Comments on: Chocolate Chip Cookies a la Anna Olson

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:20:05 +0000

I just tried these cookies…after everything was mixed, I put the bowl in the fridge for a bit to harden up the dough….using room temperature butter made incorporating the ingredients easy, but I felt the dough was left too soft for forming the balls. They taste good, but look nothing like the picture. They didn’t spread out at all. When cutting the chocolate chunks, I think I made the pieces too small… my cookies are heavily spotted in black, until Anna’s picture-perfect cookies.

By: psyducksworld

psyducksworld — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 15:08:41 +0000

Thanks for the info.

I also hate it when chocolate chip cookies cool and turn into gravel.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:23:04 +0000

Hmm, interesting. I’m trying to synch that with what I’ve experienced. We have never changed our flour or our butter, but I noticed a distinct change in how cookies baked on the silicone.

…maybe it was just because they don’t burn quite as often. >.<

By: Tom Brady

Tom Brady — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:18:53 +0000

Whether the cookies spread or not is more a function of ingredients then cooking surface. For a wonderful dissection of each ingredient in a standard chocolate chip cookie recipe and its role on the finished product, I highly recommend Shirley Corriher’s Cookwise.
The short version:
High-protein flour – darker in color and more flat
Low-protein flour – pale, soft, and puffy
Fat with sharp melting point, like butter – cookies spread more
Fat that maintains the same consistency over a wide temperature range – cookies spread less
Reduced fat spreads – cookies are browner
Brown sugar and honey (hygroscopic sweeteners) – cookies soften on standing
Baking soda – cookies are browner

Corriher’s advice (as consultant to the Food Network’s “Good Eats”) led to my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, Alton Brown’s “The Chewy” cookie.