I’m standing in front of the stove looking at the timer. Half of the 12 minutes are gone, so I turn on the oven light and peer through the glass door to check on the progress of the mounds on the baking sheet that are undergoing a chemical transformation from dough to chocolate chip cookies. They’re lookin’ good Hugo! They will be better still when I pull the pan and the taste and feel of caramelized butter with melted chocolate takes hold of my taste buds. Anticipation!
I enjoy sinking my teeth into a chocolate chip cookie as much as the next person, but recipes for said cookies are, in my opinion, a dime a dozen. I don’t know how many recipes I have in my chocolate file. Some tried and true, others yet to be tried. Crunchy, soft, nuts, bittersweet or semisweet chocolate: Pick and choose, but no one loses.
The January issue of the King Arthur Baking Company catalog showed up in my mailbox, and guess what was gracing the cover? I could have taken a bite out of that cookie right then. “Recipe of the year. Chocolate Chip cookies: Supersized and super-soft.” Did they have me or what? If you get the catalog, you know what I’m talking about.
I studied the recipe and a few items caught my eye: “The cookies are full of deep caramel notes, thanks to nutty brown butter. The ultra soft but bendy texture comes from the tangzhong starter and bread flour.” I’ve not seen those last two items in any of the cookies I’ve made.
I read the recipe twice and mixed it all together. I figure if the dough passes the taste test, the final product will be even tastier. Spoiler alert! You will not be baking these cookies as soon as you mix the dough. You refrigerate the dough for 24 to 72 hours so the flavors intensify.
I’m not interested in larger but fewer cookies. If I’m going to make the effort, I go for the max — small but more, say at least three dozen.
I placed 12 dollops of dough on the pan and set the timer for 12 minutes. At six minutes I looked through the glass and could not believe what I saw. I cannot say here what I said there. Those dollops morphed into one big thin cookie! I removed the pan and cut it into smaller portions. Good but quite chewy. I adjusted the bake times down but got the same results.
Time to ask for help. King Arthur has a bakers’ hotline where callers can talk to professional bakers for information on company products, recipes and to help a screw-up like me solve a problem. Hey — I read the directions more than once.
I rang up the hotline, was greeted by Dawn and laid out my problem. She asked questions like how old were the leavening agents, did you weigh the flour and brown sugar, etc. Dawn was stumped and said she would get back to me.
Not knowing how long I would have to wait for a possible solution, I decided to play Sherlock Baker, master detective of all issues baking-related. I suspected the conundrum might be with the flour and a shortage thereof.
I dug out measuring cups, a digital scale and an open bag of bread flour. A visual query indicated that there was no way I could have pulled 2 ¾ cups of flour from a 4-pound bag. To verify, I weighed the flour and made adjustments to get the required weight of the white stuff. Voila! Problem solved. I was one cup short on the first try. How did that happen, you ask?
I was about to mix the flour into the batter when I realized it was regular rather than bread flour. I swapped ingredients, but … you get the picture, right?
I called the hotline a few days later, spoke with a baker by the name of Maggie and asked her to tell Dawn the problem was solved. She said errors happen to the best of us, including master bakers.
I was ready for a second crack at the recipe. This time I measured carefully, mixed and chilled the dough and put six dollops on the baking sheet. When I peered through the glass, the cookies were looking like the pictures in the catalog. I pulled the pan and let the cookies rest a bit, but as they say, “looks aren’t everything.” They also say that the “proof is in the tasting of the cookie.”
I handed one, melted chocolate and all, to my chief tester Karen. The expression on her face said it all.
The screwed-up rendering was OK, but this one? The taste buds version of “hands down” caused me to agree with my wife. I didn’t let the chips fall this time.
Phil Hugo lives in Lima. His column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Lima News editorial board or AIM Media, owner of The Lima News.
