Cookies

[afuna]

Last week I made two batches of almost-perfect chocolate chunk cookies.

This week, I tried it again, and ended up with the first batch way overdone, and (because I was twitchy after the first batch) a second batch that is slightly underdone.

Since last week's was just a bit too sweet, I substituted half a cup of semi-sweet chips for half a cup of the dark chocolate buttons (half a cup out of 1 1/2 cups). That's toned down the sweetness, but I wonder now if it's toned it down too much.

I will try again in another week, and hopefully this time it'll be more like my first attempt at cookies by myself (beginner's luck!) rather than this week's :-)

Comments

[james]

I've been making homemade cookies for about twenty-five years, and half the time they don't come out exactly right. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. ;-)

Also, a bit of cocoa in the flour will help give it a chocolatey flavor without adding sweetness, so you might try adding that variation to your experiments! :-)

[afuna]

Hee, I do that *grin* As well as a tiny bit of instant coffee powder to give it a magical secret ingredient smell.

I wonder if it makes any difference to use salt balance (a salt... substitute) rather than salt.

Well, but, it gives me hope to realize that failed batches are perfectly normal *G*

[james]

I sometimes even fail baking store-bought dough. ;-) But in my defense, we keep moving so every couple of years I have a new oven to try to figure out the temperature of.

[sporky_rat]

Don't sub your salt! Use plain ordinary salt.

[afuna]

Sadly we didn't have any, because my dad insists on using * substitute for everything (we don't have sugar anymore: we have glucose. We don't have salt anymore, it's all salt substitute. We can't even get rice! GRAR)

I will buy some for my own personal use though >_> Cookies with real salt taste so much better.

[feathertail]

What do you have to use to make chocolate chunk cookies? I considered getting a bar of baking chocolate and chopping that up instead of using chips, but I thought it would just melt into the batter due to its different composition ... which is probably silly, but yeah. Although it wouldn't be as sweet ...

[afuna]

I have used a bar of baking chocolate before, and it's okay. It melts a bit, gets gooey, but (even after about 15 minutes of baking) does actually hold its shape, and doesn't melt into the surrounding cookie.

But be warned that it's hard to chop up baking chocolate for use as chunks, especially if you're in a warm, humid environment as I am. It tends to stick to your hands, to your knife, or back together. We ended up dropping it in flour after chopping because otherwise it would have ended up one big chunk again.


What I have been using are those dark chocolate buttons, and I break them up into two or three buttons with my hands (belatedly it occurs to me that a knife may be faster)

Again, no matter how gooey they get while baking, the chocolate holds it shape and doesn't actually disappear into the surrounding chocolate. The chocolate I used didn't resolidify fully after, so it's a bit messy to eat, but really really good. (YMMV on this point; refrigerating the cookies may make the chocolate more solid, but also make the cookie dry)

Good luck with your baking *G*


ETA: WRT to the chocolate not being sweet enough, I find that unsweetened chocolate chips are better for baking because the batter is usually sweet enough to balance the chocolate, and too sweet chocolate can make the cookie too sweet. But this is personal preference; my cousin loves much darker stuff than I do, and I used to love the sweeter stuff more than the less sweet stuff, so you'll probably have to play around a bit in order to figure out what works for you *G*

[feathertail]

Thanks for the tips, especially the one about putting them in flour! I'll have to pick up a bar of baking chocolate next time I'm at the store. ^.^