My secrets to baking the perfect cookies!

Sadly, most recipes out on the internet and in many cook books have even the most basic and delicious of treats wrong... the ingredient list is in the wrong order, the method is wrong and even sometimes, the baking time and temperatures are wrong.

Below, I share my method of baking the softest, pillowy melt in your mouth cookies

Recipe frustrations

Sadly, the "Pinterest" wave of websites is reminiscent of beginners websites in the late 90's when the internet took off.... lots of irrelevant information, lack of real substance and way too many add ons, adds and "partnerships".

Most sites are reasonable with a "Jump to recipe" button somewhere near the top. iPhones have an advantage with many sites in clicking the "reader view" mode in the search bar, which removes most of the adds, especially the ones that refresh every 4.98 seconds and resize the screen, moving what you were reading a few pages in a random direction.

I suggest, once you get to the recipe, screen shot it and the steps to reduce further agrivations.

Another major frustration is the ingredient list.... It should reflect the order in which you need to do something with the ingredient... Now a grocery list (which really is what most of these ingredient lists are), are usually better suited to putting like items together, such as all the produce together, all the baking supplies, essentially what one would find per aisle in a typical grocery store.

Those don't help with the baking process... Now that you have screen shotted the recipe, I suggest actually writing it down, in the order that you are going to use the ingredients.

Typical cookie recipe would be:

Butter
Sugars
Eggs
Aromatic (Vanilla, citrus, etc)

Baking Powder/Soda
Salt
Flour
    
Chocolate
Nuts

The above is in an order that you would use them in.



Most recipes call for "softened" butter and other substances like cream cheese.... With a power stand mixer, this isn't an issue. I usually cut these items in to 1/4" to 1/2" cubes, and right out of the fridge, it will take an extra minute or two for the mixer to do it's job... Now if you can't cut it with a knife... it definitely is too hard, and leaving it out for 20-30minutes will soften it up just fine.

Mobirise

Coookies

My 10 rules of baking cookies

1/ Butters (nut butters, cream cheese, etc) and sugars to start, this will take some time for the stand mixer to get down and really combine the two, 3-5 minutes usually (depending on the hardness of the butter). You will need to scrape down the sides of the bowl, the beater, and most importantly, the bottom of the bowl as well.

2/ Add your eggs and aromatics (vanilla, citrus, etc) and let the mixer go for another 4-6 minutes or so. You want to end up with a very fluffy, whipped frosting looking mixture. Again, every few minutes, scrape down the sides, bottom of the bowl and the beater.

3/ Add the rest of your dry baking goods (flour, baking soda/powder, salt, etc). Scape down the sides of the bowl ontop of it, and now you are going to pulse the mixer on low, keeping it on for 1 rotation of the beater at a time.

You want to pulse the mixer until you start to see the colour of the dough come back from the white of the flour

4/ Add in your chocolate, nuts and whatever else is left, and pulse again like the last step until almost everything is mixed in.

5/ You will see little blotches of white from the flours, and this is what we want. We don't want fully mixed dough, contrary to what everyone else says...

I usually mix the last bit by hand as I scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. The consistency should be a loose and crumbly dough. It shouldn't be sticky, or gooey, or anything like that... 

6/ You can go two ways from here... If your fridge can hold the baking trays, shape into 24 cookie balls on the trays.

If you can't fit the baking trays in the fridge, just put the whole bowl of dough in there.

Let the dough(s) chill out in the fridge for 30 minutes or so.

7/ Make sure the 1/2 sheet baking trays can both fit on the same rack in your oven... baking cookies isn't the best when you have to put the trays on different racks... they won't cook the same...

8/ Sizing the cookies, usually most recipes make 24 cookies ... I find golf ball sized balls works out well.. If you don't quite get to 24, steal some dough off the larger balls to make up the rest. Similarly, if you have extra dough left over, add them to the smaller of your balls.

9/ Bake and SET THE TIMER!

10/ Once the timer is off and the cookies are done baking, put the whole trays onto cooling racks immediately for a few minutes.

The cookies are too soft to transfer of the pans at this time, and the cooler air under the pans helps the cookies "set".

After a few minutes, you can slide the parchment sheets of cookies off of the baking trays to the cooling racks and let them sit for 15-30 minutes to cool down enough to eat!

I hope this helps with recreating cookies!

A little bit of prep work with the recipe changes, but every cookie recipe I've done this method with always works out in the end (and even better than if you followed their instructions).

My lemon cookies follow the same steps, but some of the ingredients are different, but nothing really changes in the process

Mmmmmmm Cookies!

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