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Tale of 30 Cookies

So, my younger daughter is turning 11 this week. And part of having a birthday is that you get to bring in a treat for the whole class so that they can celebrate your birthday.

I agreed to make my famous chocolate chip cookies These cookies are so deliciously evil that I stopped making them. We just can't have them in the house.

Maggie asked me to make sure we had the ingredients for this variation on Toll House Cookies, and then it hit me: the cookies have ground up nuts in them. The hidden nuts lend an amazing texture to the cookies. But. You can't send a kid into school with cookies that have hidden nuts. What if someone is allergic? Even if you put a note on them that they have nuts, you can't guarantee every kid will get the message, or that the adults will pass it on. You'd hope they would, but who knows? Allergic kids are likely to avoid home baked goods, but again, who knows?

So, when you send in cookies you really should only have obvious ingredients, even though they can cause allergies. Flour, eggs, chocolate, dairy... Those are things everyone expects in chocolate chip cookies.

So I used a recipe that was limited to the usual ingredients. Alton Brown's "Chewy."

I needed 30 cookies. The recipe said it made 2 1/2 dozen. Perfect!

It has to chill in the fridge, so I started working on it around 10 PM. I know - that's late, but I figured I'd be OK. It doesn't take long to bake cookies, I figured I'd start around midnight and be done by 1. No problem.

The first problem

When I completed the cookie dough, it looked more like the dough of 20 cookies, not 30. It's measured out in 1.5 ounce scoops, so I had every reason to trust the recipe, but my eyeballs told me I'd be in trouble if I didn't make more dough. Luckily, Maggie had gotten twice the chocolate I needed. No problem.

The second problem

I set out to halve the recipe. I melted the butter and began to cream the sugar into the butter. Oh. Wait. I didn't halve the brown sugar. Crap. I looked at the mixture. So far, it was only butter and sugar. I figured that if I took half of that mixture out and replaced it with half of the butter in the recipe, that'd be like taking out half the sugar. Right?

Yes, it is right. But it is the wrong thing to do. Because I was now being less careful, so instead of weighing the whole mixture and halving that, I eyeballed it.

What I should have done was said "oh well!" added some melted butter and proceed to make another whole batch instead of a half batch. You can always give some cookies away. But I thought extra cookies would be a mistake. Silly me.

The third problem

I didn't know it at the time, but I used the wrong flour. The recipe calls for bread flour, which is odd; I don't expect that in a cookie. For the second batch I reached for the all purpose flour.

The fourth problem

I added the baking soda to the liquid instead of the dry ingredients. I have no idea why; I have never done such a thing before. So, I hurried up and stirred the dry and liquid together. It was a bit thin. I tried to add flout and sugar. Eyeballing it. It looked better.

Everything went into the fridge for a good chill.

I returned around 1. Yeah, I was late getting back to the kitchen, what can I say?

I baked up the first batch. Wow! They were perfect. My new-ish aluminum pans are much better than my old thin ones. The cookies browned evenly. Chicago Metallic. They weren't expensive, either, considering. And I used my new (Xmas gift) Silpat so that I only had to use half the parchment paper. Love the Silpat pan liner.

Things were going smoothly. The first dough batch did indeed run out at 2 dozen. More than 20, but fewer than 30. I knew it!

I started with the second dough batch.

Epic Fail

These did not bake up into cookies. They baked down into flat, crispy, chocolaty messes. I couldn't even get them off the Silpat in one piece. After trying to bake a few of these cookie abominations, I realized that I was short 6 cookies.

My mind returned to earlier that evening when my daughter was telling me how happy she was that I was baking the cookies for her class and how good they were going to be. Etc. Etc. And thanking me. And such. It was 2:30 AM.

In for a penny, in for a pound, as our friend Manny would always say. Time to start another half batch with the remaining chocolate.

The fifth problem

Not quite enough chocolate left for a half batch. I must have gone slightly heavy on the chocolate in Batch #2. And there was some raiding of the pantry before bed. The culprit will remain nameless, but I will say that I tried to hide the chocolate and that plan failed miserably. We'll leave it at that.

I still had unbaked batter that was full of chocolate, so my clean fingers carefully picked some morsels from the unbakeable batter.

I mixed up the half batch. Carefully this time. And chilled it. And waited.

At 3:45 or so I rushed it to the oven. It was chilled enough.

Success! They look great, just like the first batch. I hope they taste as good as they look.

Now I am waiting for the cookies to cool enough to put into a bag. And, actually, I think they're ready.

It is 4:30 AM.

See you later today.

Technorati : cookies, disaster, kitchen, mishaps, recipes

Posted by James at June 2, 2008 4:37 AM
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