Finished... for now

I had a little more time this week than expected, so I finished up my chocolate chip cookie try-outs. I've still got a ton of recipes, but I found an awesome recipe that's simple, delicious and holds well. My chocolate chip rampage is over... for now. But let's start at the beginning:

This week I had three variations of a recipe to try out. The first was kind of blah, but that was because I ran out of some ingredients and had to use substitutes. Not worth talking about really. The second try (with all of the ingredients) was a completely different story though. It was the only recipe I chose with melted butter rather than creamed.

And I got a camera! (well, borrowed one.)

Looks tempting doesn't it? Well, resist the urge to devour so we can reach step two! I left my trusty scoop for a regular spoon to make larger cookies.

These baked at a slightly lower temp for a little longer (325 degrees rather than the usual 350 and for 15-18 min instead of the usual 8-10.)
You'll be glad you saved some of that batter once you see these.

These cookies were the most delicious of all the recipes, but the texture was just a bit off, a little too grainy and crumbly for my tastes. So I tried the recipe again, but this time creaming the butter. And they were even better! A crisp outside to a tender, moist, chewy inside.

And below is a comparison of the two. If you want crackly cookies, just drop them from the spoon onto your cooking pan, if you're like me and like a smoother looking cookie than roll the dough into balls before placing them on the pan. (The left is the creamed butter and the right is the melted.)

Well, I'll keep on trying more of these recipes I've collected, but much more slowly and over time, rather than crammed into just a few days. Up next is either oatmeal raisin or some cupcake recipes. Hmm...

Here's the winning recipe for anyone who'd like to try it:

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup butter (salted), softened (or melted if you prefer cookies with more texture)
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 (or 1 ½ if you want really loaded cookies) chocolate chips
Oven pre-heated to 325 degrees F

1. Sift together the flour and baking soda, set aside.
2. Cream the butter with the sugars, add the vanilla and eggs, beating until a few shades lighter and a bit fluffier (if using melted butter, just beat until completely mixed in.)
3. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended together (as in no clumps of flour,) add the chips and mix in (do this by hand with a wooden spoon if you’ve used a machine so far.)
4. Drop cookies onto non-stick/greased/parchment paper-ed baking sheet about 2-3 inches apart. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until golden brown. (Those of you with temperamental ovens, remember to turn your cookie sheets halfway through baking.)

Enjoy!

Getting Started

Well, I'm a little new to this whole blogging thing. So I guess I'll start with introducing myself. I am BakerNerd, a young pastry chef in training. I am slowly building my own business and I started this blog to help me keep track of things. I make hand-rolled truffles, and while they are pretty awesome, I need to expand my recipe collection to include cookies, cupcakes and the like. I've started searching for and experimenting with recipes to find the ones I'll use for my business.

As anyone could probably guess, I am not only a baker, but I'm also a nerd. I love comic books and play D&D every weekend, which will probably result in bad gaming jokes being made every now and then. I might even build up enough courage to throw some art in here. Anyhow, back to baking, I've started with the basic of any cookie collection. The chocolate chip cookie. The only problem is that there are a LOT of recipes out there for me to try (luckily my gaming friends don't mind being bombarded with baked goods whenever they come over.) I'll be testing out only the recipes that have proven tried and true and I've narrowed it down to seven for now, though I'll always be on the lookout for even better ones. When I think of the perfect chocolate chip cookie, I imagine one that is nice and thick, but not cakey, golden brown and cripsy on the outside while still chewy and wonderful inside. The toughest part of getting this right isn't just a good recipe, but also keeping a close eye on my tempermental oven.

So far I've tried three recipes, two last weekend and one more yesterday. The first was okay tasting but was far too cakey and a little bland. The second was my favorite of the three, the cookies held their shape without losing that great cookie texture. And while they were lightly crispy on the outside, they stayed chewy inside even after cooling completely. The flavor was pretty good too. But I couldn't stop there, so I tried another last night. The flavor was great but the cookies were flat and a little too crispy for me. I might try it one more time making larger cookies (I made mini cookies with my trusty 1 oz scoop) to see if it makes a difference in the texture.

Well, that's it for today, I've got one recipe to retry and four more to test out. I should have two or three done by next week and hopefully some pictures too!

Here's the recipe for the second (and most successful) batch:

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
2. Cream together the butter, white sugar and brown sugar until smooth. beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Sift together the flour baking soda and salt and stir into the batter. Add in the chocolate chips and nuts. drop by large spoonfuls (use a small scoop for evenly sized cookies) onto ungreased pans (I used a non-stick cookie sheet, otherwise I usually have a parchment sheet under the cookies to avoid any sticking.)
3. Bake for about 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until edges are nicely brown. (You may need to rotate the pan halfway through to make sure the cookies bake evenly if you have an oven as tempermantal as mine.) Let sit for a few miutes then move cookies to a cooling rack to finish setting up. Or you could eat them while they're warm and gooey. Just saying.