the cake for a full 25 minutes. Next time, just 23.

I halved the recipe to just make half a cake (cut it in half and stuck one half on top the other). I also halved the frosting, but it wasn't enough. I'm a bit worried about making this frosting, which CI published alongside a cupcake recipe, since it might not cover. Haven't decided yet what I'm going to do about that.

Snickerdoodles! (Part 2)

Yep. This is the recipe for snickerdoodles (which I've decided not to capitalize).

Jessica's snickerdoodles

14.25 oz all-purpose flour
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks of butter (8 oz), room temperature or slightly cooler
10.6 oz sugar
2 large eggs (3.4 oz)
1.5 tsp vanilla
1 Tb ground cinnamon
1.25 oz sugar

Preheat the oven to 400° and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix well to combine. Add the half the flour mixture, mix to combine, then add the rest and mix until all the flour is incorporated. Refrigerate the dough for any amount of time you feel like. Even just 5 minutes makes for a puffier cookie. But the cookies will still be good even if you don't refrigerate the dough. EDIT: I made them again, refrigerating the dough for an hour before baking. DO THIS. It makes a huge difference. The cookies turned out more perfectly than I even thought possible. Everyone at Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house agreed.

The dough for the cookie on the left was not refrigerated.
The dough for the cookie on the right was in the fridge for just 5 to 10 minutes.

Mix together the cinnamon and sugar. Roll 1-inch balls of dough in the cinnamon sugar and place on a baking sheet (I fit 12 on a half sheet pan). Bake for 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheet half way through. Remove from the oven and immediately transfer the cookies to a rack to cool.

They're delicious. Obviously. :)

Pound Cake

The last time I can remember having pound cake was the Sara Lee variety and about 15 years ago. I loved it. I have no idea why I have never made it or even bought it since then. I made this one from the Cook's Illustrated recipe, and I don't want to wait for it to cool to taste it. But I'm going to. Hooray for self-restraint!

I'm going to have it tomorrow with Jacques Pepin's recipe for caramelized peaches (which someone has shared with the world here). I've been dreaming of making that since I saw him do it on Fast Food My Way a couple years ago. Again, no excuse for never having made it.

Early American apple grunt

I bought a bag of Haralson apples at the Wedge this morning, and I spent a good half hour searching for apple dessert recipes before deciding to whip up this super easy apple upside-down cake from Beatrice Ojakangas' Great Old-Fashioned American Desserts. I got this cookbook for my mom a long time ago, stole it from her, and have since lost it. Or maybe I gave it back to her. Either way, I'm grateful that this particular recipe isn't hidden in the Google Book. The only change I made to the recipe was to add 1/2 tsp. of vanilla to the batter, so I'm not going to type it out here.

I just ate three pieces. Three. As in, a third of the entire dessert. Now I'm eating a plain apple because I have this theory that apples erase bad eating choices. But the reason I ate three pieces, besides being that I have no self control and am incapable of practicing the kind of moderation I aspire to, is that it's simply delicious. Also, I have a feeling it tastes best warm, so I wanted to take advantage of its just-out-of-the-oven-ness.

Thankfully, my mom, dad, and sister came over and finished it off so I didn't gain ten pounds in one day. They liked it.

Peanut butter-filled chocolate cookies

Yep. Yum.

I made these for Karly's housewarming party tonight. They're kind of a lot of work, especially compared to the drop cookies I normally make, but they're worth it for a special occasion.

Peanut butter-filled chocolate cookies
Adapted from Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Cookies

Makes 32 cookies. But 30 fit perfectly onto two half sheet pans, so you'll eat two raw ones. Beware of salmonella!

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup peanut butter (I used Maranatha, creamy with salt)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

3/4 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter

Cream the butter, sugars, and peanut butter until light. You'll actually see the color lighten as more air is incorporated. Add the egg and vanilla and mix to combine. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl and then mix that into the butter-sugar mixture. The dough will be really stiff, so finish with a wooden spoon if your hand mixer can't handle it.

Mix together the powdered sugar and 1/2 cup peanut butter. It's not a big deal if you get proportion of sugar to peanut butter exactly right; I had to add more peanut butter to get it to combine.

Preheat oven to 350°. Divide the cookie dough into 32 balls, about 1 1/4 inches in diameter. Do the same with the peanut butter mixture, about 3/4 inches in diameter. Flatten a dough ball in the palm of your hand, place a peanut butter ball on top, and fold the cookie dough over the peanut butter to enclose. Roll the mixture into a ball, and set on a non-greased cookie sheet. Parchment paper isn't necessary, as these release easily. Do the same with the rest of the dough. Flatten each ball by pressing on it with a drinking glass dipped in sugar (press the cookie first to get the sugar to stick to the glass).

Bake for eight minutes, rotating the tray half way through. Leave on the cookie sheet for about a minute to set more, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Enjoy!

butter | cranberry white chocolate oat scone

OK, maybe I went to two bakeries this morning. I couldn't help but stop at butter on my way back from Patisserie 46. It's just up the street.

The girl who helped me wasn't tremendously helpful with suggestions. She actually said, "I try to be good," when I asked her what her favorite thing is. The idea of working at a bakery or cafe or bakery-cafe and not trying the food is so strange to me. Anyway, I chose a cranberry white chocolate oat scone.

It's OK. I keep eating it, even though I don't love it. The cranberries are craisins, the white chocolate is sparse, and the oats don't seem to contribute much (maybe chewiness, but I haven't had one of their scones without oats, so I can't say). It's got some kind of sugary egg wash that makes it too sweet. Overall, meh. I'm not going to finish it.

I'll probably try something else from butter, though. The cinnamon biscuits in the case this morning looked good.

Patisserie 46 | Bressane and two macarons

A bressane from Patisserie 46

I rode my bike to Patisserie 46 this morning and got myself a bressane and two macarons.

The bressane was delicious. The person who helped me described this as brioche with creme fraiche, and cursory Googling doesn't bring up much. Whatever it was, I liked it. I loved the fluffy interior with its buttery flavor and the crunchy, lightly sugar-coated crust. I will be getting this again.

A caramel and a coconut-mango-passionfruit (I think) macaron from Patisserie 46

I also got a couple macarons, but I think I'm a bad judge of these things. I just don't really like them. Too sweet and grainy in texture. They seem to be all the rage, however. I've only had them from here and from Sweets Bakeshop, and I didn't notice any major difference in quality.

Snickerdoodles!

Aaron says his favorite cookies are Snickerdoodles, so I added them to the menu for his friend Andy's birthday party tonight. I got up at 6:30 a.m. to bake them, and I plan to spend many more mornings baking. It's a lovely way to start the day.

These turned out extremely tasty, but very flat. Possible culprits:

1. Flour. As in, not enough flour. I've been suspecting this as the cause of my recent flat-cookie syndrome, so I've started measuring by weight instead of volume (1 cup of flour = 4.41 oz). I now suspect that modern recipes may be intentionally under-doing it on the flour with the thinking that modern home bakers measure by scooping into a compacted bag of flour. Next time I make these, I'll add an extra two ounces of flour and see what happens.
2. Warm dough. Next time, I'll refrigerate half the dough for a few hours before baking to compare. 

Despite the flatness, a lot of things aren't wrong about these cookies: not too sweet, not overpoweringly cinnamon-y, not tough, not cakey, not dry. They're chewy with a little crunch on the edges, full of buttery flavor, and generally delicious. Recipe after the break.

White chocolate macadamia nut cookies: recipe challenge

I made white chocolate macadamia nut cookies a couple years ago for a co-worker's birthday, but I have no recollection of what recipe I used. I have a vague memory of being adamantly opposed to just using a chocolate chip cookie recipe and swapping white for semi-sweet chocolate and macadamia nuts for walnuts. For some reason, I felt strongly that white chocolate macadamia nut cookies must be a jumble cookie.

But I'm fairly certain that the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies I ate recently and almost died from did contain brown sugar.

So: a challenge. I shall make one version in a jumble and one in a traditional chocolate chip cookie recipe.

Chocolate croissant and monkey bread from the Wedge

I stayed home sick today and decided to venture a couple blocks away to the Wedge to buy ingredients for lemon lentil spinach soup. As always happens, I ended up with more than was on my list.

I stood in front of the sweets case at the deli for about five minutes, but none of that stuff looked appealing to me. I don't know why, but that happens every time I go to the Wedge. Maybe I'm afraid that everything is too sweet. Maybe all of it just seems too decadent. Eventually, I want to try one of their cupcakes to see if they're not horrible, but I don't have high hopes. It seems like all bakery cupcakes are horrible.

Anyway, I headed toward the registers by passing the bread area and was unable to resist a chocolate croissant and a monkey bread. I fought with myself about it for about three minutes.

The chocolate croissant was really good. Light, crispy texture without being dry; buttery flavor to the pastry; rich, not-too-sweet, smooth chocolate. I should do a head-to-head of chocolate croissants in the area to be sure, but I think this is my favorite one.

The monkey bread was much better than I expected it to be. It was perfect. The size of the pull-off pieces was just right (about half a tablespoon), and nearly every piece had a mixture of textures—tender interior, slightly chewy/crispy exterior where the sugars caramelized. The dough was buttery without being greasy, until I got to the pool of butter in the bottom of the cupcake liner. It was sweet and cinnamon-y in a delicate way. It will be a serious challenge not to buy one of these every time I'm at the Wedge. I almost want to walk over and get another one right now.

I asked a woman working behind the deli counter if they bake everything there, and she said yes. I asked if they bake overnight, and she said no, they simply have a super-efficient crew of bakers who start at 4:00 a.m. I think I'll write to them to see if I could either work part-time or volunteer 4:00–8:00 a.m. a couple mornings a week.

German chocolate sheet cake

I've never been a big fan of German chocolate cake. When I was a kid, it was because of the pecans in the topping. Nuts in desserts always made me angry. Now, it's because… I'm not sure. The cake is rather boring, with a dull, generic chocolate flavor. The topping is too sweet. Now, the pecans in the topping are probably my favorite part of the whole cake.

It's not something I would ever choose for myself. But my Auntie Barb requested it for her birthday, and I was happy to oblige. I found a recipe for it on Cook's Illustrated and got to work on Sunday morning.

The cake was fun to make, and the batter tasted amazing. Velvety and tangy. It turned out thicker than it was supposed to because I used Nancy's sour cream, which is almost the consistency of cream cheese. I think this contributed to the long baking time it required. I ended up pulling it out of the oven before the middle was actually done because the sides were over baking.

I still didn't like the cake, but other people seemed to. If I were to attempt it again, I would make these changes:

• Use regular sour cream
• Add maybe half a cup of dark, chopped chocolate or chocolate chips to the batter
• Use hot coffee instead of boiling water (to pour over and melt the chocolate and cocoa)
• Reduce the granulated sugar in the topping from 1 cup to 1/2 cup
• Broil the topping (need to buy a metal 9" x 13" pan, first

I doubt that I will attempt it again any time soon, though. Too many other things I'd rather make. 

Alton Brown's The Puffy

I already have a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It's this. But Aaron's friends Jeff and Leon requested super-soft chocolate chip cookies for their birthday party, and that recipe is crispy-chewy, not super-soft.

I remembered watching an episode of Good Eats where Alton played with chocolate chip cookie techniques and ingredients to create different styles of cookie. I easily tracked down the recipe and made them.

Commenters on the recipe at the Food Network site complained of two main things: the cookies aren't actually puffy, and they're too sweet. I found the first to be very true. They weren't puffy at all. They were soft, though, so I successfully fulfilled the birthday request. As to the second complaint, I often think baked goods are too sweet. These cookies weren't. They had a nice saltiness to balance out the sweetness. It probably helped that I always use a fairly dark semi-sweet chocolate chip (Guittard in the bulk bin).

I still prefer the crispy-chewy chocolate chip cookies I found on Smitten Kitchen last year, but The Puffy is a good alternative for folks who like a softer cookie.

Ultimate chocolate cupcakes with ganache filling and creamy malted milk chocolate frosting

I made Cook's Illustrated's Ultimate chocolate cupcakes with ganache filling with creamy malted milk chocolate frosting for Aaron's birthday party, and while gorging on the frosting decided that it’s what I want to eat right before I die. These cupcakes make me so angry at all other cupcakes for being inferior. I don’t understand why, if cupcakes can taste like this, anyone puts up with cupcakes that:

• Have a huge, chewy, muffin-like crumb
• Have sandy, greasy frosting
• Are way way way too sweet
• Look infinitely better than they taste
• Are dry
• Taste like chemicals
• Taste like nothing

My love for these cupcakes has shot my future-plan of being a baker to the head of the list of options. Seriously. I’m going to look for a job in a bakery.