Battles of Baked Goods

Baking my way to perfection. Through trial & error, manipulation of recipes, or just going by instinct, there will be a perfect recipe for everything.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Sorry for the delay on all these baking posts but I did not even have a computer until my birthday. Now that I have one, I can publish my few old things that I had stored and move on to new projects. This one is on chocolate chip cookies.

Can you believe that in 28 years of my life I had never made chocolate chip cookies? I had never really made cookies except for around Christmas time as I got older. I’ve been making quite a few cookies lately since I got a Martha Stewart cookbook from a book sale. Side note, I love book sales.

Anywho, I had a request for chocolate chip cookies. I looked to Better Homes & Gardens and I looked to Martha Stewart for help. Their recipes were different of course so I decided to make them and see which would be my go to chocolate chip cookie.

One can look at the recipes to see the differences. The Better Homes recipe uses shortening which I think hinders it being moist or crisp, it was in-between. Martha’s cookie uses more butter and less brown sugar to produce a thin and crisp cookie.

The end result was quite pleasing. They both tasted delicious in different ways. The Better Homes cookie had that classic chocolate chip cookie taste. It wasn’t soft but wasn’t crisp.  It is a good recipe for a reason, but not good enough. The Martha cookie tasted more like brown sugar, more molasses like, even though it has less brown sugar. The Martha cookie won this contest for it tasted delicious right out of the oven, cooled and crisp, and even over the next week.

Better Homes and Gardens Recipe:

Prep: 25 minutes  Bake: 8 minutes per batch

Oven: 375F  Makes: about 60 cookies

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 12oz pkg (2 cups) semisweet chocolate pieces

1.5 cups chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. In a large mixing bowl beat shortening and butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add brown sugar, granulated sugar, and baking soda. Beat until mixture is combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Stir in chocolate pieces and, if desired, nuts.

2. Drop dough by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in a 375F oven for 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned. Transfer to a cookie rack and let cool.

Martha Stewart Recipe:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg, plus 1 large egg white

12oz semisweet chocolate chunks (about 2 cups)

1. Preheat the oven to 375F, with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. Beat the butter and both sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

2. Add the vanilla, whole egg, and egg white. Beat on low speed until well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed, about 1 minute.  Add flour mixture in two batches; mix until just combined. Mix in chocolate.

3. Shape 2 heaping tablespoons of dough at a time into balls and place about 1.5 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are golden brown, about 18 minutes. Transfer parchment and cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

Betty on the right, Martha on the left. Size does not matter but taste does. Martha wins.

Better Homes on the left, Martha on the right. Size does not matter but taste does. Martha wins.

Key Lime Pie

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Last summer was incredibly hot for what felt like forever. It was actually one of the hottest summers in history here in MN. Since I am in the mode of perfecting recipes I decided to do a more summery pie. I asked for input and the final verdict was key lime pie. Shoot. I really do not like this pie. I have never had a taste for it and I know that there are key lime snobs out there. However, once I set my mind to do something I do it.
To begin, I started searching the web for key lime recipes since I did not have my cook book handy. (I would have done this anyway to compare recipes). This immediately put me into a panic. There are tons of recipes for key lime pie out there and they are all slightly different. Some with more sweetened condensed milk than others, some with sour cream, some with eggs, some with food coloring. The basic components were the same but I have no idea what to do with this pie. Fruit pies are easy. I’ve done them for years. I can search recipes and pick one out and know what to do to tweak it to make it perfect or just not do it at all based on the componants, but key lime might be my death sentence.
I settled on two recipes. One from pioneer woman and one from allrecipes.com. They were drastically different. The pioneer woman used only one can sweetened condensed milk & egg yolks. She claimed you could use limes if you didn’t have key limes so I decided to try it with limes. The other recipe used two cans sweetened condensed milk and sour cream & I used the key limes for that one. Now when I was squeezing the limes for these recipes I didn’t know how they would taste. The key lime juice was like lime juice on steroids. It was so tart. I don’t know if it is because I live in MN and the key limes are not as fresh but the juice from the key limes compared to the limes might make a difference in the pies.
When it was all said and done. It was actually the allrecipes.com pie that one the contest. The pioneer woman key lime pie was delicious. It was very light and sweet and refreshing. The consistency just wasn’t what one wanted for a key lime pie. The other pie was more tart but not overwhelming. The extra sweetened condensed milk and sour cream was able to counteract the tart key lime juice. The texture of the pie was very nice as well.
I only had one key lime pie snob to test them out on, but he was the only one that mattered since it was his request.

The Perfect Poundcake

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Sometimes I like to give myself challenges or tasks in the baking world. I called this my first baking challenge: The Perfect Poundcake. I gave myself the weekend of July 21-22 2012 to complete it. It stemmed from the fact that I had made Ina Garten’s Honey Vanilla Poundcake and it was dry to my dismay although quite flavorful. I know that poundcake tends to be dry when most people make it, but I loved everything that came out of my Barefoot Contessa cookbook, so I decided that I would try to perfect a poundcake.

My plan was to modify Ina’s recipe & try a random recipe off the internet that looked interesting to me. For Ina’s recipe I thought about the dryness aspect. In some of my other bread recipes I use oil instead of butter. I know that this may be frowned upon in some baking circles, but it makes some breads incredibly moist. So I decided to replace half of the butter with oil. I didn’t want to lose the denseness from the butter but I thought that if oil worked in other recipes than maybe it would work here. Friends, it was a failure. Not only was it just as dry, but I had lost some flavor as well. The honey vanilla notes did not come through as strong.

On to the random recipe. This one was intruiguing to me. It used cream, where Ina had no liquid really to speak of, and it started in a cold oven and baked for a longer period of time. The poundcake didn’t look as pretty, but it was just as flavorful and oh so moist.

I know this wasn’t a very difficult baking challenge, but it made me feel successful & happy. Sometimes that is all you need. Also, I should thank those around me who ate lots of poundcake along the way as I was going towards my goal.

Sorry for the lack of recipes, but I don’t have the source from which the random one came so do not feel right publishing it without giving proper credit.