Dearest Readers!
I come to you tonight humbly seeking advice! As I've said many a time before on ye olde blog, my cooking skills vastly outpace my baking skills. Lately I've been venturing more and more into uncharted kitchen territory, successfully baking a pumpkin pie and a reallllly yummy bread (recipe post to come! want to try it once more to make sure it's legit).
Progress.
However. My fiercest oven enemy is that sweet concoction of flour, sugar, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff - cookies. I destroy cookies. Betty Crocker cries in her grave whenever she hears me utter the fateful phrase "I'm gonna try to make some cookies today." I'm like the Anti-Crocker. Okay, maybe it's not quite that bad, buuuut then again, it's pretty bad. For some reason or another, I can NEVER get my cookies to come out just right! I even mess up the store-bought dough cookies... you know, the ones that are supposed to be fool proof? Yea, apparently they're not Anti-Crocker proof.
Sometimes my cookies taste okay, but they're always too hard. And sometimes they taste BAD and are too hard! And sometimes, they're not hard which would mean yay! but it's not yay! because instead, they are cake. Little cake circles. And they usually taste awkward because people's taste buds can't make sense of something shaped like a cookie being so spongy and weird.
Guys, all I want is to produce a batch of yummy, soft cookies. It can't be that difficult! I swear, seven year old girls yield better cookies results from their easy-bake ovens. Maybe I should just get one of those... make my life a little bit easier... and by "those" I mean hire a seven year old girl to bake me some quick choco-chip miracles from her $25 Hasbro baking machine.
No! I refuse to admit defeat! I need to make some cookies for a party on Saturday and for once I'd like my plate of cookies to NOT be left sitting on the table, still piled high with inferior, ignored cookies that by now have started to develop some serious self-esteem issues which only add to their likelihood of being avoided by each new person that looks upon their sorry, pitiable cookie faces.
So! Any cookie tips? How do I make yummy, soft, moist, NOT cake-like, melt-in-your-mouth, scrumptious, Crocker-worthy cookies?? I've got a few recipes, but I'm open to recipe ideas as well!
Thank you so much for any advice you can give me! :)
Have you tried no bake cookie recipes? I made these two recipes for work during the summer when I didn't want to heat up the kitchen, and they were a HUGE hit. Sticky, gooey, and a little different that the rest of the cookies you'll be getting. I suggest very small pieces, they're both super sweet.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marthastewart.com/313978/coconut-pecan-cereal-bars
http://www.marthastewart.com/313038/chocolate-coconut-bars
Thanks Liz! Those both look super yummy. I just may go that route if I'm still not confident enough to pull off baked cookies by tomorrow :)
ReplyDeleteSomething that used to really trip me up with cookies and makes a huge difference in consistency is the amount of air whipped into the dough and its temperature. If you do venture into baked cookies...
ReplyDeleteResist high speeds on your beaters and too much air shouldn't be a problem.
For the temp - wait to preheat the oven until you finish making the dough. Then put the dough in the fridge while the oven heats up. By the time the oven is warm, the dough should be about the right temp for proper spread and rising.
They're random tricks, but they've helped me before!
I use a silicon mat on my baking sheet, helps with even baking =)
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