Authors: Rick Rodgers
D
RIED EGG WHITES
are used to make royal icing, the slick and shiny coating that decorates sugar cookies. This icing was originally made with raw egg whites, which many bakers prefer to avoid because of the possibility of salmonella contamination. You’ll find dried egg whites at well-stocked supermarkets.
M
ERINGUE POWDER
, which is dried egg whites with sugar and stabilizers added, is available at cake decorating suppliers and hobby shops and can be substituted for the dried egg whites. Both of these products need to be reconstituted with water. You can also make royal icing with liquid egg whites, sold in cartons from the refrigerated section of the market. Like the dried products,
LIQUID EGG WHITES
are pasteurized and safe to use for the uncooked icing.
SUGAR
Classic cookies use sugar as the main sweetener. Sugar can be processed from either sugar cane or sugar beets, but most bakers have a strong preference for cane sugar, as beet sugar doesn’t behave reliably in all applications (such as melting to make caramel). Look for the words “cane sugar” on the packaging.
G
RANULATED SUGAR
, with medium-size crystals, is the sugar most often used for cookie dough.
C
ONFECTIONERS
’
SUGAR
, also called powdered sugar, is finely ground sugar with a little cornstarch added to discourage clumping. Used for icings and frostings and for decorating, it is usually sifted first to remove lumps.
B
ROWN SUGAR
used to be a by-product of the sugar-making process, but these days it is usually just crystallized sugar that has been sprayed with molasses for flavor and color. The amount of molasses creates light or dark sugar, which are interchangeable, depending on how much molasses flavor you like.
M
USCOVADO SUGAR
is brown sugar made by the traditional methods, a factor that adds to its cost. Always store brown sugar in an airtight container to keep it from absorbing moisture from the air and clumping. Don’t use lumpy brown sugar in cookie dough, as the baked cookies will be dotted with undissolved brown sugar. To return lumpy brown sugar to its original state, rub it through a coarse-mesh wire sieve to break down the lumps.
LEAVENING
The two most common leavenings for cookies are baking powder and baking soda. (A third leavening, yeast, is not used in this book.) During mixing, tiny air bubbles are incorporated into the cookie dough. The leavenings create carbon dioxide to inflate the bubbles, making the dough rise.
B
AKING SODA
(bicarbonate of soda) is an alkali. Mix it with an acidic ingredient (such as buttermilk, sour cream, vinegar, lemon juice, brown sugar, molasses, or natural cocoa powder), moisten it, and carbon dioxide forms.
B
AKING POWDER
does not need an acidic ingredient to be activated. It is made of baking soda combined with a dry acidic ingredient (usually aluminum sodium sulfate). When moistened, the baking powder creates carbon dioxide to make the cookies rise. Commercial baking powder is almost always labeled “double-acting,” which means that the baking powder is initially activated when moistened, but the heat of the oven creates a second burst of leavening the batter. Some bakers, including me, find that since baking powders with aluminum by-products have a bitter flavor that can be detected in baked goods, it is better to buy aluminum-free baking powder. Rumford’s is my preferred brand.
There are recipes that use both baking soda and baking powder. The soda acts to neutralize the acid ingredients, providing a small amount of the leavening in the process, while the baking powder does the bulk of the work.
MILK
All ingredients for cookie dough should be at room temperature for the most efficient mixing. Milk is no exception. Let the measured milk stand at room temperature for about an hour so it loses its chill, or place the measuring cup in a bowl of hot water for a few minutes. Or microwave it in a microwave-safe container on low (20 percent power) in 10-second periods, stirring after each increment, until the milk is tepid.
W
HOLE MILK
, which contains fat, is the best choice for cookie dough. The cookies could be tough if reduced, low-, or nonfat milk is used instead.
SALT
Without a little salt in the batter, cookies can taste flat. This is especially true of chocolate cookies. In cookie dough, salt is used sparingly as a flavor enhancer and is not a prominent taste itself, so the most important factor is how easily the salt dissolves. (This isn’t the case in savory cooking, where coarse salt can be purposely used to add texture to a dish.) Fine sea salt, which has a clean, neutral flavor, is my first choice, but plain table salt will also work well. Kosher salt is too coarse and its large crystals don’t dissolve well. If you only have coarse salt in your kitchen, grind it first in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle before using in baking.
CHOCOLATE AND COCOA
One of the world’s most beloved foods, for all its ubiquity, chocolate is a fairly complex subject.
U
NSWEETENED CHOCOLATE
is cacao beans that have been roasted, ground, molded, and cooled. Professionals sometimes call it “chocolate liquor.” It contains no sugar.
S
EMISWEET OR BITTERSWEET CHOCOLATE
is chocolate liquor that has been sweetened to some degree. The USDA doesn’t have a specific standard for semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, and only has a category for dark chocolate, meaning any chocolate with a minimum of 35 percent cacao. This is fairly meaningless, because no producers make chocolate with such low cacao content. The average cacao content in semisweet chocolate is around 55 percent, with the remaining contents being sugar, the emulsifier lecithin, and vanilla (or the artificial alternative, vanillin). However, one brand’s semisweet can be another’s bittersweet. Many chocolate brands now state the cacao percentage on the label. If it isn’t listed, you can assume that it isn’t above 62 percent. I use Callebaut semisweet chocolate, which is easily found in bulk at many natural food stores and supermarkets, for my “house chocolate.” Trader Joe’s also carries excellent, reasonably priced Belgian bulk chocolate.
H
IGH-PERCENTAGE CHOCOLATE
has a larger proportion of cacao, which naturally gives it a deeper chocolate flavor. If you like a bitter note to your eating chocolate, you will like high-percentage chocolate. But it can make trouble in baking. The cacao content can wreak havoc with a recipe, as the proportions of sugar and other ingredients (such as the fat supplied by cocoa butter in the chocolate) are thrown off. This is especially true of ganache, a combination of heavy cream and chocolate, which depends on a precise balance of butterfat and cocoa butter for its success. For this reason, I recommend chocolate with a cacao content of no higher than 62 percent.
M
ILK CHOCOLATE
is sweeter than semisweet chocolate and has been flavored with dried milk solids.
W
HITE CHOCOLATE
contains no cacao at all; in fact the best brands are basically sweetened cocoa butter flavored with vanilla. Both of these chocolates are delicate and can scorch easily, so melt them with an extra measure of caution.
C
HOCOLATE CHIPS
are processed with an additional amount of lecithin to keep them from melting too quickly in the oven.
Before using, chop chocolate into small pieces with a serrated knife. The serrated knife grips the chocolate better than a straight-edged one, and you have less chance of cutting yourself. Do not chop chocolate in a food processor, as the friction can heat and melt the chocolate. And while it may be tempting to use chocolate chips to skip the chore of chopping the chocolate, the extra lecithin in the chips makes them difficult to melt. If you bake a lot and want to save time from chopping, look for chocolate
callets
or
pistoles
, small disks of chocolate made expressly for melting.
In these recipes, chocolate is always combined with a warm ingredient (usually melted butter or cream) to melt it. This is less complicated than melting chocolate by itself, but it doesn’t mean that the baker can be careless. When chocolate is overheated, it thickens and becomes lumpy. Each recipe provides instructions to avoid overheating.
C
OCOA POWDER
is pulverized, unsweetened cacao beans.
N
ATURAL COCOA POWDER
, such as the familiar Hershey’s in the brown box, is the cocoa that Americans always baked with in the past because nothing else was readily available. It is acidic, and recipes that use it usually call for baking soda to neutralize it.
D
UTCH-PROCESSED COCOA
has been treated with alkali to reduce its acidity and deepen its color (the procedure was invented in the Netherlands in the 1830s). If a recipe calls for Dutch-processed cocoa, it can be leavened with baking powder, as the acidity of the cocoa has been reduced so much that baking soda isn’t needed to neutralize it.
Always use the cocoa called for in the recipe. When I am developing recipes with cocoa, I usually opt for natural cocoa for a traditional American flavor and Dutch-processed cocoa for darker color. I have used natural cocoa powder in most of the recipes in this book. In the cases where there is a choice between the two cocoas, I have recommended Dutch-processed cocoa for its coloring properties, but natural cocoa will work as well.
VANILLA
If you have ever wondered why vanilla is relatively expensive, consider this: The vanilla orchid, which only grows in tropical regions, must be hand-pollinated for commercial use, and the flower only opens one day a year. The good news for bakers is that vanilla is used in small amounts, so your investment lasts a long time.
Vanilla beans and their seeds are often used to flavor custards, ice creams, sweet fillings, and desserts or their components, but the beans’ delicate aroma and flavor can be lost in cookie dough unless the baker uses an inordinate amount. Vanilla extract is the more effective and common way to infuse vanilla flavor into baked goods. Imitation vanilla extract (vanillin) is a by-product of paper manufacturing, reason enough not to use it. However, more than one taste panel has determined that there is little flavor difference between real and artificial vanilla. So, while I prefer to stick with the real thing, the choice is yours.
High-quality vanilla extract often has its beans’ source on the label. Madagascar-Bourbon indicates that the beans come from two of the most highly regarded locations for vanilla plantations (Bourbon is the former name of the island of Réunion). Mexican vanilla is very similar in flavor. Tahitian vanilla has a distinctive, perfumed aroma. Again, although I like the full rounded flavor of Madagascar-Bourbon, there is room for personal preferences.
FOOD COLORING
A judicious drop of food coloring can give food an appetizing tint. The adage “we eat with our eyes” is true, and adjusting the color of
macarons
from beige to pale yellow makes them more attractive and sends a signal that the cookies will be lemon flavored. This is also the reason I’ve tinted my pistachio meringue cookies pastel green.
Food coloring comes in three forms: gel, paste, and liquid. Gel, which gives deep, rich colors, is my favorite. It gives much brighter colors than liquid and is more convenient to use than paste, which must be removed from the jar in minuscule amounts with the tip of a toothpick. Just squeeze the gel from its bottle, a drop at a time, into the food and stir to distribute well. Gauge the color carefully, as the gel is so concentrated that it is easy to go overboard and make the tint
too
saturated. My preferred brand is Spectrum, made by Ateco, as its colors are very attractive. You can find individual hues or a six- or twelve-pack of the most popular colors in small plastic bottles at cake decorating suppliers and hobby shops. Food colorings with all-natural ingredients are available at natural food grocery stores, but you may find the colors to be muted.
MEASURING
Bakers love to argue about measuring, especially when it comes to flour, as its fluffy texture makes it susceptible to variations in measurement methods. Professional bakers always weigh their dry ingredients, while most home bakers prefer measuring cups. After interviewing many of my baking students in my classes around the country, I know that the vast majority of home bakers don’t own an electric scale, and that they are going to use volume measurements anyway. Therefore, I provide volume measurements only here.
That being said, there is another problem with volume measuring that must be addressed. Some bakers spoon the flour into a measuring cup, and others simply dip the cup into the flour’s container to fill the cup. Each method gives a different weight. The flour in this book has been measured by the “dip-and-sweep” method. Dip a dry-ingredient (metal or plastic) cup into the flour to fill it. Take care that there are no air pockets in the cup, but don’t pack the flour. Sweep away the excess flour with the edge of a knife so the flour remaining in the cup is level with the cup’s edge.
EQUIPMENT
OVENS
Take it from me—ovens are notoriously unreliable. In the last five years, I have had three brand-name ovens in my kitchen, and only one heated to a temperature within an acceptable range of the number set on the thermostat.