The Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment: Test 2

In the continuation of the Toll House cookie experiment, we will continue with cold butter, sifted flour, volume measured ingredients.

There was another variable unintentionally involved here. In order to cream the butter and sugar while the butter was cold, the Kitchenaid Mixer was used.

Sift in the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Mix in th chocolate chips.

Teaspoon sized balls on the baking sheets.

And ta-da! Soft, puffy cookies.

This result is perhaps what the traditional toll House cookies are meant to be.

Next up, we will try to get the cookies to turn out how my mom's cookies come out - thin and chewy.

The Chocolate Chip Cookie Experiment

This would be much nicer if blogger wouldn't rotate my pictures without my consent.

Nestle's Toll House cookies are a standard. Mostly because they are easy to make and taste really good. My first memories of these cookies actually involve a not terribly happy memory. I was about three or four years old and baking cookies with my mom. "Helping." Unfortunately, I knocked the bowl off the counter and the bowl broke. This memory may not actually be true, because the bowl I swear I broke is this one:

Anyway, the experiment at hand is one that is to determine what affects the "puffiness" of the cookies. When my mom makes them, they are very thin. Delicious, but thin. I have made them many times, and they come out many different ways. Puffy, thin, crispy, chewy. I also have a lot of variation in my oven (some apartments have ovens that do not have any noticeable correlation between oven temperature dial and actual oven temperature). The main variables in this experiment will be sifting, measuring methods, and butter temperature.

Up first: room temperature butter, sifted flour, volume measurements of flour and sugar.

The recipe is easy to memorize. Two sticks of butter, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 3/4 cup brown sugar

Two eggs and one teaspoon of vanilla

Sift in 2.25 cups all-purpose flour, one teaspoon baking soda, one teaspoon salt.

Mix in a 12 ounce bag of chocolate chips.

And then spoon onto some baking sheets

Bake for up to 10 minutes at 375F.

The result: somewhat puffy, overbaked cookies. The overbaking is likely more due to the lack of complete control over the oven temperature. The mid-level puffiness is assumed to be a direct result of the butter temperature.

Fresh Spring Rolls

This has been the summer of Spring Rolls. The fresh kind. These are not a terribly involved in terms of cooking, they are more about assembly.

To make these, we need rice vermicelli, tofu, cucumber, carrot, green onion, and Thai basil. Unfortunately, no Thai basil was available at the store today, so mint and sweet basil were used as a replacement. Mint is closer to the flavor of Thai basil than regular basil.

The tofu was cut into strips, then briefly fried and finally dried.

The carrots were grated - by hand this time, not using the food processor. The green onions were split and cut into thirds. The cucumber was seeded and cut into strips.

Wash and clean some lettuce leaves to rest the rolls on.

The assembly process is involved, so no pictures were taken. To make them, soak the spring roll wrappers in water until flexible. Layer some of the herbs, add some noodles, some carrots, cucumber, and green onion, and finally some of the tofu. Roll up like a burrito and voila!

But before the can be eaten, we need some peanut dipping sauce. This is the real reason why one eats fresh spring rolls. Fry up some crushed garlic, add some tomato paste, hoisin sauce, peanut butter, and water. For a little kick, some asian chili-garlic sauce was added too.

Yummmmm.