Cookies

Question 1

For chewier cookies..

Answer 1

Use brown sugar because of the molasses, an invert sugar. Make the cookie larger (3tbsp) o increase its crisp-chewy contrast.

Question 2

Invert Sugars

Answer 2

Sucrose breaks down into individual glucose and frustose molecules when heated witht acid or enzymes. It’s especially hygroscopic, puling water from wherever it can be found.

Question 3

To make a thinner cookie..

Answer 3

Add a bit of liquid to create a looser dough that spreads in the oven. Use some granulated sugar as it doesn’t hold moisture and crystallizes as it cools, making it crunchier. Add baking soda.

Question 4

Why add baking soda to cookies?

Answer 4

To help dry them out by causing a rapid collapse that creates fissures and allows moisture to escape.

Question 5

Why do cookie recipes use a mix of leaveners?

Answer 5

Baking powder is responsible for lift since it’s engineered to produce most of its gas after the cookies go into the oven, where the dough sets before the bubbles can burst. But too much makes them dome and cakey. Baking soda is added (as long as there’s an acid to react with), raising the pH of the dough, weakening gluten which lets the cookie spread and allows for the crackly tops. Baking soda reacts immediately in the wet dough to produce large bubble of CO2 that can’t all be contained by the weakened dough. Before the cookie sets, the bubbles rise to the top and burst, leaving fissures in their wake.

Question 6

How to make a cookie cakey?

Answer 6

Cake flour lends to a moist and light texture but sacrificed structure. Adding an acidic ingredient like sour cream or buttermilk works in 2 ways - adds moisture, which turns to steam in the oven to produce a cakier crumb, and also reacts with the leavener to produce a higher rise. More eggs will also provide more lift, while creaming the butter with sugar helps aerate the dough and open the cookie’s crumb.