Cookie making is comfortable and worry free. Mixing, baking, storing—it is all easy. Below are the practical, time-saving ideas and tips that I have found make good cookie after good cookie.
COOKIE INGREDIENTS are basic supermarket items, but I have some preferences that work best for me. For example, I use unbleached all-purpose flour. After all, why use a flour that has been bleached to make it whiter? Un-bleached flour has an appealing soft, creamy color and it produces great cookies. To control the amount of salt that is added to cookies, use unsalted butter and then add the quantity of salt called for in the recipe. Eggs that are graded large produce a consistent result. For flavorings, use pure vanilla extract, made from vanilla beans, and pure almond extract, which contains oil of bitter almond. I use molasses that is labeled “unsulphured”; the flavor is less strong than sulphured molasses.
ZEST, LEMON, LIME, OR ORANGE, is the rind of the fruit without any of the bitter white pith. Before grating zest, wash the fruit with warm water and dry it. A handy measure to know is that an average-size lemon yields about 3 tablespoons of juice and 2 teaspoons of zest.
THE BASIC RULE FOR CHOCOLATE is to choose a chocolate that tastes good. The ingredients listed on the package for white chocolate should include cocoa butter and those listed for dark chocolate should include chocolate liquor or chocolate: I am not kidding about the listing of chocolate—a poor-quality brand may not include it.
STORE SPICES TIGHTLY COVERED and check that they are fresh by smelling and tasting them. As with chocolate, if a spice tastes good, it will add to the good taste of your cookies.
TASTE NUTS BEFORE USING THEM to check that they are fresh. To toast nuts spread them in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake them in a preheated 325-degree oven. Walnuts and pecans take about 8 minutes; sliced or slivered blanched almonds about 12 minutes, until they become golden; and blanched whole almonds about 15 minutes. Just before the nuts are ready, there will be a pleasant aroma of toasting nuts. Cashew and macadamia nuts are normally sold roasted.
TO TOAST COCONUT, spread it in a thin layer on a baking sheet and bake it in a preheated 300-degree oven for about 10 minutes, or until lightly golden. Stir the coconut once during baking so it toasts evenly.
HERE IS GREAT NEWS: all of the cookies in this book are baked on the same type of pan, a baking sheet that measures about 17 by 14 inches. Choose sheets that are heavy and have a shiny finish; you will not be able to bend a heavy baking sheet. Aluminum is a good choice. It has the advantage of having a shiny finish that deflects heat and discourages burned cookie bottoms. Since aluminum absorbs heat evenly, cookies bake evenly. Rather than four sides, baking sheets designed especially for cookies have either curved rims at either end or on one side for grasping the pan. Cookies slide easily off these baking sheets. Baking sheets with 1-inch high sides work fine but usually hold a smaller quantity of cookies. For efficient baking, I recommend buying at least two, and preferably three, baking sheets. Lining baking sheets with parchment paper makes for easy cleanup, cookies that never stick, and eliminates the step of greasing the pans. Rolls of parchment paper are available in supermarkets.
A STANDING ELECTRIC MIXER has the advantage of keeping your hands free during mixing, but a hand-held electric mixer will work fine for any of these cookies. Many new hand-held mixers have beaters with wire spokes rather than those made of flat metal strips; the wire spoke beaters are great at preventing cookie dough from getting caught in the beaters.
MAKING THESE COOKIES really does take very little equipment, but an ice cream scoop with a ¼-cup capacity makes fast work of making drop cookies, scooping out portions of dough to roll into balls, and making cookies that are uniform in size. And a 12-inch ruler is handy for measuring the thickness of rolled dough and cookie sizes.
MOST COOKIES DOUGHS follow the same mixing pattern. Beat the butter and sugar to blend it smoothly, mix in any melted chocolate, and then add eggs and liquid flavorings. Finally, add the flour or flour mixture and any oatmeal, chocolate chips, fruit, dried fruit, or nuts. That’s it. You may notice that when cold eggs are added to some doughs, the batter looks curdled. It happens when the cold egg is combined with the room-temperature butter: what you are actually seeing is small pieces of firm butter. But once the flour is added, any such curdling disappears and the dough looks smooth again.
SOFT CAKE-LIKE COOKIES, such as Pumpkin Butterscotch Chip Cookies, are made with an especially soft dough. Their usual mixing pattern is to beat the eggs and sugar, add oil or melted butter and other liquids, then the flour or flour mixture, and, finally, any butterscotch or chocolate chips, nuts, or dried fruit. There are two other mixing methods used here. For the Almond Butter Crisps with Whipped Chocolate Truffle Filling and the Chocolate Caramel Pecan Clusters, a cooked butter and sugar or sugar mixture is mixed with nuts and flavorings. For the Jumbo Almond Elephant Ears, cold butter pieces are combined with a flour mixture until crumbly, then sour cream is added to form the dough. Other mixing techniques are minor variations on these basic concepts.
THERE ARE SEVERAL WAYS to form these big cookies. One of the most common is the drop method. The batter is simply dropped from a spoon (or ice cream scoop) onto the baking sheet. Another is to roll dough into balls between the palms of your hands, then leave it in balls or flatten it. For the versatile slice-and-bake method, cold logs or slabs of dough are cut into the desired thickness. Some cookie doughs can simply be spread into a large circle and baked; others can be spread on the baking sheet and broken into irregular pieces after baking. Or dough can be formed into a long, thick rectangle and sliced after it is baked. To make cookies with special shapes, the dough is rolled out and cut with cookie cutters or cut with a knife into neat squares or rectangles.
IT IS THE FIRMNESS OF THE DOUGH that makes a cookie hold its shape and not spread all over the baking sheet. Many cookie doughs have a soft but firm consistency that enables them to spread to the desired size. The familiar chocolate chip dough is a good example. A shortbread-type dough is firmer, and it can hold a cut-out pattern when baked. Using cold ingredients for some cookies or chilling a dough can produce a dough good for large cookies. Some cookies, like Chocolate-Covered Chocolate Chip Cookie Mud Balls, are formed from baked cookies. Mix-ins such as oatmeal, nuts, chocolate chips, and dried fruit discourage cookie spreading. Cake-like drop cookies are made from a batter-type dough, but the batter is thick enough to spread. Sandwich cookies, with their two cookies plus a filling, are certainly going to be large, thick cookies.
“ABOUT” IS THE WORD TO NOTE when timing cookie baking. Ovens vary, temperatures of dough vary, and baking sheets vary. Cookies generally have short baking times, so there is a short window between a perfectly baked cookie and a too-hard or burnt one. The solution is to consider baking times as approximate and to watch cookies carefully during those last few minutes of baking. Checking cookie bottoms by lifting a cookie with a spatula may break one cookie but save the rest of the batch. (You can always eat that broken cookie.)
BAKE COOKIES ON THE MIDDLE RACK OF THE OVEN and at the specified oven temperature. I have found that baking one sheet of cookies at a time produces more evenly baked cookies and eliminates the need to rotate the baking sheets in the oven. Keep in mind that cookies usually bake in less than the specified time if the baking sheet is only partially filled. And if reusing a baking sheet, let it cool before adding more cookies. Cool cookies on wire racks to allow for air circulation that will keep them crisp.
IF PROPERLY WRAPPED, most cookies can be stored perfectly for at least three days after they are baked, and some cookies, like Ginger-bread Giants, keep well for as long as three weeks. The best way to store chewy cookies is sealed tightly in a plastic container or tin. For crisp cookies, a tin works better than a plastic container. Tightly closed containers protect cookies from odors and humidity. Each type of cookie should be in its own container so the cookies do not take on the flavor of others. It’s a good idea to put a layer of wax paper between each layer of cookies. If cookies have a perishable frosting or filling, refrigerate them after covering them or putting them in a covered container. Most other cookies are fine stored at room temperature.
Properly wrapped, most cookies can be fro-zen for up to three months. It’s usually best to wrap each cookie in plastic wrap before putting it in a plastic container or tin, but if the cookies are not sticky, two or three can be wrapped to-gether. This wrapping only takes a few minutes and prevents any possibility of “freezer taste” by protecting the cookies from the air trapped in the container. Then take out as many cookies from the container as you need, and be sure to defrost them still wrapped, so any moisture that forms is on the wrapper, not the cookie.
I AM A SECOND-GENERATION COOKIE MAILER. My mom always sent cookies to anyone in the family who was away from home or who she thought needed a cookie pick-me-up. Mailing someone a box of cookies was her way and is now my way of sending good wishes, congratulations, encouragement, gifts, a thank-you, or just a bit of happiness. My baking friend Dawn Ryan keeps in touch with a “cookie of the month” list. Her lucky faraway friends and family receive a box of cookies each month.
When shipping cookies, choose those that have a good shelf life and are normally stored at room temperature. Hold back on mailing cookies with chocolate fillings or toppings until cool weather arrives. Good packaging is the key to having cookies arrive in good condition. First put a layer of crumpled wax paper in a rigid plastic container or metal tin. This will cushion the cookies. Then fill the container with individually wrapped cookies. Gift-wrap the container, if you like. Wrap the container heavily in brown paper or newspaper and pack it in a carton with packing material surrounding it on all sides. A large carton can hold several containers of cookies. It is a good idea to ship cookies either early in the week or by overnight delivery so they do not spend the weekend in a warehouse somewhere.
BIG COOKIES CAN BECOME DESSERT for an informal occasion or a grand party. On the simplest level, there is ice cream and cookies or just a plate of assorted cookies. Take it a step further and make ice cream sandwiches. Chocolate chip or chocolate cookies can serve as the base for a sundae. Top each cookie with a scoop of ice cream and cover it with hot fudge sauce. Or make a cookies and cream parfait by filling goblets with layers of cookie pieces, ice cream, and sauce. Moving on to “grander” ideas, shortbread or vanilla butter cookies can be heaped with fresh berries and whipped cream. Cookie trifles are party fare: Layer cookies with appropriate flavors of whipped cream in a large glass bowl. Crumble a cookie or two over the top layer of whipped cream, sprinkle with powdered sugar, and dig in. Try pairing spice cookies with cinnamon whipped cream; chocolate cookies or oatmeal cookies with vanilla, coffee, or chocolate whipped cream; and shortbread, vanilla cookies, or pecan cookies with raspberry or rum whipped cream. Or put together other flavors that appeal to you to make your own combinations.