What are you Baking the Week of October 24, 2021?

[BakerAunt]

I made dough for my Whole Wheat Sourdough Cheese Crackers on Thursday. I will bake the crackers next week.

[chocomouse]

I made 2 loaves of buttermilk oatmeal bread, with my usual substitutions. I also made pizza dough.

[BakerAunt]

I have been working, off and on, to develop a non-butter maple cookie over the past two years. I want a cookie that I can imprint with the Nordic Ware Halloween designs (or other cookie stamps). I baked my recipe again on Friday, but this time replaced the canola oil with avocado oil and added a tablespoon of milk powder. I also mixed the dry and wet ingredients as if I were making a pie crust, and that resulted--perhaps along with the avocado oil--in more of a shortbread texture, which I like. My recipe made eighteen cookies, so I made six of each design (pumpkin, cat, spider).

[Mike Nolan]

I made Hamelman's semolina bread yesterday. The semolina/Altamura bread was a bit of a disappointment, and it went moldy within 5 days.

[cwcdesign]

I need to go back to the drawing board with my ginger molasses cookies. Mine came out dense and puffy, not flat and chewy - the flavor is good though.

I think I must have over mixed it because of the directions, I went by her description rather than her time and that took way longer than the time she said. I also might try making them all in one day instead of freezing the cookie balls.

Another mistake I probably made was she said you could refrigerate the dough up to two days. I did that and then created the balls and froze them.

[chocomouse]

cwcdesign, I think the key to flat, chewy, slightly crispy on the edge, cookies is the length of time they are baked. I bake mine for 12 minutes. I have a wonderful ginger molasses cookie that is perfect, and I also have made chewy lemon, maple, chocolate, etc cookies simply by using that baking time. You might have to adjust that time a bit, depending on your oven. And, of course, some recipes might need adjustments if they are very wet or very dry. I also usually refrigerate mine for a couple of hours, but never tried freezing either the dough or balls of dough.

[cwcdesign]

Thanks chocomouse, but I did cook them for only 12 minutes turning the tray halfway through. My oven is hot and I always set it 14º below the recommended time - I used my chef alarm to determine the oven temp way back when I was overcooking just about everything.

Of course, Claire posted her video a week after I made the cookie dough 🙄 The issues were definitely in the mixing as I could see what the dough looked like in her mixer. She also talked about the actual making of the dough balls and I probably let them get too soft. She does say, in the book as well, that you should refrigerate the dough at least one hour.

[Mike Nolan]

Cookies are a combination of flour, sugar and fat (including eggs), and the ratio of the three is the major determinant on whether it is flat, crisp, chewy, etc. Alton Brown did an episode on sugar cookies that explained this very well.

Without looking at the recipe (and possibly trying it), I can't say for sure, but flat cookies generally have more sugar. Sugar melts in the oven (that's why it is often grouped in with the liquids in a recipe) and that causes the cookie to flatten out. Fat gets crisp, so cookies with more fat in them get crunchy.

I'm not sure refrigerating the dough would cause them to get flatter, though. That seems counterintuitive.

[cwcdesign]

Chilling the dough makes it less sticky so it’s easier to roll into balls for rolling in sugar and baking. Claire is a baker I trust and there is plenty of sugar, molasses, butter and egg in her recipe - mine did not look like hers when they came out of the oven - that’s how I know it was user error(s)

[BakerAunt]

On Saturday afternoon, I baked three loaves of my adaptation of Grandma A’ Ranch Hand Bread. One will get sliced at lunch tomorrow. The other two go into the freezer for later.

[KathyD]

cwcdesign are you using Claire Saffitz ginger molasses cookies. I haven’t tried any of her recipes but I love watching her. I have made several ginger molasses cookies. I like the one from King Arthur that uses candied ginger. I have made these as well and they were soft and chewy. https://handletheheat.com/gingerdoodle-cookies/ Good Luck with your search for the perfect cookie.
KathyD

[cwcdesign]

Yes, KathyD, it is Claire’s - my son gave me Dessert Person for Christmas because he watched her on Bon Appetit when she worked there. We’ve made some delicious things from her book. And, I love watching her in her apartment kitchen.

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