My local friend Julieanne @ I Love Homeschooling submitted a kitchen tip! Yay! It has been a long time since I’ve posted one of these. I’m game for more, so if you run across something helpful – something akin to a kitchen tip – send it to me via the contact form.
She found a great set of tips at Cooks Illustrated, sharing ideas for obtaining the cookie texture you desire.
How can I get the cookie texture I want?
By adjusting key ingredients, you can change the texture of any cookie recipe.
- If you want chewy cookies, add melted butter. Butter is 20 percent water. Melting helps water in butter mix with flour to form gluten.
- If you want thin, candy-like cookies, add more sugar. Sugar becomes fluid in the oven and helps cookies spread.
- If you want cakey cookies, add more eggs. Yolks make cookies rich, and whites cause cookies to puff and dry out.
- If you want an open, coarse crumb and craggy top, add baking soda. Baking soda reacts quickly with acidic ingredients (such as brown sugar) to create lots of gas bubbles.
- If you want a fine, tight crumb and smooth top, add baking powder. Baking powder works slowly and allows for an even rise.
This is going to come in handy in my kitchen. I never knew that more sugar would result in a thin, candy-like cookie, though it makes sense.
I would like to share what you know! Send your favorite kitchen tip(s) via the contact form.
On another note, some time ago, Pamela @ Seeds of Nutrition gave me two sweet blog awards! I am very late with acting on them and passing them on!
The Let’s Be Friends Award: “Blogs that receive the Let’s Be Friends Award are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to four bloggers.”
The Neno Blog Award seeks out the reasons we enjoy blogging. I am supposed to share my reasons and then distribute the award to other bloggers who will then share why they like blogging. The 7 rules are listed fully at Pamela’s blog. Here’s why I enjoy blogging: blogging gives me an outlet to share, grow, encourage others, learn from others, make friends, and lift up the Lord through talking about His good foods and the good life He gives.
The reason that I’ve been tardy with passing on these awards is that I had an agonizing time narrowing down who should receive each award. I have typed the next paragraph at least 10 times. I follow the blogs of practically everyone who comments here, and you’re all worthy of these awards, especially the friendliness one! Now I’m going to start the next paragraph, again.
Instead of choosing 4 for the first award and however many I want for the second, I am going to choose 16 to receive both awards. So there! 
- Rebecca @ Cooking Without Almost Everything
- Mindy @ Sweetness in the Small Stuff
- Marg @ Prairie Sunrise
- Millie @ Eat Real Food For Less Money
- Katy @ Thought For Food
- Amy @ Simply Sugar and Gluten Free
- Annette @ Sustainable Eats
- Sarah @ Heart of Cooking
- Rissa @ Mama Rissa
- Sylvia @ The Christian HomeKeeper
- Julieanne @ I Love Homeschooling
- Tiffany @ Tiffany’s Table
- Leah @ Abundant Life
- Sonya @ Hemmings Half Dozen
- Emily @ Minneapolis Real Food Lover
- Marly @ Healthy Cooking
And I could keep going… So, go for it, ladies! Pass on the Let’s Be Friends Award to four others who are exceedingly charming, like you. And pass on the Neno Blog Award to someone who will share why they enjoy blogging, too. Or break the rules, like I did!
Have a very merry Christmas, everyone! You’ve made 2009 a wonderful year of learning and friendship and I look forward to our fellowship in 2010!
Way to go Wardeh! I’m all for breaking the rules with these awards. Very hard to narrow down when you would like to pass to way more bloggers than stated!
Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas.
And thanks for sharing the Cookie Texture tips.
Pamela
Pamela @ Seeds of Nutrition´s last blog post… Christmas Music from our House to Yours: Dec. 24th
thank you so much Wardeh! Merriest of Chirstmases to you!
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What a lovely Christmas gift!! Thank you so much! Words can’t explain how good it feels to be recognized by you. I enjoy your work so much and learn every time I’m here – so please know that you are enhancing my life.
I hope you’re having a peaceful and relaxing Christmas. Big hugs to you, Wardeh!
WOW! Thanks Wardeh. I’ve never got an award before. That’s a nice Christmas surprise! I love all these blogs you recognized. These are good people with lots of creative ideas. Thank you everyone and merry Christmas.
Marly´s last blog post… Christmas Butter Cookies
Hi Wardeh!
Hope your Christmas was full of blessings.
Congratulations on the awards.
Thank you for the cookie texture tips. They’ll definitely come in handy. I usually try not to deviate from baking recipes, but most of the time I can’t help myself since I like to improvise when I cook.
Thanks sweetie! Hoping I have time to pass on the blog love this week…
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Thank you for the awards and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s. We’ve been really busy so I am behind on my blog reading/writing. A lot of the blogs that I follow are here so I will have to think about whom I’d like to pass the awards onto.
Rebecca´s last blog post… Boneless Pork Roast with Tarragon Mustard Coating
Great list of cookie rules! Since I’m basically not eating wheat or gluten anymore, I can’t use it so much now, unfortunately.
I wonder if Cook’s Illustrated or any of your clever readers have similar guidance for making crackers? I’ve been experimenting with gluten-free or low-gluten crackers for months now (about 6 batches so far, all more or less successful but I haven’t hit on the just-right recipe yet) and haven’t found much in the way of guidelines. I did a Google search for recipes and compiled a bunch and have been using them as inspiration for my own experiments, just to get a feel for the ingredients (various combinations of almond flour, hazelnut flour, coconut flour, garbanzo bean flour, rice protein powder tend to figure in my concoctions) but getting a blend that rolls out without sticking yet holds together has been tricky. (I do know to use eggs with coconut flour, thanks to a comment somebody posted with a recipe somewhere.) I usually use a teaspoon each of guar and xantham gums but skipped them this time, and ended up having to add some sprouted spelt flour that I still have on hand. They taste good, but are still not yet perfect.
So, cracker science, anybody??
Jeanmarie – I know what you mean about the stickiness. This is the recipe I used to use: http://gnowfglins.com/2008/02/11/cheezy-gluten-free-crackers/ when we were gluten-free. But what I’ve not done is go back and adding any soaking for the nuts or grains that become the flour. Seems like almost the same types of flour are figuring in our concoctions.
How have you handled the soaking? This is one of the reasons I have not done crackers lately, except with sprouted flour. Otherwise, the dough would be way too wet to get the grain sufficiently soaked.
I use alot of water on my hands when making a cracker that tends to split during rolling. I keep the dough a little on the dry side so it can take the additional water during rolling.
I’ll keep my eyes peeled for some cracker science.