mix, mix…stir, stir

Big, thick, chewy, peanutbuttery, chocolaty chunky cookies is what I’m talking about. How could that be anything but good?

photo by David Peterman

The Tuesdays with Dorie group had me making cookies this week. This recipe, which you can find in Dorie Greenspan’s book Baking: From My Home to Yours, brings the three classics of chocolate, oatmeal, and peanut butter, together in a delicious and harmonious way without letting one single ingredient steal the spotlight. I really expected these to be peanut butter cookies with stuff in them, but far from it. It could be that the addition of cinnamon and nutmeg ends up keeping all the star ingredients in check.

Two process discoveries I made: I preferred them cooked a bit crispier than I normally bake cookies, and the dough was better after aging in the fridge for two days. Dorie recommends baking at 350 degrees F and because I usually bake with the convection fan on, which makes the oven a bit hotter, I dropped the temp to 325 degrees F. The second batch I baked at 350 with convection and let them go until I saw the tops just starting to brown, and though they were a bit crispy they weren’t dry. The crunchier bite worked becasue of the peanut butter component in the dough.

photo by David Peterman

The idea of cookie dough benefiting from a 24 to 72 hour rest in the fridge was first brought to my attention by a New York Times article on the perfect chocolate chip cookie. I can’t honestly say that I noticed as dramatic a difference as the article set me up to expect when I tried their recipe and baked batches off at different time intervals, but with this dough I did prefer the extended resting period becasue the oats softened and became more integrated into the baked cookie. The hearty thick cut oats I used were a bit toothsome the first day I baked them. I didn’t intend to test the resting period with this dough, it just worked out that I didn’t have the time to bake the whole batch at once and ended up with a happy discovery.

The NYT article did have a permanent impact on my cookie baking, but because of salt not resting time. A light sprinkle of salt on the cookies before baking delivers a perfect delicately salty counterpoint to the sweetness of the dough and chocolate. Though my choice is flake salt, specifically Murray River Flake Salt over sea salt.

It was fun to bake cookies this week. Thanks to Stefany of Proceed with Caution for the great selection.