"recipe adapted" (also: samoas)

this post is really about homemade samoas, a recipe that i noticed popping up on the blogs a few weeks ago. but first (first?!), a digression about that label on so many blog recipes: "recipe adapted from." for the samoas, i used graham crackers as a base that i saw a photo of on somebody's blog. it turns out that that person had posted the recipe as being adapted from heidi's recipe over at 101cookbooks. i was curious, and went through the recipes side-by-side. well, readers, these recipes were exactly the same, word for word. that's simply not ok.

for me, recipes are intellectual property just like anything else - a song, a patent, etc. i think that the community, potluck aspects to recipes on blogs and in magazines do allow for a creative commons-type usage, hence the "recipe adapted from" label that allows for "fair use" along with absolution from legal entanglement. but here's the thing: if you adapted the recipe, it should no longer be the same recipe. yours is derivative, but it's its own variation. and i would say that nearly all of my recipes are truly adapted - there may be one or two that i posted in my early days, when i didn't know how to cook that well, which are less well-adapted. i'm not that stringent in my position on the ethics of adaptation, either - i fully support a wide range of degrees of adaptation. on the minimum side of the spectrum, a really good recipe that's in tune with my tastes won't require very many adjustments in the combination of ingredients, and sometimes a recipe doesn't work unless you use the exact measurements as the original. in this case, i will always write my own instructions, with the notes and thoughts that i know will help me remember the recipe the next time i make it. on the maximum side of the spectrum, there are recipes that i completely retool, both in ingredients and instructions. these are recipes that are overly wordy or incorrect in their instructions, or that don't completely accord with my own tastes of what constitutes sweet, savory, balanced. unless there's an attribution, though, i would never post a recipe without any changes.

and, of course, there are different kinds of uses of a recipe. adaptation applies to when you repost a recipe that is not originally yours - rather than, say, linking to it. adaptation doesn't apply to merely cooking a recipe; after all, what cook doesn't want somebody else to use her recipes, especially if she's posting them online? but if you are going to publicly share a recipe, and it's not your own original, it should bear the adaptation tag. if you didn't change anything, you should just link to the recipe.

back to the samoas: this recipe is a good example of me liking someone else's general idea, but completely changing the preparation. it's girl scout cookie season, and i love samoas (or rather, caramel delites, as i seem to prefer the latter over the former). this recipe is my homemade version of samoas, which i will just say upfront, are predicated more on my memory of what a samoa tastes like, rather than what a samoa actually tastes like, so be forewarned. these cookies, in my opinion, are better than the authentic version.

the original recipe i found was itself an adaptation from the bakingbites blog. and, as i read through both of them, i didn't really like either one. in the original, the caramel in the topping was simply melted caramels, which is just not a good option (tastewise and ingredientwise, because of all the corn syrup). the adaptation is more a true adaptation in that it makes samoa-like cookie bars, rather than actual cookies, since the cookie base isn't baked before assembling.

wanting a slightly less buttery taste to the cookie, i decided to use a graham cracker base, though i did worry a bit that it would make the cookies taste too healthy. i started making the caramel part of the adapted recipe before noticing that it had a rather odd ingredient - a cup of sour cream - added into it before baking. i kept making the caramel, and i did actually add a bit of sour cream, but nowhere near what was suggested. i then cooked the caramel until softball stage, mixed in the coconut, and molded it onto the cookies while warm so it didn't totally stiffen up. the cookies, as it turned out, were on the very crispy and very slightly hard side of cookieness, and so i was hoping the caramel would actually soften them up just a little bit. i was going to dip the bottoms of the cookies in chocolate, then drizzle them like the real cookies, but i got lazy and just dipped half of each cookie in. (i only dipped about two thirds of the cookies; the photos are from dipping the remaining third. this worked out well, as the cookies i dipped first fit into the cookie jar with no space to spare.)

and so you ask, how did these turn out? well, when i tasted each component on its own, they were good, but not great. when i tasted the finished cookie, they kept on tasting better and better. specifically, when i tasted the caramel, it tasted a bit too buttery, though it didn't have excess butter in it - but the darkness of the chocolate completely eliminated that problem. i think this is the sort of thing that shows you just how bad a storebought cookie can be, because the homemade version tastes so much more complex. these cookies stay good for over two weeks in an airtight container, losing none of the graham cracker's crispiness and snap. the caramel was chewy and pliable, and the whole combination of flavors was really complemented by the chocolate to a degree i haven't recently experienced. in fact, i liked the chocolate on the cookies so much that i would dip the whole cookie in chocolate. use a good chocolate and you will be rewarded many times over.

what i realized after i made these, and opened the box of samoas i had set by to taste-test, is that the cookies i made are almost completely different than the girl scout version. in fact, samoas are mostly cookie, with a thin coat of caramel and a bit of coconut sprinkled into it, with a drizzle of chocolate. the cookies i made are probably 40% cookie, 50% coconut-caramel, and 10% chocolate. while i still favor the crumbly-sandy-yet-tender crumb of the original, i think the balance of components in my version was far superior.

this recipe is still pending some revisions to the cookie base - i'd like to find a cookie with a slightly sandier texture - more tender than the graham crackers, but still just as crisp. you can substitute your own choice of cookie, just make sure they're not too buttery. the caramel needs a bit of salt, i think (which i have added into the recipe), but it's otherwise quite workable. i might fiddle with it, but it retains a nice pliability without stickiness, which is key for this recipe; if anything, let you caramel get a good deep amber so you maximize the effect of the caramelized sugar.

this recipe is easy, but involved due to the number of components - i recommend making the cookies one day, then adding the topping and chocolate coating the next day. when you are melting the chocolate for the coating, melt it slowly to make sure the chocolate doesn't seize, and that there is less of a chance of your chocolate blooming. (fyi, the chocolate did begin to bloom ever so slightly after two weeks; make sure you use good chocolate and this will be less of a problem.)

homemade samoas, aka caramel delites

graham cracker base (adapted from 101cookbooks)

2 1/2c flour

1c dark brown sugar

1t baking soda

3/4t kosher salt

1/2c butter

1/3c honey

5T milk

2t vanilla

caramel-coconut topping

1 1/2c sugar

1/2c butter

1/3c sour cream or yogurt, at room temp

1/2t salt

1t vanilla (optional)

2 1/2c unsweetened shredded coconut (any dimension, really; i prefer it to be shredded on the fine side, just make sure it's still somewhat pliable, not dried out)

8-12 oz bittersweet chocolate

1. to make the graham crackers, pulse the dry ingredients in the bowl of a food processor to combine (this recipe is a typical food processor recipe, in which you cut the butter into the dry ingredients, then add any other wet ingredients). scatter the butter in the dry ingredients and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal. in a small bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients (honey, milk, vanilla) and then add to the flour mixture. pulse a few times, until the dough comes together. turn the dough out onto a clean surface and shape into a large disk, no more than 1 1/2" thick. wrap in plastic and refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight.

2. to bake the graham crackers, preheat the oven to 350F. roll the dough out to slightly more than 1/8" or a scant 1/4" thick (depending on your preference; i tended towards the thinner cookies, which will still rise a bit from the baking soda). cut out cookies with a cookie cutter of your choice (i used two square fluted cutters - 1.5" and 2.5" square). bake 15-25 minutes (depending on the thickness of the cookies), until slightly browned and slightly firm to the touch. the tops of the cookies should look dry. transfer to a rack to cool completely, then store in an airtight container until ready to assemble cookies.

3. to make the caramel, heat the sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium-low heat until it melts and caramelizes. as it melts, it will turn a light amber; swirl the pan around a bit in order to get the sugar to melt evenly. you want your sugar to turn a dark amber that is not too brown (too brown = burned) - somewhere slightly lighter than the color of pecan skins. if the color of your sugar is like chestnut shells, it's burned and you should start over - just soak the pan in hot water and the burned sugar will dissolve.

4. when the caramel has turned the correct amber, remove it from the heat (you can turn the stove off) and add the butter. it will spit and bubble, but if you're using a saucepan with sufficiently high sides (ie, nothing skillet-like), you'll be fine. stir the mixture until the butter is incorporated. stir in the yogurt and salt, then let cool for 5 minutes, or until the caramel is hot but not scalding to the touch (so as to not burn the coconut) and before the caramel stiffens up. while the caramel is cooling, set out the cookie bases on some trays or cooling racks. mix the coconut into the caramel until well combined, then immediately start molding the caramel onto the cookies with a knife, while still pliable. if your caramel stiffens up, you could probably reheat it on the stove on low heat, but i didn't reheat mine. don't do this in a cold kitchen - the caramel will stiffen up too quickly. besides pliability, you need to apply the caramel while it's warm, because it will adhere better to the cookie.

5. as the cookies are cooing to room temp, chop the chocolate and melt slowly in a heatproof bowl over a pot of barely simmering water. the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water; you need only 1 to 1 1/2" water in the pot. if your chocolate is heated too fast, it could seize or bloom; i'm not one to temper chocolate unless it's a special occasion, but if you want to temper, go ahead. when the chocolate is melted, set up a silpat and a few large sheets of parchment paper. grab a cookie by its edges (the caramel can be a good way to hang onto it), dip the bottom in chocolate. shake off the excess chocolate and place on the silpat/parchment, about 1" apart. when you've finished all the cookies, dip a spatula in the chocolate and swing it gently over the cookies to deposit chocolate threads on the tops of the cookies. practice over a few of the cookies to get the hang of this - you need to get the right amount of chocolate on the spatula, but not too much. you can also put the chocolate in a squeeze bottle with a fine nozzle, for better control. let the chocolate harden, then transfer to an airtight container.

(approximate) active cooking time: 1-1.5 hrs for the graham crackers, 1-1.5 hrs for the coconut caramel, 1 hr for assembly and dipping

[makes 40-50 small cookies, or 30 large cookies]

dulce de leche (definitive version)

it's been a couple weeks since dulce de leche v1.0, and the verdict is in. that version, as you will remember, was defined both by a beautiful color and a slightly acidic aftertaste. the basic recipe remains the same: a quart of milk, a cup of sugar, a vanilla bean; but i made two more batches varying in the type of milk product. the first of those batches employs regular whole milk, the second evaporated milk. in the photo above, there's a clear variation in the color of each batch (l-r: whole milk, evaporated milk, whole milk + baking soda).

there are differences in texture, visible in the photo, as well: the regular milk batch is a little grainier, even after food processing. in fact, after two weeks in the fridge, it has definitely crystallized a bit. the other two batches retained a creamier texture; perhaps it's the baking soda, but the baking soda batch edged the evaporated milk batch in texture, with a slightly softer mouthfeel. the baking soda batch did mellow a bit as it aged, so if you really want the darker color, you could probably do with adding in the baking soda. i would recommend not, in general.

i will say that making dulce de leche does not involve much skill, so go to it! it does require patience, but it will be worth it - this stuff does taste better to me than the typical way of making dulce de leche, with a richer taste and texture. if you're making this, don't forget that since there are so few ingredients, you should use good ones. your vanilla bean should be plump and at least moderately supple and bendy; if you're using regular milk, use an organic, hormone-free milk for best results.

dulce de leche

1 quart (4c) evaporated milk

1c sugar

1 vanilla bean

1. in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine evaporated milk and sugar. split the vanilla bean and scrape the beans out into the pan. stir to combine (the vanilla seeds will disperse more evenly as the mixture thickens and cooks) and turn heat to medium.

2. cook over medium heat until the mixture is thick and it doesn't run too much when you firmly drag a rubber spatula through the mixture. keep stirring it frequently, taking care that it doesn't boil, but rather simmers. the time for this varies, but it will probably take about four hours. it will look a little bit grainy as it gets close to being done, but don't worry about that. you will want to stir more in the last half-hour to make sure the mixture doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan and burn.

3. scrape the mixture into the bowl of a food processor and pulse until the mixture is smooth. if you don't have a food processor (or a blender, or immersion blender), your dulce de leche just won't be quite as smooth - it will still taste the same, all debates about the effect of visual perception of food on its taste notwithstanding. this is a rare occasion in which i do actually recommend using a food processor. scrape the mixture into an airtight container and let cool. when it's cool, store in the refrigerator up to about a month or two.

[makes 1 to 1 1/2 cups]

dulce de leche (v1.0)

my love for dulce de leche started about five years ago, when nina happened to make a banoffee pie one weekend. i had heard of it (from the musical "guys and dolls"), and possibly had had it a few times, but i had never paid it much attention. now i know better; like condensed milk, i'm pretty sure i could sit on the couch like a lump and consume entire jars of it. it's like caramel, but at once not; while caramel is more about the sugar, dulce de leche is all about the milk. somehow it's more comforting than caramel - and that's saying something, because i love caramel like nobody's business. i confess that i also like the time it takes to make dulce de leche - there's something comforting about its cooking process consisting of stirring it for hours on the stove.

you can buy dulce de leche, but many people just make it from scratch, or (more frequently) by boiling a can of condensed milk in a pot of water for four hours. supposedly, as long as you keep the can covered with water, it won't explode all over your kitchen (and you). i've gone the condensed milk route, but i wanted to try making it from scratch, especially as i had a quart of whole milk on hand from yesterday's lemon coffee cake. it takes about as long as the condensed milk takes, but with some stirring thrown in. the recipe i consulted instructed me to combine milk, sugar, and vanilla in a pot and wait for it to simmer, then stir in some baking soda. no idea what the baking soda does - maybe it thickens it? what i do know is that it gives the dulce de leche a faint acidic aftertaste - not so good. the dulce de leche experiments will continue. in my consequent google searches for "milk jam," none of the recipes contained a trace of baking soda, so i'm going to try making this without the baking soda at all. it was also very sweet, so maybe i'll try a version with evaporated milk. the basics of the recipes seem pretty standard, though - 1 quart milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 vanilla bean.

just to clue you in regarding the photos, the top is the ingredients in the pot, then after i had added the baking soda and it was simmering. the third photo is missing a couple of steps - first, i walked away from the pot and when i came back, the milk was boiling into a semi-solid froth, and i stirred that down and it became a lot more liquid. second, my milk jam separated into curd and whey (both caramel-colored) and so i food-processed it, per another recipe i consulted. so the third photo is when i had returned the food-processed dulce de leche, to reduce a bit further (you can see a little bit of the lumpy dulce de leche on the spatula). the fourth is to show you how thick it gets.

dulce de leche 1.0

1 quart whole milk

1c sugar

1 vanilla bean

1/2t baking soda, dissolved in 1T water

1. in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, stir together milk and sugar. split the vanilla bean; scrape the seeds out of the pod and add both to the pot. heat on medium-low until the mixture boils (if you leave the milk out and bring it to room temp, this step will take much less time).

2. remove the pan from the heat and stir in the baking soda mixture. stir until the froth subsides a little, then return to heat. simmer on medium, taking care not to let the mixture boil (turn down the heat if it boils), until the mixture has thickened a little and is a dark caramel-esque brown - give it a stir every now and then to make sure nothing's burning.

3. transfer to a food processor or blender (there's not quite enough of it to use an immersion blender) and process until smooth. you can return it to the pot to reduce it a bit further over low heat, or transfer to an airtight storage container and let cool before covering.

prep: 5-10 minutes

active cooking time: 3-4 hours

[makes 1 cup; stays good in the fridge for 3 months or the freezer for 1 year]

the myth of "melt in your mouth"

these cookies look pretty good, right? unfortunately, they're not. well, they're ok, but they were enough of a disappointment that you won't find the recipe here. i saw a post on photograzing for "peppermint meltaways" and was intrigued. i've always been intrigued by things that claim to "melt in your mouth," be it chocolate, meat, or cookie. for example, how does meat melt in your mouth, exactly? surely a bit of steak isn't going to melt in your mouth the same way that, say, butter will? and even if it did, would you really want meat to melt in your mouth? i know that meat wouldn't "melt" the same way butter would, yet i expect it to because of the connotations i attach to the word "melt" (probably, in no small part due to the ubiquity of those m+m commercials during childhood).

that isn't to say that there aren't things that melt in your mouth. the lemon-buttermilk pudding (essentially a pudding cake) at rendezvous recently reaffirmed that, indeed, something can look like cake, but literally melt away in your mouth. (sidebar: it's been about two years since i had this pudding, and i had remembered it as being good, but not as good as it was that evening. it was exactly what i wanted at the end of a meal - cool, refreshing, light but rich...)

it was with all of these things in mind that i made these cookies. i wanted them to be impossibly light, airy, and crispy; buttery and pepperminty. the mechanism in the recipe that renders them "meltaways" is the replacement of some of the flour with cornstarch, and the use of powdered sugar. unfortunately, the meltaway effect was not the epiphany i expected. maybe it's that i just don't like cookies that "melt" - chewing some crispy thing just to have it dissipate immediately is a bit odd, and very different than chewing something soft (ie, cake) and have that "melt." so these cookies were ok, but not amazing. i swapped out the sugar glaze for chocolate, which i thought complement the cookies pretty well; and they do look pretty if i say so myself. their mediocrity, though, is affirmed by the roommate test. after a week in the cookie jar, it's still half full. this, after a batch of chocolate chip cookies lasted about three or four days. i guess it wasn't meant to be.

and now, something sweet

long overdue, but finally here! i am going to make these a few more times and will post adjustments as necessary.

overnight cinnamon rolls (adapted from alton brown)

notes: i have written this recipe for those who don't have stand mixers - i don't have one myself. it is also written in weight (standard for bakers, and more accurate) but also cups in case you just have measuring cups. i will likely be experimenting with the egg content of this recipe in the future - it uses a lot of egg yolks - and will let you know the results. i've been pondering iles flottantes to use up the egg whites, which are frozen for the present.

dough

4 egg yolks, room temp

1 egg, room temp

2 oz sugar (1/4c)

3 oz butter, melted (6T)

6 oz buttermilk (~scant 1/2c), room temp

20 oz flour (~4c)

1 pkg instant dry yeast (2 1/4t)

1 1/4t kosher salt

vegetable oil

filling

8 oz dark brown sugar (scant 1c packed)

1T cinnamon

1t salt

3/4 oz butter (1 1/2T)

icing

2 1/2 oz cream cheese, softened

4 oz powdered sugar (1c)

1. first, heat the buttermilk in a small saucepan or in the microwave (on medium power, until it's hot) and scatter the yeast over it; let it stand (i like to proof the yeast to make sure it's good). in a large bowl, with a whisk or an electric mixer, mix together the egg yolks, eggs, sugar, and butter, and buttermilk-yeast mixture. add 2 cups of flour and the salt, mixing until well combined (if you're using a whisk, switch here to a rubber spatula). add all but the remaining 3/4c of flour, and mix into dough with a rubber spatula until completely incorporated. turn the dough out onto a clean, floured countertop and knead until the dough is soft and elastic, and doesn't stick to your hands. this will take about 15 minutes, varying based on how vigorously you knead the dough. add the remaining 3/4c of flour if your dough remains very sticky after about 10 minutes. lightly oil the bowl you mixed the dough in, put the kneaded dough in it, and turn the dough in the bowl to lightly coat with oil. cover with a damp cloth and let rise until it doubles in volume. if it's winter, or you live in a cold climate, you can help the dough rise by putting it in the oven (after preheating it to the lowest temp and turning it off), or by putting the dough bowl in a larger bowl full of hot water (keep replacing the water as it cools).

2. combine the sugar, cinnamon, and salt for the filling, mixing until well combined. melt the butter in a small bowl.

3. butter a 9"x13" baking pan. take the dough and punch it down, then roll it out on a floured countertop, to an approximate 18"x12" rectangle and a 1/2" thickness, with the long edge facing you. brush the rectangle with butter, leaving an inch margin along both long edges. sprinkle the dough with the cinnamon sugar filling mixture. roll the rectangle of dough tightly, starting with the long edge facing you. when you get to the other edge, pinch the edge to the side of the roll to seal it shut. using a serrated knife (really), slice the roll into 1 1/2" thick slices, or about 12 slices. arrange in the baking dish, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight. this prep session will take about an hour of active time, an hour of rising time - less as you get more practice.

4. remove the rolls from the fridge and place in a cold oven (don't turn it on). fill a large baking dish 2/3 full with boiling water and put it on a rack underneath the pan of rolls (to bring them to room temp before baking). let the rolls rise for about a half hour, until they start puffing (rising) again. remove both pans from the oven, and preheat the oven to 350F. return the rolls to the oven and bake in the middle until just golden brown (190F inside, if you have a thermometer), about 30 minutes. make sure you don't overbake these - they are infinitely better if they're softer and moister.

5. while the rolls are baking, make the icing - beat the cream cheese in a bowl with an electric mixer (or microwave very slightly until very soft). sift the powdered sugar over the cream cheese, then mix until combined. when the rolls have cooled slightly, you can ice them with a knife. the rolls are best with a few days of baking.

overnight prep: 2 hrs

day-of prep and baking: 1 hr 15 min

[makes 12 rolls]

the vanilla experiment

really, this isn't much of an experiment, as evidenced by a very robust thread about homemade vanilla on eGullet. however, it's an experiment that's new to me, so i've invested in vanilla beans - good quality, cheap beans from a seller on ebay (the graphics are terrible, but the beans are really good, and many other people on eGullet have bought them, so i feel ok about it), jars, and alcohol, and now i have five jars of vanilla extract, maturing in a box in my room.

i bought the jars on amazon, sight unseen, and it turns out that 1 3/4c jars are really quite large...requiring a large amount of alcohol to fill them. ah, well. that just means that i'll have a lot of vanilla extract to gift away in four months, which is the duration of this experiment. basically, the vanilla flavor leaches out into the alcohol, and you get vanilla extract that's closer to the flavor of real vanilla pods than the stuff you can buy in the store. i have five blends going, with variations in alcohol, bean type, and additional spices (star anise): bourbon beans/rum; bourbon beans/cognac+rum; tahitian + bourbon beans/cognac+rum; tahitian beans/vodka+rum; bourbon beans + star anise/rum. will keep you posted as time goes on.

durian really does smell rotten

sometimes i wonder how we discovered that durians are a desirable food source: they're spiky and hard on the outside, smell rotten on the inside, and the little white pods are stringy on the outside and custardy on the inside.  i suppose that back whenever civilization discovered durians, the smell may not have been so off-putting because they may not have known what a rotten smell is in the first place.  and conceptually, durian is pretty awesome because it smells like one thing, but tastes like another, but since your olfactory and taste senses are interdependent, then the sweet taste is constantly fighting off the aroma of rottenness.  mmm.  appetizing.  in reality, seeing the squishy, wrinkly kernels inside the shell of the durian just makes me want to throw them at people - rather than tomatoes, right?  they seem like they would have really great splatter action.

you can get a couple of kernels (read: more than enough) of durian for NT$100 (about USD$3).  it's true that the inside inside - the custardy part rather than the stringy outer layer of the kernel - is much sweeter than the outside.  the whiff of rottenness that you get is subtle at first - just here and there - but as you carry it around for longer, the aroma seems to develop and mature.  (however, the increasingly strong smell may have been because the kernels got stuffed into somebody's pocket and smooshed about).  it's kind of like duck blood: i'm happy i tried it, and now i'm done with it unless i happen to be starving at some point in my life and there are only durians and duck blood to eat.  so there you go.

a bit of blood

i saw the brown gelatinous blocks coming out of the hot pot and into my bowl, and thought it might be either liver or blood.  it was blood.  duck's blood, to be precise, rather than the pig's blood that i'm used to seeing around super 88.  despite knowing of its existence, i've never eaten blood.  

it tastes okay - kind of like a sort of tofu.  it tastes a little like what i imagine cheese curds taste like before they're processed: a bit squeaky on your teeth, firm but not too firm, clean tasting.  except it's blood. 

summer baking experiment #2

as my funds run out (i just parted with my tuition money - my first semester paid with money i earned all on my own!), i am still managing to fritter away money on my baking experiments. i guess i'll just have to work more hours on my freelance stuff.

i have to admit that, in the absence of my (cambridge) roommates, it's really nice that people at the office are willing to eat things that people bring in. in cambridge, we basically have a revolving door and somebody is over almost every day or night, thus creating the perfect environment to give away food after every experiment. in new york, i just don't know as many people, nor do the people i know live close enough to just stop by in the evenings. so the office is my stand-in recipient of my baking experiments.

this week's experiment is actually a pretty poor in terms of rating an experiment, and more a crowd pleaser for work - it's a chocolate pound cake i've made several times. i like pound cake in general because it has very little artificial leavening - ie, baking soda or baking powder. instead, it derives its structure and texture from the actual making of the cake - if you don't mix the batter enough, your pound cake won't have the right texture. when i bought my first baking cookbook, the author expounded on the virtue of creaming the butter for a full five minutes every time. i admit that i was a young and naive 18 year old at the time, and i scoffed. i still make cookies with a wooden spoon (ie no creaming the butter), but i am a convert to creaming the butter properly for cakes. creaming the butter incorporates air into the butter, giving your cake structure and texture. pound cake is essentially a study in how to incorporate air into your batter - the standard method is to cream the butter, beat the butter and sugar for a good long 10 minutes, add the eggs one at a time, then alternate dry ingredients and some moisture-rich ingredient (sour cream, in this case), beating each in every time. so you see that by beating everything in very slowly, you develop the structure of the cake purely by mixing the ingredients together. the efficiency of the method is a beautiful thing.

so i was curious to know how hot weather affects this sort of butter-rich batter - i would expect that it would be harder to mix everything because the butter would get melty too fast. true to form, the coating i use on the pan to keep the cake from sticking - just melted butter and cocoa - refused to cool until i stuck it in the fridge. in defense of the butter, i also didn't brush the pan with the cocoa butter until i was done making the batter, so i was probably overly impatient. surprisingly, though, the batter looks pretty much as it always does: tan, thick, airy. it was slightly shinier than it usually is, but it was nowhere nearly as bad as i thought it would be. it's also not the hottest evening, but just ignore that part. it's definitely warmer in the apt than it usually is at cutcat. the most noticeable point at which the butter was meltier than usual was when i creamed the butter by itself - it took very little time and was super-shiny. i was still worried when i added the sugar and it was still looking shiny, but that's why you beat the butter and sugar together for a full ten minutes: the incorporation of air starts to minimize the butter meltage. you know what else? billington's dark brown sugar - my favorite to use when the flavor really matters - has been really lumpy the past couple of times i've used it. i don't remember it being that lumpy in the past; perhaps both times it was an old batch of sugar? i mean, i know brown sugar has a tendency to clump, but it's been a little ridiculous.

i can smell the cake now, which is a good sign - it's been in for about 35 minutes or so. will report back later on how it tasted.

lab report: ny times v. toll house

i haven't done a lab report since high school chemistry (10 years ago!), so here you go.

purpose/problem: i used to use the chocolate chip cookie recipe from nick malgieri's cookies unlimited; however, as i stopped making chocolate chip cookies as frequently, i forgot the recipe (i basically had it memorized) and then reverted to the trusty toll house cookie recipe. i have been using the toll house recipe for some time, though it's not the best chocolate chip cookie in the world, to be honest. it's just the easiest and simplest to remember. then i saw the new york times article and had to know: does the new york times chocolate chip cookie recipe really beat out toll house chocolate chip cookies? a corollary question: if the new york times beats toll house, is the extra effort required to make the cookies outweighed by the better flavor of the cookies (ie, do you actually gain utility from the new york times cookies)? specifically, the new york times recipe differs in the proportions of ingredients (most notably, the flour-butter ratio) and also in the inclusion of a chilling period. which of these differences has the most effect on the cookies?

hypothesis: this is a taste test, so positing a hypothesis would probably unduly influence the outcome of this experiment.

materials: here is the new york times recipe and also the toll house recipe. i don't really believe in using an electric mixer to make cookies so i used a bowl, wooden spoon, and measuring cups. i couldn't find the measuring spoons, so i just estimated with a non-standard metal spoon from the silverware drawer.

procedure: i made a batch of the new york times recipe and a batch of toll house at the same time (well, not exactly at the same time because i only have two hands), and chilled it for 24-ish hours. i also made a batch of toll house before i started baking the other cookies; it sat in the fridge chilling for about 2 1/2 hours before i baked it. it was still a little softer than i would prefer when i baked it, but it was late and i was tired, so there you go.

i made a few substitutions in the batter: all batches omitted vanilla extract, because vanilla extract is gross. no, really, i find it quite disgusting these days. in addition to not liking the flavor of vanilla extract, i'm treading the locavore/clear flavors/higher yuppie moral ground when i posit to you that omitting the vanilla allows the butter-sugar flavor to come through better. why muck up something that's already fantastic? i mean, we eat butter cookies for a reason: because butter and sugar is a wonderful flavor. i'm sure there's some reason why we use vanilla that has to do with trade and nations manipulating what we eat. because really, what if some enterprising nation wanted us to eat a lot of almond extract and started providing subsidies to almond extract producers? yeah, our cookies would have almond extract in them. so i view vanilla extract as an unnecessary, capricious inclusion in these recipes. i will also say that i love real vanilla, as in vanilla beans scraped from the pod; i like both the flavor and the very slight crunch you get when you eat the tiny vanilla flecks.

um, ok, more substitutions, now that i'm done ranting about vanilla. i used light brown sugar for the first two batches and then dark brown sugar for the last batch, because when i went to whole foods to buy sugar they were actually out of light brown sugar. i generally use dark brown sugar for chocolate chip cookies anyway, but in terms of keeping the sugar variable constant, i've kind of failed miserably. for your records, i also used ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips for all of the cookies - i like the shape and size of these chips. they just make your cookies more attractive - they have a nicer sheen than other chocolate chips, too. lastly - for the new york times recipe, it stipulates a combination of cake and bread flour. i'm guessing that this is a measure to prevent too much gluten from forming when you stir the dough, since it has a high flour:butter ration. i didn't really care to buy cake and bread flour, though, since then i'd be stuck with cake and bread flour. accordingly, i just used regular unbleached flour instead.

analysis/conclusion: yeah, this is getting combined because this experiment does not totally conform to the lab report format. sorry for you purists out there.

effect of chilling the dough
i do typically chill the dough before baking it, but not for flavor reasons. it's simply a measure to prevent the cookies from spreading too much as they bake: the colder the dough is, the more slowly the butter will melt and you'll have prettier cookies. it's also easier to handle if it's not sticking more to your hands than the baking sheet - all the more easily to make perfectly shaped cookies without bothering with a cookie dough scooper.

so i'm bothered by the new york times article, actually, in which david leite talks about the recipe. it seemed to me that the article was mostly about extolling the virtues of chilling the dough, and the miraculous effect that has on the dough. well, i didn't read the recipes before making them, and after looking at them a little more closely, i see that the new york times' recipe actually has a much higher flour:butter ratio - ie, more flour per tablespoon butter. and i think that chilling the dough does have an effect, but this effect is mitigated in the new york times recipe by the fact that it has so much flour in it - the dough needs more time in the first place to chill, because there are more dry ingredients than there are in the toll house recipe. so the article is actually being a little facetious in the way that it plays up chilling the dough, since the recipe it gives automatically needs a long chilling time, and thus the effect of chilling the dough is partially negated.

at the end of the day, it's true that chilling the dough seems to have some effect on the flavor. or so people tell me: having brought the vast majority of the cookies to work, it seemed that the chilled-dough toll house cookies were the favorite. alack, my palate did not detect enough of a difference between the 24-hour-chilled toll house cookies and the chilled-until-firm toll house cookies. it's up to you to decide what you want to do when you make the cookies, then.

effect of the flour:butter ratio
let's return to the ingredient proportions and the flour:butter ratio. toll house does 2 1/4c flour for 2 sticks butter, while the new york times does about 3 2/3c flour for 2 1/2 sticks butter. that's 0.14 cups flour/tbsp butter for toll house v. 0.18 cups flour/tbsp butter for ny times, or 2.24T flour/T butter for toll house and 2.93T/T butter for ny times. a significant difference: that's 30% more flour in the new york times recipe. of course, i did a straight substitution without weighing things out, as my electronic scale is in cambridge, so there was probably some adjusting to do that i didn't do. but still: that is a noteworthy difference.

ok, so it's true that somehow this higher flour content made the new york times cookies a lot more attractive. a lot more attractive. but it also made the cookies a little chewier with too much crumb - i have to say that i prefer a cookie with more butter and sugar, so that it's a little candy-like in the caramelization of sugar and butter, rather than being a more bready cookie. all things considered, more attractive cookies is not an acceptable tradeoff for less flavorful cookies unless you're not planning to actually eat the cookies. or if you're giving them to someone you don't like, or who you know won't be eating the cookies.

effect of weather
i'd like to put in a word about the weather here. i generally haven't baked all that much in hot weather, and i recall vaguely that at cutcat, we would have the air conditioning on while i was baking so it was never really hot when i baked stuff there. (i know it's not a good strategy with respect to energy and sustainability, but nobody's perfect.) in this case, i was baking at night when it was cooler, but it was still pretty hot, and i'm fairly certain that this had an effect on the cookies - they spread faster than they normally would. i say this because in every other case when i've made chocolate chip cookies, they have not looked quite so...flat as these did. in short, they looked like an amateur made them, and that was certainly a little annoying. i mean, if they were going to have the gall to look so ugly, then why bother to chill the dough at all? hmph. that's what i think of you, new york weather.

effect of attractiveness of cookies on eating utility
it's nice to know that people (including myself) like chocolate chip cookies so much that even if they're kind of crappy looking, people will eat them. chocolate chip cookies positively ooze nostalgia for childhood - or, at the very least, other people have memories of making chocolate chip cookies as a child. i don't, really; perhaps this is why i really like them now. however, this brings up an interesting issue: how much are we affected by how good the food looks? i mean, i was really disappointed with these toll house batches because the last batch i made a few weeks back were the most gorgeous cookies i had ever seen. they were golden brown from the dark brown sugar (billington's brand), perfectly puffed but still soft and chewy in the middle, and the chocolate chips looked so pretty in the mass of the cookie that they positively glowed. they certainly had a very pretty luster to them. and because these cookies were so beautiful, they were actually more pleasing to eat. i can picture those cookies now, and it frustrates me that the next batch didn't look like them either. i know it wasn't the leavening, because it was new; i know it wasn't the dark brown sugar, either. the only thing that was different was the butter: i used plugra in that batch last month because it was cheaper to buy a half pound of plugra than it was to buy a pound of regular american butter. but wouldn't you expect that using butter with higher fat content would cause the cookies to spread more? i sure would, yet the converse of that happened. search me; i have no answers for you except to say that i would probably have to do another experiment between regular and european butter to figure out where the culprit lies. i think it's most likely the weather, but i do wonder if the plugra had an effect on the dough. to come back to cookie attractiveness: i suppose i'm lucky that people are so forgiving with chocolate chip cookies; only my ego is bruised.

and the winner is...
i almost forgot to render my verdict regarding the recipes! whoops. well, everyone, the new york times is a little like per se: pretending to be all posh, but not really delivering in the end (let us just say that per se delivers more than the new york times, though). i really don't think it's worth all the trouble to make the new york times cookies. i do think that toll house can be improved - the cookies are really a little too sweet for me - but i have yet to find the recipe that does that. i guess now we know?

the "i hate gristedes" post

ever since the new york times posted its definitive recipe for chocolate chip cookies, i've been meaning to do a taste test between those and our trusty standby, toll house. we all know i'm a sucker for taste tests; the best ones that come to mind include the shaws whole chicken v. chinatown whole chicken (the chinatown chicken tasted surprising like a chinatown chicken you would get in a restaurant, which was really surprising to me) and the apple pie taste test, after which i swore off cinnamon in apple pies.

so, gristedes. i had decided to do three batches of chocolate chip cookies, since the gimmick of the new york times recipe lies in both proportions of sugar/flour/butter and also in how long the dough is chilled. the three batches are then: (1) the new york times recipe; (2) toll house, chilled as long as the ny times recipe; and (3) toll house, chilled the normal amount (about an hour, until the dough is firm enough to use). i went to gristedes to get ingredients, assuming that a supermarket would definitely have all of the ingredients i needed for my experiment. (because that's what this is, folks: a geeky experiment. so sue me.) of course, i was wrong, and this is why gristedes makes me hate new york. because they don't carry the chocolate chips i use in chocolate chip cookies, which is not an exotic brand and is basically carried in every other grocery store known to man. the brand, incidentally, is simply ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chips. i like the size and shape of these chips in particular - they're chubbier, and a little bigger and flatter, so they're more pleasing to the eye and consequently make them more attractive to eat. kind of like the way that arborio rice is more pleasing to me to eat than basmati rice.

gristedes: you cost me a day, and my curiosity has increased accordingly as time has elapsed. i'd like to point out that whole foods did not disappoint me, and that i was able to procure my non-exotic chocolate chips there. technically, the ny times recipe calls for feves, which are the flat chocolate disks sold with all of the bulk chocolate, but i didn't really have that much faith in my ability not to break them when stirring them into the dough, so i just used regular chocolate chips.

so right now, two bags of chocolate chip cookie dough are slowly chilling in the fridge. the rationale is that the liquid ingredients absorb better into the dough with a longer chilling period, which i know to be true: the buckwheat cocoa nib cookies require overnight chilling because they consist of flour, butter, sugar, and cocoa nibs. you have to wait for the dough to get to the right consistency or it won't bake correctly. i'm curious to see just how much of a difference it makes, since i often chill my dough for up to 12 hours anyway, so that the butter doesn't melt too fast when you bake the cookies. for some reason, i find chocolate chip cookies with really flat edges to be kind of unappetizing. i don't really know why, and i know it's weird, but that's just the way it is.

my initial thoughts are that the doughs really are significantly different. the ny times recipe has more flour per tablespoon butter than the toll house recipe - you could tell with the two doughs that the toll house recipe was a lot goopier and harder to handle than the ny times recipe. i wonder if i should have used the typical brown sugar that i use - just dark instead of light - because the dough looked really pale to me, too. the last batch of chocolate chip cookies i made were at s+l's place, and i made those with billington's dark brown sugar, since that's what i'd bought at the supermarket (not a gristedes). they were a rather pleasing golden brown; using dark brown sugar definitely helps color-wise. i also happen to like the flavor of dark brown sugar, which is especially nice since i don't use vanilla extract. i can only stand to use real vanilla beans these days - i've discovered that i don't really like the flavor of vanilla extract, and that i don't want to obscure the flavor of sugar and butter with the vanilla.

well, that's about it. i'll report back about how the cookies turn out tomorrow.