Refrigerating Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

Not refrigerated dough, but refrigerating the stuff you make at home.

Refrigeration allows the dough and other ingredients to fully soak up the liquid — in this case, the eggs — in order to get a drier and firmer dough, which bakes to a better consistency. For a chocolate chip cookie recipe, a long hydration time is important because eggs, unlike water, are gelatinous and slow-moving and the butter coats the flour preventing the liquid from getting through to the dry ingredients. The extra time in the fridge dispatches that problem.

Some bakers suggest overnight, others days. Anywhere from 12-72 hours. 36 hours is the most recommended. If you can wait that long.

Buttermilk Substitute

Have a recipe that calls for buttermilk? Don't have buttermilk? Try one of these:

(each is equivalent to 1 cup of buttermilk, so adjust accordingly)

• 1 cup plain yogurt


• 1 cup of sour cream


• 1 tablespoon lemon juice plus enough milk to make 1 cup


• 1 tablespoon of vinegar plus enough milk to make 1 cup


• 1 cup milk plus 1 3/4 tablespoons cream of tartar


• 1/4 cup buttermilk powder and 1 cup water

It is important to note that buttermilk should not be substituted with regular milk. Buttermilk is thicker and more acidic than regular milk.

Buttermilk

What is buttermilk?

Milk (lowfat or skim) is inaculated with a bacterial culture that turns the lactose into lactic acid, then it is heated to kill the bacteria and we are left with buttermilk.

Why buttermilk?

1 cup of buttermilk will nuetralize 1/4 tsp of baking soda. When this occurs, it creates enough carbon dioxide to lift one cup of flower.

And to put this info to work for you, here is a yummy pancake recipe:

Pankcakes The dry stuff! (you can double, triple, quadruple this recipe to fit your needs)

1 Cup All Purpose Flower
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt (Kosher)
1 tsp sugar
Shake to MIX WELL!

The wet stuff: (for each cup of dry mix you use)

2 Tbls melted butter
1 egg separated
1 cup buttermilk

Mix the egg white with the butter milk the and the yolk with the butter first THEN mix them together with a whisk.

If you just mix them together without separating them it won't mix (like water and oil) Why?
The yolk contains lipoproteins so it will mix well with fat and water. The fat in the butter (oil) will 'hook up' with the lipoproteins in the yolk which will make it easier to combine with the butter milk.


Why All Purpose Flour?

Cake and Pastry Flours have low protein and are considered 'soft' flours. Bread Flours are high in protein and are 'hard' flours. Soft flours will result in soft wimpy pancakes. Bread flour will make a hard pancake! All Purpose Flour is considered 'all purpose' because it pretty average (medium) in its protein content. Just right for pancakes! :D

Thank you Alton Brown!

Is your baking powder expired?

Did you know that baking powder becomes less effective over time. So to make sure all of the yummy things you bake come out as good as you hope, make sure to check the expiration date AND use it within 6 months of opening. (It helps to write the date you opened it on the packaging if you don't use it very often)

I Hate Flat Cookies

Some things that will help keep your cookies from going flat!

Put cookies on a cool pan (see Tips)


Lightly sprinkle your greased cookie sheet with flour- this will keep the cookies from spreading out so much.

Substitute bread flour (the gluten keeps the cookie from going flat) or cake flour (the starch does the same) in your cookie recipe.

Use shortening or margarine (the stick kind- not in a tub) instead of butter. Shortening and margarine help the cookie keep the original shape because they are more stable. (they have a higher melting point, so the other ingredients have more time to 'set' before the butter melts. But I am a butter girl. *sigh* the dilemma!


Make sure to use a recipe that calls for baking powder in your dry ingredients and eggs in your wet ingredients.

Use less sugar in your recipe. (this is a tricky one because it can compromise the flavor) If there is a lot of sugar in your recipe, you may want to consider cutting the amount down- sugars turn liquid in the oven and more liquid generally means flatter cookie.

Don't over mix- too much air will be incorporated and the cookies will spread out too much. Mix the dry and wet ingredients just until combined.

If the recipe says to chill your dough before baking- do it! It will hold its shape better. This usually applies to rolled out cookies. Drop cookies are OK at room temperature unless otherwise specified.

Butter

I was interested to find out what baking sites would say about butter vs margarine. I had someone tell me once that butter makes crunchy cookies and margarine makes soft cookies, so I wanted to see if I could find out if this was true and why.

Most of the information on butter vs margarine talks about heath issues. Trans fats vs saturated fats. The way I look at it, I am always better off using something that God made vs something that man made. So I prefer to use butter. Most of the baking sites I checked said that butter is the better choice for taste and texture. So I am going to stick with butter.

As for the cookie theory. The only thing I found is that shortening helps keep cookies from flattening out. It has a higher melting temperature and helps hold the dough together, giving the flour and eggs more time to set. But shortening has no flavor. So you can use butter flavored shortening or half butter and half shortening.

Everything I Should Have Learned in Home Economics

I took Home Economics in Junior High. I honestly can't say I remember anything from it. It was only for half a semester, so I am not sure that is enough time to teach a group of twelve-year-old kids anything anyways!

I never took it in High School. Didn't have time in my schedule. Now I wish I had. Although who knows if I would remember any of it anyways! I am not sure how much I remember from Calculus...

So although I have cooked and baked for years, I am finally going to learn what I am doing. I am finally going to learn the chemistry of it all. How things work together so that I can play with recipes and make them my own.

So there will be recipes and random facts about things that you probably could go your whole life without knowing, but they might come in handy if you ever get on Jeopardy. But probably not.

Creaming

How often have you seen a recipe begin with the words 'cream the butter' or 'cream the butter with the sugar'? This mixing or beating technique not only combines ingredients to make a uniform mixture, but also incorporates air into this mixture. A whisk, wooden spoon, or electric mixer with paddle attachment can be used. The butter should be at room temperature so it incorporates the sugar sufficiently to produce a smooth and creamy batter that is light and fluffy. Follow your recipe's instructions, as this step can vary in length from seconds to minutes, depending on how much air needs to be incorporated into the batter so it rises properly in the oven.

The air is important because the leavening agent (baking powder or baking soda) expands the air that is in the batter. That is why when I once tried to make chocolate chip cookies by adding all of the ingredients together in the same bowl (instead of creaming the wet ingredients and then adding the dry ingredients) I got flat cookies. No air!

More than you ever wanted to know about Baking Powder and Baking Soda

Both baking powder and baking soda are chemical leavening agents that cause batters to rise when baked. The leavener enlarges the bubbles which are already present in the batter produced through creaming of ingredients. When a recipe contains baking powder and baking soda, the baking powder does most of the leavening. The baking soda is added to neutralize the acids in the recipe plus to add tenderness and some leavening.

When using baking powder or baking soda in a recipe, make sure to sift or whisk with the other dry ingredients before adding to the batter to ensure uniformity. Otherwise the baked good can have large holes.

Baking Soda
Baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate. When baking soda is combined with moisture and an acidic ingredient (e.g., yogurt, chocolate, buttermilk, honey), the resulting chemical reaction produces bubbles of carbon dioxide that expand under oven temperatures, causing baked goods to rise. The reaction begins immediately upon mixing the ingredients, so you need to bake recipes which call for baking soda immediately, or else they will fall flat!

Baking soda, also known as sodium bicarbonate or bicarbonate of soda (alkali) is about four times as strong as baking powder. It is used in recipes that contain an acidic ingredient (e.g. vinegar, citrus juice, sour cream, yogurt, buttermilk, chocolate, cocoa (not Dutch-processed), honey, molasses (also brown sugar), fruits and maple syrup). Baking soda starts to react and release carbon dioxide gas as soon as it is added to the batter and moistened. Make sure to bake the batter immediately.
Baking soda has an indefinite shelf life if stored in a sealed container in a cool dry place. Too much baking soda will result in a soapy taste with a coarse, open crumb. Baking soda causes reddening of cocoa powder when baked, hence the name Devil's Food Cake.

Baking Powder


Baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate, but it includes the acidifying agent already (cream of tartar), and also a drying agent (usually starch). Baking powder is available as single-acting baking powder and as double-acting baking powder. Single-acting powders are activated by moisture, so you must bake recipes which include this product immediately after mixing. Double-acting powders react in two phases and can stand for a while before baking. With double-acting powder, some gas is released at room temperature when the powder is added to dough, but the majority of the gas is released after the temperature of the dough increases in the oven.

Too much baking powder can cause the batter to be bitter tasting. It can also cause the batter to rise rapidly and then collapse. (i.e. The air bubbles in the batter grow too large and break causing the batter to fall.) Cakes will have a coarse, fragile crumb with a fallen center. Too little baking powder results in a tough cake that has poor volume and a compact crumb.

(info from About.com, Joy of Baking.com)