Oh, How the Cookie Crumbles

Today, I bring you the next adventure in my Quest for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe search.

I tried another recipe that was given to me recently by my Aunt Jean. I think it may be my Grandmother's recipe, which I've written about before. Let me just say immediately that these turned out NOTHING like how my grandma's did.  I have many several reasons in my mind as to why that could be, but let's back up a bit first.

Mixing up another batch!

First, in looking at this recipe, I noticed that it was almost identical to the recipe I had tried last weekend. The differences were that this recipe included slightly more flour, slightly more of both sugars, slightly more baking soda, slightly more salt, and half as much vanilla. When I say slightly, I really do mean very slight differences of each of these ingredients. The proportions were very, very similar in both recipes.

The biggest problem I have dealt with so far in making any of these recipes is that I do not have butter flavored crisco or Nucoa brand margarine on hand. Almost every recipe specifically calls for one or both of those ingredients. I do have a large tub of regular crisco, and I hate to waste, so I've been using that. And, I have regular unsalted butter that I've been using instead of nucoa or margarine of any kind. To make matters even worse, the butter I'm currently trying to use up is generic store brand that I bought at the local gas station convenience store because I needed it for something else. Not to be all baking-goods-snobby, but I do believe quality (sometimes expensive) name brand ingredients make a difference when baking. Again, I hate to waste, so we're just going to suffer through for a while longer. And, I live an hour from the grocery store.

Moving on.

Today was not the day to get all experimenty with this recipe, but I did it anyway. I used 1/4 cup of almond flour in place of regular flour when I mixed up the batter. And, I decided to use 1 1/2 teaspoons of almond flavoring, too. The batter smelled really heavenly and I was really excited to bake these up!

Using a fancy schmancy cookie scoop! (Thanks, Carol!)

I formed the dough using a cookie scoop Carol had sent over a few days prior and placed the round balls on my trusty air bake pans, and into the oven went the first batch.

This is what came out of the oven, twelve minutes later:

Super flat, crispy, simultaneously burnt and undercooked, and they didn't scrape off the pan without breaking!

Yikes.

I did salvage some of the cookies from the first tray.
This picture makes it look like they're in jail, which is how I feel about them anyway. 

These were just as bad as the very first batch I made, following the recipe from the back of the chocolate chip cookie bag. I already had dough on my second pan, so the first two pans both turned out sad and holey. Pictures don't do justice to how crispy and crunchy these were.

Sad, broken cookies. This is how the cookie crumbles, folks.

That's when I nearly lost it. I was so excited for this batch of cookies, but they were turning out terrible! Jeff, the ever-eager cookie sampler, tried one with me and we both agreed that they tasted terrible, too! bleh. I was trying to continue scraping cookie parts off the pan, but they kept breaking or sticking to the pan and making a mess. I was getting really frustrated then, so I turned off the oven in a huff and attempted to put plastic wrap on the remaining dough, but it kept sticking to itself instead of the bowl... By now, I felt like nothing was going right at all and I myself was teetering on the edge of a chocolate chip cookie meltdown!

Jeff, my ever patient husband, was trying to help me figure out why they weren't working and eventually suggested we try adding extra flour to the dough. Perhaps we should have made adjustments for high altitude? There was nothing to lose at this point, so we added another quarter cup of flour and two teaspoons of water, and tried another batch in the oven.

These came out a little bit better. They held together better, but still spread out quite a bit and were very crispy.

After adding more flour, the cookies held together better.

We decided to add more flour still, and try again. This result was the best tray of cookies so far, although they still didn't taste great, and were still really crispy.

So, this was the first of what I would consider to be a true bust in my Quest. You know it's bad if Jeff hasn't come back to sneak any more cookies throughout the day.

Thoughts as to why these turned out so bad:

• Almond flour maybe isn't exactly interchangeable with regular flour, even though the package says it is.
• A little bit of almond flavoring goes a LOOOOOONG way!
• Once again, altitude seems to make a difference. Recipes that I get from my friends and family in the Midwest will likely need to be adjusted.
• I didn't use butter flavored crisco, or nucoa, as the recipe suggested.

I decided to research the altitude thing a bit more and dug out my trusty High Altitude Baking book to see what they say about cookies. The book suggests that most baking recipes will need to be adjusted for altitude at 3500 feet above sea level. That's pretty much exactly our altitude, so it makes sense that some recipes would need to be tweaked. Here's an excerpt:

Cookies: Although many sea level cookie recipes yield acceptable results at high altitudes, they often can be improved by a slight increase in baking temperature; a slight decrease in baking powder or baking soda, fat and/or sugar; and/or a slight increase in liquid ingredients and flour.

So then I went back and compared this recipe to the one I did last week. Remember how I said they were almost identical? If you take the suggestions from High Altitude Baking and apply them to the recipe I used today, you'd pretty much end up with the recipe I tried last week. Interesting, no? Once again, we've more or less proved that altitude DOES make a difference! Not that that excuses my almond obsession for these cookies, or the fact that I had the wrong fats...

With each addition of flour to the cookie dough, the cookies held together better and better.
Can you tell which cookie was baked first, second, and last?

Better luck next time! Thanks go to Jeff for keeping me sane! I definitely owe him some better cookies, and SOON! :)

The Quest Continues

Ask and you shall receive, folks!

A few posts ago, I wrote about not really having a great chocolate chip cookie recipe, and also not really having the experience to execute a good chocolate chip cookie recipe, as of yet. You can read about it here: http://prairieponderingsmt.blogspot.com/2014/11/quest-for-best-chocolate-chip-cookie.html.

Since that post, I've received A TON of chocolate chip cookie-related tips and advice, as well as a slew of recipes to try. With Jeff's vigorous encouragement, I'm planning to try out each recipe that comes to me in my Quest For The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie.

With that, this weekend's attempt is a recipe I received from a local Hi-Line friend and neighbor. With no plans to travel at all this weekend, and my normal three-day weekend (Thank you, four-day school week!) I set to work on Friday for this batch of cookies.

The recipe is not exotic by any means, but was definitely different from the one I had previously used-- called for more eggs, crisco instead of butter, more vanilla... things like that. Also, a lower baking temperature.

The result was definitely closer to what I think I'm looking for in a cookie. Right out of the oven, it was soft and chewy, not crispy like the last two batches. The overall texture of the cookie was better all around, I think.

The biggest detractor, in my opinion, was that the cookie didn't have as much flavor outside of the chocolate chips. I think this is because I used the wrong type of crisco. It specifically states to use butter-flavored crisco on the recipe, but I didn't have that, so I actually used a combination of actual butter and regular crisco. Out of 1 1/2 cups of fat called for, I used 1 cup crisco and 1/2 cup unsalted butter. To me, the cookies tasted more like regular crisco than butter. I am planning on picking up some butter-flavored crisco at the store next time I go, and will try again, but now I do have a large tub of normal crisco, so I'll likely continue to use it over time.

Another detractor was that even though the cookies were soft and moist on the first day, by now, Saturday evening, they're not soft anymore. I didn't leave them out on the counter or anything--they're in a tupperware--but they're just not as soft. Jeff told me they were still excellent for dipping into coffee, however.

Something else I experimented with this time was baking surface. Because there was so much cookie dough and I wanted to keep things rolling, I used a jelly roll pan in addition to my two airbake cookie sheets. The airbake sheet cookies were more evenly cooked, while those on the brown jelly roll pan were crisper and sort of burnt on the bottom and edges. So, that debate is settled. Airbake it is!

Still working on getting them more uniform in size. Probably should invest in a cookie scoop.

So what does a person need to do to get a cookie that remains soft? More research is needed, to be sure! Jeff said these cookies overall were great, but that I shouldn't be afraid to continue my research. Luckily, this recipe made a monstrous amount of cookies, so we'll have plenty left to continue to sample and debate over. ;)

I have already received three more cookie recipes, with two more people saying they have a couple they'd like to share with me. So far, no two recipes are the same. So interesting how there can be so much variation! Not to mention, I have a few things I'd like to experiment with myself, such as use of different flours-- whole wheat flour, almond flour, and use of flax seed meal or oats. My Aunt also sent me a more unconventional recipe for chocolate chip cookies that I'm anxious to try-- calls for applesauce. And, I found a very interesting recipe online that I'd like to try that also has a very big surprise twist ingredient!

Stay tuned and keep checking in as the quest continues!

Quest for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

With the kids that I work with at school, they have a reward system for good behavior. One of the prizes they can earn is a plate of cookies made by me. So far, that has been the choice prize of the Eighth Grade Class. I've now baked three plates of cookies for these kids. I told them they could choose whatever kind of cookies they want, and I'd bake them.

Two out the three who have earned a plate of cookies so far have requested chocolate chip. As I was mixing up the first batch about a week ago, it dawned on me that I have never actually made chocolate chip cookies before! Because of this, I didn't really have a go-to recipe, so I just went with the recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips. Trial by fire!

As soon as I took the first tray out of the oven, I knew this was not the right recipe.

They're flat, overly crispy, came out with holes in the middle, and stuck to the pan horribly. Something was wrong. I looked over the recipe again and discovered down at the bottom in teeny tiny print the adjustments for high altitude, and for leaving out the walnuts that the recipe calls for. Oops!

I picked out twelve or so of the least-offensive looking cookies and wrapped them up on a plate for the student, explaining that it was actually my first time making chocolate chip cookies. She didn't seem to broken up-- I think she was just happy for some free food!

Even though I was disappointed with my novice chocolate chip cookie attempt, Jeff encouraged me to keep practicing. He graciously offered to taste-test as many trial batches of cookies I thought were required until I found the right recipe. He even helped eat a few of that first ill-fated batch, you know, because we can't give away the broken ones. He pointed out that they still tasted fine, and the texture was not offensive when dipped into a warm mug of coffee.

This weekend, I tried again, using the same recipe on this time making the high altitude and no-nuts adjustments. The result was a much better cookie, aesthetically.

This time, they held together way better, didn't stick to the pan at all, and were a little softer. I'm much happier with presenting these cookies to the world, or at least to another Eighth Grader. Jeff tasted them and said they were fine, but that I could continue to do some research if I wanted to, and he'd continue to make the great sacrifice of trying sample after sample.

Even though I like how these ones turned out better than the first batch, they're still not the perfect chocolate chip cookies I have in my mind. When I think about the best-ever chocolate chip cookies I've eaten in the past, I think about a cookie that's softer still than these, and lighter in color, smoother in texture. I think of my Grandma Adam's chocolate chip cookies, and I also think of the chocolate chip cookies from Cookies, Etc. in North Grand Mall in Ames, IA. Those are my standards.

Grandma's cookies are the chocolate chip cookie of my childhood. She used to always have some in the freezer, it seemed, and we could just grab one whenever. I remember them best as a frozen delight eaten right out of the tupperware. How did she get them all uniformly the same size? What did she do to make them taste so good? Mysteries I must get to the bottom of.

And Cookies, Etc. Oh, man, did I have A LOT of their cookies back in my college days when I worked at the mall. It was a standard on my fifteen minute break to walk over and buy a cookie. The chocolate chips were best, of course, when they were freshly baked. They were moist and delicious and had something different about them that I couldn't place for a long time, but now I wonder if it was almond flour, perhaps? I don't know. I see on their website that they will ship, so I may have to place an order. You know, for research purposes of course. I wonder if Jeff's taste-testing offer would extend to cookies not made by me?

In my first two attempts, I haven't come close yet to either of my two golden standards. But, I'm willing to put in the hard effort and repetitive task of trying recipe after recipe until I get it right. I'm sure Jeff won't mind, either. One thing I have learned so far is that at about 3500 feet, I am at just enough of an altitude to require adjustments to flour and other ingredients for a more successful cookie.

In order to find the most perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe, I'm willing to do what must be done. Practice and research must be performed. The right tools must be used. But first, I need a few more different recipes to try. If anyone has a favorite that they're willing to share, please send it my way! Likewise any tips, tricks, favorite brands of baking products, or family cookie-baking secrets. I'll take it all!

Stay tuned for further developments as the Quest for the Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe continues!