Sunday 22 April 2012

Cookie Experiments

I've been experimenting with cookie recipes recently.

It all started when I went through my baking supplies and discovered the dried strawberry bits I'd bought last year. I decided that they would make a great addition to cookies, so taking Joy the Baker's recipe for Cappuccino Cookies as a base, I set about creating a recipe for Strawberries & Cream Cookies.

I replaced the extra egg yolk with a tablespoon of cream and slightly reduced the amount of sugar to compensate for the lack of bitter coffee in my version. In the end, they were still a touch too sweet for me, and the salt levels also needed adjusting, but overall I was quite pleased with my changes.

Today, I thought it might be a good idea to use the same base recipe to attempt one of my baking holy grails: Chocolate chocolate chip cookies. Taking my experiences with the strawberry cookies as guidelines, I reduced the sugar further, and then replaced 45g of flour with cocoa powder. I also reduced the amount of salt by half to just half a teaspoon. The result was exactly what I was looking for, a tender cookie that isn't too sweet with plenty of chocolate chunks, which if baked just right stays soft in the middle with a crunchy edge. Perfect.