By request of my father, I made peanut butter cookies this week! Honestly, I don't really like peanut butter, but it seems like plenty of people like it. It gave me a little trouble, but I think they turned out pretty decent.
Before this recipe I wasn't aware that baking powder and baking soda were two different items, but apparently they are! They're both leavening products, but they give off different tastes (baking soda is bitter, and baking powder has less of a taste). Usually they are used in different products depending on taste and texture. This recipe probably used both due to the thickness of the batter, needing both to properly rise. I also used peanut butter which was... difficult to work with.
Using advice from last week, I tried to mix the shortening mixture (butter, an egg, both sugars and peanut butter) with a whisk. That did not work. The peanut butter is incredibly thick and sticky and was stuck to the whisk. I remade the shortening mixture using my hand mixer, which gave me a better result. I did mix the dry ingredients with a whisk and that worked just fine. Mixing the mixtures into a dough was similarly difficult, but I managed. After mixing, the recipe says to "chill", yet did not give any sort of time, so I chilled the dough for 45 minutes.
I baked four dozen cookies on Saturday. As usual, I only took two dozen to school. My dad ate the other two dozen in less than half the week, so he thinks they're pretty good! I was worried about how long I baked them for, as my test cookie came out completely burnt at the 10 minute minimum the recipe called for. People think they were hard at the 9.5 minutes I baked them for, so I might even go under that next week. The recipe also called for crosshatching, which gave me a little bit of an issue but came out fine.
1 Comment
The real week one! Keeping with the basics from last week, I'm making more chocolate chip cookies! I think I fulfilled the full plan from last week. There was a bit more of a struggle, but let's jump right into it.
Okay, so, big difference: fine salt! Going along with last week's plan, I went out and obtained regular, fine salt and it seems like the problem with the cookies being too salty disappeared. I also got a lot more flour because I'll need it for future parts of the project. On a different note, I think I might not have done the conversion of shortening to butter correctly last week as using less butter this week seemed to work better.
I took the advice of mixing the various groups of ingredients by hand and then combining them with the hand mixer. Nobody complained about them being tough, so that worked! When I mixed the wet ingredients, the result seemed a lot different from last week. I think it was because I hand-mixed them, but it might of just been a different sized mixing bowl? It kind of messed me up for a bit, but I pushed through to bake them.
Getting cookies out of the oven, putting them on the cooling rack, and getting another batch in was much easier this week. I think I got better at space management after my initial trial. I baked a total of three dozen cookies, but only took 24 to school, saving more for my family. I decided this week that it's probably best to only take 24 cookies, as that many fits perfectly in my carrying container. I baked these cookies for 8 minutes, and people seemed to think they were less burnt. I think they came out really good this week!
Due to the obvious improvement in rating, I think it's safe to move on to a different type of cookie. From baking chocolate chip cookies, I think that I've learned how to manage space and how to mix solid ingredients into a dough. I was debating between two relatively simple recipes for this upcoming week, but I've settled on making peanut butter cookies. The recipe I'm using seems like it will be decently difficult.
Come back next week for hopefully better bakin'! Okay, so I'm aware that this is technically week zero, but I got a bit hasty and started a little early. I don't feel like keeping the blog a week behind, and baking is fun anyway, so! Let's get right into it! I'm starting off with the basics - chocolate chip cookies!
It turns out that I had everything I needed already, and aside from the kosher salt everything was organic (which is regular for our house)! The kosher salt becomes a problem later, so remember it. One issue I had during preparation was with the butter - the recipe I was using called for shortening and I've never had to convert shortening to butter. However, I believe I did the conversion correctly.
This is the first time I've ever used a hand mixer! It was a little threatening at first, but I found that it was quicker than mixing everything by hand. I still mixed some ingredients by hand, but the actual combining of the wet and dry ingredients to create the dough was much easier.
The actual baking was a bit of a hassle. I'm not used to making large quantities of food because I'm usually only baking for two people. I baked two and a little over a half of a dozen chocolate chip cookies. It took three batches (12 cookies per batch) and I baked them for about 9 minutes (the recipe said 8-10 minutes). Getting baking sheets into and out of the oven quickly was difficult, as my stove could only fit one pan and my cooling rack, so I had to manage my space wisely. All in all, I think the cookies came out good, but a little salty.
Come back next week for hopefully better bakin'! |
About the AuthorI'm Kai Page and I'm just trying to get better at baking cookies! ArchivesCategories |