Kugelhopf Breakfast Rolls

http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-kugelhopf-breakfast-rolls-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-119237


Kugelhopf dough:
2 tablespoons warm water (not hot)
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/3 cup whole milk, warmed (not hot)
1 3/4 cups flour, divided
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 large eggs
1 large yolk
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
Filling:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar
Sugar Coating:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
Equipment
Mixing bowl
Measuring cups and spoons
Stand mixer
12-cup muffin tin
Pastry brush

Instructions

1. Make the poolish: Stir the water and yeast together in a small mixing bowl until the yeast dissolves, then stir in the milk. Add just 1/2 cup of the flour and stir until it forms a smooth batter, about 100 strokes. Cover the bowl and let this poolish sit for at least 20 minutes or up to 60 minutes. In this time, the poolish should rise to twice its original size and you should see lots of little bubbles on the surface.
2. Stir in the eggs, yolk, and almond extract: In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, yolk, and almond extract. Stir this into the poolish and mix until completely combined.
3. Mix the dough together: In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the remaining 1 1/4 cups of flour, the sugar, and the salt. Pour the poolish-egg mixture into the flour and stir until it becomes a wet, shaggy dough.
4. Knead the dough until smooth: Fit the mixer with a dough hook attachment and knead this dough on medium-high speed until it comes together and becomes smooth, five minutes.
5. Add the butter with the mixer running: Reduce the mixer speed to medium and start adding the softened butter in blobs, waiting until the blob is nearly incorporated before adding the next. (The butter needs to be quite soft; work it between your fingers before adding if it's still a bit stiff and chilly from the fridge.) You may need to stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl during this time.
6. Continue kneading until the dough comes together in a glossy, elastic ball: Once all the butter has been added, increase the mixer speed to medium-high and knead the dough for 10 minutes. The dough should come together in a ball, look glossy and supple, and jiggle like a custard if you tap it with your spatula.
7. Let the dough rise for 1 1/2 hours: Transfer the dough out to a clean bowl, cover, and let rise for about an hour and half, until doubled in size.
8. Refrigerate the dough overnight: Put dough in the refrigerator and let it rest overnight (or up to 2 days). It may rise a little more in the fridge before cooling completely down. You can punch the dough down if it looks like it will rise over the edge of the bowl.
9. Roll the dough flat and brush with butter: When ready to make the rolls, turn the chilled dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Roll the dough out to roughly 10-x8-inch rectangle that's roughly 1/2-inch thick. Use more flour as needed if the dough is sticking to the work surface or your rolling pin. Brush the dough with melted butter, leaving an inch of un-buttered dough at the top. Sprinkle the buttered areas with the sugar.
10. Roll the dough into a log and slice into rounds: Roll the dough into a log and pinch it closed at the seam. Using a pastry cutter or a chef's knife, cut the dough into 12 equal pieces. Spray a muffin tin liberally with non-stick spray, including the wells and the surface of the tin. Nestle each roll into a well, pressing gently to make sure it settles in the bottom.
11. Let the rolls rise for 1 hour: Cover the tin and let the rolls rise for about an hour, until they're just starting to peak over the tops of the wells.
12. Bake the rolls: Fifteen minutes before baking (when the rolls are almost to the top of the tins), preheat the oven to 375°F. Uncover the rolls and bake them for 25 to 30 minutes. About halfway through cooking, check the rolls and tent them with foil if they are golden-brown to protect the edges from burning. The rolls are done when a cake tester comes out clean and the internal temperature registers at 200°F.
13. Cool the rolls slightly: Tip the rolls out onto a cooling rack and let them cool until just cool enough to handle.
14. Dip the rolls in butter and cinnamon-sugar: Melt the butter in a small bowl and combine the cinnamon and sugar in a second bowl. While the rolls are still warm, dip each roll into the butter and then roll it in the cinnamon-sugar. It's easiest to dip and roll the bottom and then go back to dip and roll the top. The rolls are best if eaten right away, though they are still good for several days and are great reheated in a toaster oven. Store in an airtight container.

Recipe Notes

• This recipe was inspired by Bread and Chocolate Bakery and has been gratefully adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe.
• Leftover, stale kugelhopf make phenomenal French toast or bread pudding.
• Make-ahead kugelhopf: If you have time the day before, you can shape the rolls the night before and let them sit in the refrigerator overnight so you have less work to do in the morning. (Although, the dough is easiest to roll out if it's cold. Let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour before rolling it out and shaping the rolls, if possible.) The next morning, just take the shaped rolls out of the fridge and let them rise as directed. They may take an extra half hour to rise.
• Freezing kugelhopf: Let the kugelhopf cool completely, then package them in a freezer bag or container, and freeze for up to 3 months. When ready to serve, heat the rolls on a baking sheet in a 300°F oven until warm. Dip in melted butter and cinnamon-sugar, and serve.
• Making kugelhopf by hand: This is one of those recipes that's so much easier to make if you have a standing mixer. However, you can make it by hand by beating the dough with a wooden spoon. It takes about an hour for the dough to come together and get silky, so it helps to have some willing assistants on hand! Also, don't try this with a hand-held mixer as its motor isn't strong enough.

Sticky Caramel-Pecan Babka

http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-sticky-caramel-pecan-babka-loaves-recipes-from-the-kitchn-218012

Sticky Caramel-Pecan Babka

 

Jump to the recipe

It all started a few months back when Faith connected me with Jerry James Stone and his Three Loaves project. Jerry's simple idea, an easy intro to giving, is that we all make three loaves: one to keep, one for a friend, and one to give to someone in need. A great project with a solid goal, so when Jerry asked if The Kitchn wanted to contribute a recipe, we jumped at the chance.
But what to make? A sandwich loaf felt practical, but ... yawn. I wanted to make something really special. And a little indulgent. Something that would make eyes grow wide and put big smiles on faces, especially those that might not always have reason to smile. So, you tell me — how did I do?

I've been playing with the idea of transforming sticky buns into sliceable loaf form for a while. It seemed perfect for an afternoon treat — something sweet and entirely happy-making, but that wouldn't require a nap after eating. I considered a riff on a Cinnamon Swirl Bread, but then I remembered — babka!
Babka is a Jewish pastry. (Or cake? Cake bread? I'm not quibbling.) It's traditionally filled with either chocolate or a mix of cinnamon and sugar. The bread portion is rich with eggs and butter — enough to qualify it as a brioche, if you were so inclined.
But what makes babka truly special is the way the loaves are shaped: The dough is rolled up around the filling and then sliced down the length to create two long pieces streaked with filling. Twist those pieces around each other, pop them in a loaf pan, and you have babka in all its twisty, layered glory.

I've taken that traditional cinnamon-and-sugar filling one step further — and much deeper into gooey, sticky territory. This filling is a mix of butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and finely chopped pecans. In the heat of the oven, the layers in the middle melt into bubbly caramel, while the exposed layers on top bake into a crunchy praline-like coating. Baker beware — this stuff is addictive.
I highly recommend spreading this bread-making process over two days. The dough is very sticky and can be a struggle to work with right after rising. Instead, put the bowl of dough in the fridge and let it chill overnight (literally and figuratively). The chilled dough is much easier to roll out, slice, and shape. (A tip of the hat to Deb of Smitten Kitchen and Yotam Ottolenghi for this nugget of advice.)
Call it cake, call it bread, call it whatever you like, but by all means, make this sticky caramel-pecan babka. While you're waiting for the dough to rise, check out Jerry James Stone's Three Loaves project and think about what you might like to do with your sticky, nut-filled bounty.

→ Check It Out: Three Loaves Project

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Scatter a generous cup of the filling over the surface of the dough, then use the back of a spoon to spread and press the filling into an even layer. Leave about an inch of clear border at the top.

Sticky Caramel-Pecan Babka

Makes 3 loaves, 10 to 12 slices each

3/4 cup water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
3/4 cup whole milk
4 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 1/4 - 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
For the sticky filling:
2 1/4 cups pecans
3/4 cups butter (salted)
1 1/2 cups packed dark brown sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon
For the egg wash:
1 large egg yolk
1 tablespoon whole milk or cream
Make the dough: Combine the water and the yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer, and let stand until the yeast is dissolved. Add the milk, eggs, yolk, sugar, salt, and vanilla extract, and whisk until the yolks are completely combined. Add 6 1/4 cups of flour and stir with a stiff spatula until a shaggy, floury dough is formed.
Using a dough hook, knead on medium-low speed until the dough comes together and is no longer floury, about 5 minutes. With the mixer still running, begin adding the butter in 1-tablespoon blobs. Mix until one blob is just barely incorporated before adding the next blob.
When all the butter has been added, continue kneading for another 5 minutes until the dough is silky, elastic, and quite jiggly. This won't form a ball like regular dough — it should bunch around the dough hook and clear the sides of the dough hook, but will still be attached in a sticky dough mass to the bottom of the bowl. Add the extra 1/4 cup of flour as needed if the dough is sticking to the sides of the bowl. (For step-by-step instructions, see steps 2 through 6 in How To Make Kugelhopf.)
Chill the dough: Transfer the dough to your largest mixing bowl. Cover and let rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until doubled in bulk. Transfer to the fridge and chill for at least an hour or up to 3 days. (This makes the dough easier to roll out in the next step; I recommend letting the dough chill overnight.)
Prepare the filling: When you're ready to shape the loaves, prepare the filling before you take the dough out of the fridge. Heat the oven to 350°F and toast the pecans until they're a few shades darker and very fragrant, about 10 minutes. Transfer the hot pecans to a cutting board and chop them finely while still warm. Keep chopping until no piece is larger than a grain of barley. You can also do this in a food processor — process the nuts in pulses and be careful of over-processing (which will turn the nuts into nut butter!).
In a medium bowl, mash together the softened butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon for the filling with a fork or a spoon, then work in the nuts. Keep mashing and mixing until the nuts are evenly distributed and you have formed a crumbly paste. Set this near your work surface.
Line three 8x4-inch loaf pans with long rectangles of parchment, so that the parchment hangs over the sides of the pan. Grease the pans thoroughly with non-stick spray. (If you only have two pans, bake two loaves and leave the third piece of dough in the fridge to shape and bake later.)
Shape the babka loaves: Remove the dough from the fridge. Sprinkle your work surface generously with flour and scrape the dough out on top. Pat the dough into a log and then use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut it into 3 equal pieces (mine were about 21 ounces each, if you feel like weighing).
Sprinkle the work surface with a little more flour, then set one of the pieces of dough on top. Use the palms of your hands to press it into a rough rectangle shape. Rub a little flour into a rolling pin and roll the dough out into a thin rectangle, roughly 10 inches wide and 12 or more inches long (the thinner you roll, the more layers you'll make).
Scatter a generous cup of the filling over the surface of the dough, then use the back of a spoon to spread and press the filling into an even layer. Leave about an inch of clear border at the top.
Starting with the short end closest to you, carefully roll the dough into a log. If any filling falls out, just tuck it back in. If the dough sticks to the counter, use a bench scraper to gently pry it up. When done rolling, pinch the dough to seal it closed. Dip a very sharp knife in water and gently, but swiftly, slice the log down its entire length, creating two halves with lots of layers.
To form the babka loaves, turn the halves so that the layers are facing up. Press the two halves together at the top, then twist the halves around each other, creating a spiral. Press the halves together again at the bottom. Flour your hands and lift the loaf into the loaf pan. If the loaf is a little too long for the pan, just smoosh it a little on either end to make it fit — any gaps will be filled in by the rising dough.
Repeat with the other loaves. Cover the shaped loaves and let them rise on the counter until puffy and just starting to dome over the tops of the pans, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Bake the loaves: About a half hour before baking (when the loaves are puffy but not yet domed), preheat the oven to 350°F.
When the loaves have risen, whisk the yolk and the milk together to make the egg wash and gently brush it all over the surface of the loaves. Transfer the loaves to the oven and slide a baking sheet underneath to catch any syrupy drips. Bake 45 to 55 minutes — cover the loaves with foil in the last 10 to 15 minutes if the edges look like they might be starting to burn. The loaves are done when deep glossy brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean of any dough (sticky goo is ok, though!). If you want to check the temperature, the loaves should be around 200°F in the middle.
Cool the loaves: Let the loaves cool in the pan for about 20 minutes to firm up — however, don't let them sit for much longer or the caramel will harden and it can be hard to get the loaves out of the pan.
Run a butter knife around the edges of the loaf to release it from the pan, and use the edges of the parchment to gently lift the loaf from the pan. Place them on a cooling rack and slide the parchment out from underneath.
These loaves are best when served still slightly warm, but are still excellent for several days after. The slices will be quite sticky and the layers won't always stay neatly together — that's part of the charm! Store unsliced loaves on the counter, covered, for up to a week. Loaves can also be wrapped tightly and frozen for up to 3 months.

Recipe Notes

• Ingredients for 2 loaves: 1/2 cup water, 2 teaspoons active-dry yeast, 1/2 cup milk, 3 large eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, 4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 8 tablespoons softened unsalted butter; for the filling: 1 1/2 cups pecans, 1/2 cup butter (salted), 1 cup packed dark brown sugar, 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• Making babka dough by hand: This is one of those recipes that's so much easier to make if you have a standing mixer. However, you can make it by hand by beating the dough with a wooden spoon. It takes about an hour for the dough to come together and get silky, so it helps to have some willing assistants on hand! Also, don't try this with a hand-held mixer, as its motor isn't strong enough.
• P.S.: I highly recommend making French toast with a few leftover slices.

 

http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html

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The Food Lab: The Science of the Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dec 19, 2013 4:15PM

J. Kenji López-Alt Managing Culinary Director

It's time for another round of The Food Lab. Got a suggestion for an upcoming topic? Email Kenji here, and he'll do his best to answer your queries in a future post. Become a fan of The Food Lab on Facebook or follow it on Twitter for play-by-plays on future kitchen tests and recipe experiments.

Get Recipe: The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

More:

All About Chocolate

Everything you want to know about chocolate

"Stop making cookies."
I'm sorry, what was that dear?
"I said, stop making cookies."
That's odd, I thought to myself. Why would she be saying that? Wouldn't any wife be pleased to be married to a husband who fills the house with the aroma of warm butter, caramelized sugar, and gooey chocolate? Indeed, wouldn't any human being in the right mind yearn to be constantly surrounded by sweet, crisp-and-chewy snacks?
Then, as I glanced around the apartment, wiping chocolate-specked hands against my apron, running a finger across the countertop and tracing a line into the dusting of white powder that coated every surface in the kitchen, eyeing the dozens of bags of failed experimental cookies that blocked the television, opening the refrigerator door to discover that more than half of its contents were batches of uncooked cookie dough in various stages of rest, I thought, maybe she does have a point.
For the past few months, I've had chocolate chip cookies on the brain. I wake up in the middle of the night with a fresh idea, a new test to run, only to discover that my 10 pound flour bin has been emptied for the third time. Did I really use it all up that fast? I'd put on my coat and walk out in the cold New York winter night, my sandals leaving tracks in the snow as I wander the neighborhood, an addict searching for a convenience store that will sell me flour at 3 in the morning.

I'm talking chocolate cookies that are barely crisp around the edges with a buttery, toffee-like crunch

You see, I've never been able to get a chocolate chip cookie exactly the way I like. I'm talking chocolate cookies that are barely crisp around the edges with a buttery, toffee-like crunch that transitions into a chewy, moist center that bends like caramel, rich with butter and big pockets of melted chocolate. Cookies with crackly, craggy tops and the complex aroma of butterscotch. And of course, that elusive perfect balance between sweet and salty.
Some have come close, but none have quite hit the mark. And the bigger problem? I was never sure what to change in order to get what I want. Cookies are fickle and the advice out there is conflicting. Does more sugar make for crisper cookies? What about brown versus white? Does it matter how I incorporate the chocolate chips or whether the flour is blended in or folded? How about the butter: cold, warm, or melted?
So many questions to ask and answers to explore! I made it my goal to test each and every element from ingredients to cooking process, leaving no chocolate chip unturned in my quest for the best. 32 pounds of flour, over 100 individual tests, and 1,536 cookies later, I had my answers.

How Cookies Crumble

Most traditional chocolate chip cookie recipes start with the same basic ingredients and technique: butter and sugar (a mix of white and brown) are creamed together with a touch of vanilla until fluffy, eggs are beaten in one at a time, followed by flour, salt, and some sort of chemical leavening (baking soda, baking powder, or a bit of both). The mixture is combined just until it comes together, then spooned onto a baking sheet and baked.
When you bake a cookie, here's what's going on, step-by-step.

• The dough spreads:. As the butter warms, it slackens. The cookie dough begins to turn more liquid and gradually spreads out.
• The edges set: As the cookie spreads, the edges thin out. This, coupled with the fact that they are fully exposed to the heat of the oven and are constantly reaching hotter areas of the baking pan, causes them to begin to set long before the center of the cookie does.
• The cookie rises: As the butter melts and the cookie's structure loosens, this frees up water, which in turn dissolves baking soda. This baking soda is then able to react with the acidic components of brown sugar, creating gases that cause the cookies to rise up and develop a more open interior structure.
• Egg proteins and starches set: Once they get hot enough, egg proteins and hydrated starches will begin to set in structure, finalizing the shape and size of the finished cookie.
• Sugar caramelizes: At its hottest areas—the edges and the underbelly in direct contact with the baking dish—sugar granules melt together, turning liquidy before starting to caramelize and brown, producing rich, sweet flavors.
• The Maillard reaction occurs: Proteins in the flour and the eggs brown along with the sugar in a process called the Maillard reaction—the same reaction responsible for giving your hamburger or bread a brown crust. It produces nutty, savory, toasted flavors.
• The cookie cools. Once it comes out of the oven, the process isn't over yet. Remember that liquefied sugar? Well as the cookie cools, that liquid sugar hardens up, which can give the cookie an extra-crisp, toffee-like texture around the edges. Meanwhile, the air inside cools, which causes the cookie to deflate slightly, though when fully baked, the structure lent by eggs and flour will help it retain some of its rise.

It's a simple technique that hides more complicated processes underneath. So how do you decipher what's going on? My first course of action was to test out these basic ingredients one at a time in order to determine how they affect the final outcome.

Butter

[Photograph: Kumiko Mitarai]

Butter is where most recipes begin, and it provides several things to the mix.
It keeps cookies tender. When flour is mixed with water (such as the water found in eggs), it develops gluten, a tough, stretchy network of interconnected proteins that set up as they bake. Gluten can't form in fat, thus butter will inhibit its overall formation, leading to more tender results. The higher the proportion of butter to other ingredients, the more tender your cookie will be (and consequently, the more it will spread as it bakes). I found that a ratio of 1 part flour to 1 part sugar to .8 parts butter was about right for a cookie that spreads moderately but doesn't end up cakey.

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Cookie Fact #1: More butter = wider spread and more tenderness

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Butter is essential for flavor. Substituting butter with a less flavorful fat like shortening, lard, or margarine yielded sub-par cookies. Butter is about 80 to 83% butterfat, 15% water, and 3 to 5% milk protein. These proteins brown as the cookie bakes, adding nuttiness and butterscotch notes to the final flavor of cookies.

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Cookie Fact #2: Butter Gives The Most Flavor

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Because of shortening's different melting qualities (and the fact that it has no water content), shortening-based cookies come out softer but more dense than those made with butter.

How butter is incorporated can also affect texture. In the early creaming stages of making a cookie, cool butter is beaten until it's light and fluffy. During the process, some air is incorporated and some of the sugar dissolves in the butter's water phase. This air in turn helps leaven the cookies as they bake, giving them some lift. Melting butter before combining it with sugar and eggs leads to squatter, denser cookies.

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Cookie Fact #3: Melted Butter = Denser Cookies, Creamed butter = cakier cookies

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I asked myself: if browning milk proteins provide extra flavor to cookies, how could I boost that flavor even more?
My friend Charles Kelsey, the man behind the fantastic Brookline, MA sandwich shop Cutty's, developed a simple chocolate chip cookie recipe for Cook's Illustrated magazine back in 2009. In his recipe, he made the ingenious discovery that browning the butter before adding it to the mixture would give the cookies a much more pronounced nuttiness.
But this created some other problems. Since the butter can't get hot enough to brown milk proteins until all of its water content has evaporated, brown butter adds no moisture to dough. This produces a couple of interesting results. Without water, sugar that is mixed into browned butter cannot dissolve (sugar molecules are highly hydrophillic and will dissolve readily in water, but not in fat), which makes it subsequently more difficult for them to melt into each other as the cookie bakes. The cookies ended up missing out on some of that caramelized toffee flavor I was after.

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Cookie Fact #4: Less Dissolved Sugar = Less Caramel Flavor

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With less water, you also end up with less gluten development, thus a cookie made with browned butter is softer and more tender than one made with creamed or plain melted butter. Soft and chewy is good, but I wanted a slightly better balance.

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Cookie Fact #5: Creamed Butter = Lighter and firmer, Melted Butter = Denser and chewier

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So how do I get the flavor benefits of browned butter while still allowing for sugar to dissolve and caramelize properly? The answer turned out to be in the eggs.

Eggs

Before we jump to the solution, let's take a quick look at what eggs have to offer in a cookie.
Egg whites provide a good amount of water, as well as protein. Egg proteins are particularly good at trapping and retaining bubbles of air or water vapor. The higher the proportion of egg white in a cookie, the more it rises during baking. Because of the extra water, you also get more gluten formation, which again leads to a taller cookie (provided you use enough flour to absorb that extra water). Other than the small amount in the butter, eggs are the main source of water in a cookie dough recipe.
Egg yolks also provide some moisture and protein, but more importantly they provide a well-emulsified source of fat. When cooked, egg yolk forms a tender protein coagulum that can keep cookies tender and fudge-like. A high proportion of egg yolk leads to a more brownie-like texture in a finished cookie.

By keeping the total mass of egg added to a dough the same but altering the proportion of white to yolk, you can achieve a variety of textures. Two whites and a yolk, for instance, produces the more open structure of the top cookie in the photo above, while three yolks and no whites produces the denser, fudgier texture of the cookie on the bottom.

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Cookie Fact #6: Extra Egg Whites = Taller Cookies. Extra Egg Yolks = Fudgier cookies

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Turns out that the combination I like best is actually a 1 to 1 ratio of egg whites to egg yolks, which conveniently is exactly how eggs naturally come. Ain't that something?
Going back to my initial problem of wanting the flavor of browned butter but disliking the way it prevented sugar from properly dissolving, I asked myself, what if I were to flip the script for these cookies: instead of creaming sugar and butter and adding eggs, why not beat together the eggs and sugar then add the butter?
I tried it, beating brown sugar, white sugar, and vanilla with whole eggs in a stand mixer until the mixture became pale, aerated, and ribbony, with a nearly completely smooth texture.* To this, I added my browned butter, which instantly cooked the eggs and curdled them, turning the mixture into an oddly sweet and vanilla-y scrambled egg custard. Lesson learned: let that browned butter cool before adding it.
*A sugar and water solution becomes fully saturated at room temperatures at a ratio of about 2 parts sugar by mass to 1 part water (that is, you can't dissolve any extra sugar because it will stay granular). My working recipe contained about 4 ounces of egg and 10 ounces of sugar, so perfect smoothness was an impossible goal.
My next attempt with cooled brown butter fared better, but the finished cookies ended up with an oddly uniform texture and a relatively smooth top rather than the cragginess I'd been getting earlier.

Turns out that you actually want a balance between dissolved sugar and undissolved sugar to keep things texturally interesting.

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Cookie Fact #7: Too Much Dissolved Sugar = Uniform Texture and Less Cracking

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I settled on beating half of the sugar with the eggs until it completely dissolved, then incorporating the rest when I added the brown butter. The degree to which the butter is cooled before adding it to the mix can also affect how well it holds air when being mixed with the eggs. Warm butter flows very easily and doesn't trap bubbles well. The cooler it is, the more viscous it becomes, and the better it can trap air. Even a few degrees can make a difference. By letting my browned butter cool down until it was almost at room temperature, it became firm enough to beat into the egg and sugar mixture without deflating it.

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Cookie Fact #8: The Warmer the Butter, the Denser the Cookie

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In order to get my browned butter to chill a little faster and to add back some of the moisture that's lost in the browning process, I discovered that whisking an ice cube into it after cooking killed both birds with one stone.

Sugar

There's more to sugar than just sweetness! The type of sugar you use and its method of incorporation can have a profound effect on the finished cookies. White sugar is crystallized sucrose, a disaccharide consisting of a fructose molecule and a glucose molecule linked together. It is mildly hygroscopic (that is, it likes to retain moisture), and relatively neutral in pH.
Brown sugar is mostly crystallized sucrose, but also contains a good amount of glucose and fructose, along with trace minerals that give it its flavor and a slightly acidic pH. Glucose and fructose are far more hygroscopic than sucrose.
Check out what happens if you bake cookies that are made 100% with white sugar or brown sugar:

You can clearly see the difference in spread. This happens because the baking soda in my cookie recipe is a powdered base, and needs some form of acid to react with in order to create the bubbles that leaven the cookie. Slightly acidic brown sugar causes cookies to rise higher when baking, which limits their spread. You end up with a cakier end result. White sugar, on the other hand, adds no leavening power, so you end up with a cookie that spreads wide. Because white sugar-based cookies more readily give up moisture, they also end up more crisp.

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Cookie Fact #9: White Sugar = Thin and Crisp, Brown Sugar = Tall and Moist

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A mixture of the two provides a good balance, and as I noticed in my egg tests, dissolving too much sugar can lead to a texture that's too uniform. With sugar left in distinct grains, the pockets of melted sugar that caramelize within the cookie as it bakes remain irregular, giving the cookie more textural interest.

But brown sugar has another advantage over white: it caramelizes more readily, leading to more intense flavor. I wondered: could I bump up the intensity of the toffee flavor while still maintaining a good white and brown sugar balance by pre-caramelizing some of my white sugar?
I tried it, heating my white sugar up in a pot until it was a golden amber before adding cold butter to rapidly chill it and then incorporating it into my dough.

No dice. First off, it's a mess trying to scrape hot caramel out of a pan and prevent it from hardening into a single massive clump. Secondly, it made my cookies far too soft and chewy (I recalled that in the process of caramelizing sucrose, it breaks down into glucose and fructose, acquiring their hygroscopic properties).
A much simpler way was to blend only the white sugar with the eggs so that it was pre-liquefied, giving it a little jump start on caramelization, then adding in the brown sugar later on with the melted butter.
Incidentally, if you want the absolute chewiest, most uniformly textured cookies, try replacing some of the white sugar with corn syrup, a sugar that is even more hygroscopic.

You end up with wide, flat cookies that stay soft and flexible even when completely cooled. Not only that, but since corn syrup is made up of simpler sugars than granulated sugars, it caramelizes more readily, leading to darker overall color.

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Cookie Fact #10: Corn Syrup = Soft, Wide, Dark, and Flexible cookies

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Corn syrup is so darn powerful, in fact, that even a small amount of it will completely alter the texture of your cookie. In the cookies above, the batch on the left was made with 5 ounces each of white and brown sugar. The batch on the right was made with 5 ounces of brown sugar, 4 ounces of white sugar, and 1 ounce of corn syrup. A substitution of only 10%.
Next up: baking soda and baking powder.

Leavening

Leavening—the introduction of air to the internal structure of baked goods—can come in many forms. In bread, it's the carbon dioxide produced by yeast. In a cream puff, it comes from expanding water vapor. In the case of cookies, we get it from egg proteins capturing expanding gases, creamed butter, and most importantly, chemicals, namely baking powder and baking soda. What's the difference between the two?

Baking Soda is pure sodium bicarbonate—an alkaline powder (aka, a base). When dissolved in liquid and combined with an acid, it rapidly reacts, breaking down into sodium, water, and carbon dioxide.
Baking Powder, on the other hand, is baking soda with powdered acids built right in. In its dry state, it's totally inert. But once you add a liquid, the powdered acid and base dissolve and react with each other, creating bubbles of carbon dioxide without the need for an external acid source. Most baking powders these days are double acting, which means that it contains two different powdered acids. One that reacts immediately upon mixing with water, and another that only reacts after it's heated, giving cakes and cookies a little boost early on in the baking phase.
Making cookies with varying degrees of both soda and powder, I found that baking powder generally produces cakier cookies that rise higher during baking, producing smoother, shinier tops, while soda yields cookies that are craggier and denser in texture
Check out this post for more on the differences between baking powder and baking soda.

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Cookie Fact #11: Soda = Craggy and Coarse, Powder = Cakey and Smooth

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Cakey cookies are not for me, and the brown sugar I was using in my cookies provided plenty of acid for the baking soda to react with. I landed on 3/4 teaspoon as the right amount. Moreover, because the Maillard reaction takes place more readily in mildly alkaline environments, baking soda has a powerful effect on how rapidly foods darken and develop browned flavors. Browning is a good thing when it comes to cookies.

Flour

The main differences in flour varieties comes down to protein content. Cake flour contains a relatively low amount, which leads to less gluten formation. Cookies made with all cake flour will be very soft, almost mushy, even when you've cooked them to what would normally be a beyon-crisp stage. All-bread-flour cookies, on the other hand, come out ultra-chewy. Alton Brown has a recipe called The Chewy which utilizes this effect.

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Cookie Fact #12: More Bread Flour = Chewier Cookies, More Cake Flour = Softer Cookies

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The infamous Jacques Torres recipe from The New York Times calls for a mixture of low-protein cake flour and high-protein bread flour in an attempt to balance the two. I found that by working carefully with the ratio of other ingredients, you can get away with using regular old all-purpose flour with no problem.

Since flour provides the bulk of the structure in a cookie, the amount you use can alter the texture of the cookie. A small amount of flour compared to butter (a ratio of 1 to 1 or less) will give you cookies that spread out into a wafer-like lace cookie. Extra flour (a ratio of 1.3 to 1 or higher) will give you cookies that barely spread at all as they bake, with centers that stay dense and dough-like, even after being almost fully cooked.
This may be a good thing for some folks, but I like my cookies to have a nice balance between the two. I settled on a ratio of 10 ounces flour to 8 ounces of butter.

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Cookie Fact #13: Less Flour = Lacier Cookies, More Flour = Doughier Cookies

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Turns out that how you incorporate that butter also makes a difference (are you sensing a theme here? When it comes to cookies, apparently EVERYTHING MATTERS).

The dough above was made by really working the flour into the butter and egg mixture before subsequently folding in the chocolate chips. As you can see, it comes out very smooth and it bakes into correspondingly smooth cookies. Because extra kneading creates a stronger gluten network, the cookies also end up rather tough.

Much better is to barely work the flour in, folding it or mixing it with a stand mixer until it just pulls together into a dough. I incorporate the chocolate half way through this process, so that I don't accidentally overmix the dough while trying to fold the chocolate in.

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Cookie Fact #14: Less Kneading = Craggier Cookies and Better Texture

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The resultant scoops of dough should have a natural cragginess to them even before baking.

If you like extra craggy cookies, Baking Illustrated offers a neat tip for increasing that cragginess: tear the balls of dough apart with your fingertips and moosh'em back together with the jagged torn part facing outwards.

Provided you've used enough flour and your other ratios are spot on, those crags should appear in the cookies' final baked form.

The Chocolate

When I first started testing, I figured that the only real question when it came to chocolate would be what brand and what cacao percentage. Turns out that how the chocolate is incorporated can also affect texture.
Chocolate chips produce the most regular cookies, with small, melty pockets of chocolate. Chocolate discs and chunks will cause some degree of layering in the dough, creating a flakier cookie with larger sections of molten chocolate. Chopped chocolate produces the most contrast—the small bits of debris and chocolate shavings get dispersed throughout the cookie dough, disrupting its texture and giving a nice chocolatey flavor to the whole affair, while larger chunks still melt into large gooey pockets. The only way to get this effect is to hand-chop whole chocolate bars with a knife.

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Cookie Fact #15: Hand-Chopped Chocolate = Most Intense Flavor and Interesting Texture

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Hand chopping also gives you control over the exact size of your chocolate chunks. I quickly discovered that I like quite a bit of chocolate (a full 8 ounces), and I like it in large, 1/2- to 1/4-inch chunks.

I spent an awful lot of time experimenting with how the temperature of the dough during chocolate incorporation can affect the final outcome of the cookie. Properly tempered chocolate (if you're a chocolate nerd, I'm talking chocolate with type V crystals) will melt at a relatively high temperature—around 95°F or so.

By incorporating chocolate into dough that's been allowed to rest in a warm spot until it gets above 95°F (near my preheating oven worked), or by gently stirring already-made cookie dough that's been warmed to above 95°F, you end up dispersing some melted chocolate throughout the works.

The result is a sort of swirl effect that can be quite delicious if you do it carefully, though you miss out on the classic large melty pockets.

I quite like cookies made with dough that has been warmed to 80°F and gently swirled. This melts the very tiniest bits of chocolate, but leaves the larger chunks intact.

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Cookie Fact #16: Stirring Warm Dough Alters Chocolate Dispersal

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In the interest of not being labeled a total neurotic, I decided to leave this particular step out of the final recipe, but if you're anything like me, you'll wait until everyone leaves the kitchen before pulling out the thermometer you keep in your back pocket to test the temperature of your dough before folding it.

Fixing Flavor

Ok, we've been at this for a while. Time for a quick recap. So far we've covered butter, sugar, eggs, leavening, flour, and chocolate. As far as covering the major chemical and physical players in the cookies' final outcome, we're done.
Here's what we're working with so far: White sugar is beaten into whole eggs until it dissolves. Butter is browned and chilled with an ice cube to add back lost moisture and hasten its cooling, before being beaten into the egg mixture, along with brown sugar flour and baking soda are folded in very gently, along with chocolate.

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Cookie Fact #17: Cookies Need More Salt Than You Think

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Salt (and quite a bit of it) is essential to balance the flavor of caramelized sugars, and a good amount of vanilla is a must (though, as our recent taste test has shown, even imitation vanilla flavoring will do just fine).

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Cookie Fact #18: Inexpensive Vanilla is Indistinguishable From Fancy

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Even with regular salt mixed into the dough, I like adding a little sprinkle of coarse sea salt to the tops of the cookies, gently pressing it in right as they come out of the oven for little crunchy bursts of salt that pop with each bite.

With flavor and ratios out of the way, it's time to talk thermodynamics.

Taking Temperature

We've already seen how the temperature of the dough can affect how chocolate is incorporated, but it can also affect how it bakes. Both the starting temperature of the dough and the oven temperature have an impact.
I baked cookies at various temperatures in 25°F increments ranging from 250°F up to 450°F. When baked at a lower temperature, the dough has more of a chance to spread out, leading to flatter, wider cookies. Conversely, cookies baked at higher temperatures spread less. Even a difference of as little as 50°F makes a big difference.

Moreover, the lower the oven temperature, the more evenly the cookie bakes, with less of a contrast between the edges and the center. In fact, when the oven temperature gets low enough (around 275°F and below), you completely lose any contrast, producing a cookie that's more or less homogenous across the board.

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Cookie Fact #19: Cooler Oven = Wide Cookies. Hotter Oven = Compact Cookies

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Beyond oven temperature, starting temperature of dough also affects the outcome.

As you can see, cookies cooked straight from the fridge will stay a little more compact, while those that are allowed to warm will spread more. By adjusting the starting temperature of the cookie dough and the temperature of the oven, you can create a wide variety of textures and contrasts.

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Cookie Fact #20: Warmer Dough = Wide Cookies, Cooler Dough = Compact Cookies

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I like the flexibility that being able to cook cookie dough straight from the fridge lends you, so my recipe is designed to make cookies from dough that starts at 40°F. I found that baking in a 325°F oven until the edges are nice and toasty brown will leave you with a cookie that's still plenty soft and chewy in the center.

Giving it a Rest

You still here? I haven't bored you with cookie talk yet? Good, because we're coming round third base and into the home stretch here. But not so fast. We gotta take our time with this one. Literally.
Back when the New York Times published that Jacques Torres recipe in 2008, I'd never heard of the concept of resting a cookie dough, yet Mr. Chocolate himself insisted that it was the secret to better flavor. Since then, I've talked to several pastry chefs and cookie experts who all agree: letting your cookie dough sit overnight in the refrigerator produces better tasting cookies.
It seems a bit finicky (and honestly, who wants to wait for cookies?), but after trying it dozens of times, the results are absolutely undeniable.

If there's one single thing you can do improve the flavor of your cookies, it's to let the dough rest. They bake up darker and more flavorful. That butterscotch note that was barely hinted at when you baked the dough right after mixing? It'll blow you away with its intensity and complexity by the second day.
So how does it work? Harold McGee explains it in Keys to Good Cooking. Turns out that during the resting process, both flour proteins and starches break down a bit. How does this help improve flavor?
It helps to think of proteins and starches as large LEGO structures. During the process of browning, those large structure are broken down into smaller parts and individual pieces and subsequently rearranged. Sort of like destroying that LEGO castle so you can build a dozen spaceships. Now, both of these phases—the breaking down and the reconstruction—take time.
By resting the dough, you give the deconstruction phase a head start. It's as if you left your LEGO castle sitting out over night and your annoying little sister came by and smashed it all, King of Tokyo-style. With the pieces separated, building your spaceships is much faster.
It's really the same thing, except instead of LEGOs, you've got proteins and flour. Instead of an annoying sister, you've got enzymes. And instead of awesome spaceships, you get awesome cookies. How awesome? We're talking, oh, a million puppies on the moon wearing superhero underpants under their little doggie spacesuits levels of awesome.

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Cookie Fact #21: An Overnight Rest Yields Superior Flavor

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And while it's tough to be patient, awesomeness is something worth waiting for in my book.

When all is said and done, my final recipe has ended up combining some unique techniques from a couple of my favorite recipes—the browned butter from Charles Kelsey's Cook's Illustrated recipe and the resting from Jacques Torres' New York Times recipe—along with a couple of my own novel twists—dissolving half the sugar in the eggs and chilling the melted butter with ice before incorporating—to produce a cookie that hits all the right notes. A deep, rich, butterscotch-and-toffee flavor, crisp edges, and a soft, chewy center, an irregular crumb structure with a craggy top, and a mix of chocolate dispersed through the cookie in fine threads and big gooey pockets, all with a nice sweet-and-salty balance.
Are they the simplest cookies in the world? No way. Are they worth the extra time and effort? I certainly think so.

"This is the last batch, I promise," is what I told my wife about a week ago. Since then I've gone through another 10 pounds of flour. Heck, if you want to know the truth, I've baked four batches of cookies while I was writing this article, which means that even as I hit that "publish" button, this recipe is already obsolete, a work in progress. My wife went to bed over 5 hours ago and left by giving me a gentle hug from behind and a soft whisper in my ear: "Please stop making cookies."

if you've come along this far, then you know what you need to do to adjust my recipe to suit your own tastes

The beauty of understanding how ingredients interact with each other is that even if my definition of the "best" chocolate cookie isn't in line with yours, if you've come along this far, then you know what you need to do to adjust my recipe to suit your own tastes. Like your cookies chewier? Substitute some of that all-purpose flour for bread flour. Want your cookies to rise up a little taller? Add a touch of baking powder or replace the yolk of one of those eggs with an extra white. You like your chocolate in distinct pockets? Just use chocolate chips instead of hand-chopped. Want your cookies more flexible and chewy? Just replace some sugar with a touch of corn syrup.
You get the idea. Doesn't that make you feel all empowered and stuff?
"STOP MAKING COOKIES!"
I promise I will, dear... After this batch.

Get Recipe: The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

Filed Under:

• chocolate
• chocolate chip cookie
• cookie
• dessert
• how to
• technique

About the Author

J. Kenji López-Alt Managing Culinary Director

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J. Kenji López-Alt is the Managing Culinary Director of Serious Eats, and author of the James Beard Award-nominated column The Food Lab, where he unravels the science of home cooking. A restaurant-trained chef and former Editor at Cook's Illustrated magazine, he is the author of upcoming The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science, to be released by W. W. Norton.

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