Cookie Baking Jag

The Magic Cookie Jar full of Pecan Sandies

On of the many strange quests I've been on since finding myself unemployed is the overwhelming desire to bake every single cookie recipe in the 1000 page Cook's Illustrated recipe tome. I've also been cooking A LOT - everything from Morrocan lamb tagine to traditional jambalaya for Fat Tuesday to pork country ribs and roast chicken. But, lets focus on the cookies, for now.

I have a love/hate relationship with Cook's Illustrated. I've been a recipe tester for them in the past and I understand the systematic thinking of testing every detail, ingredient and method to find THE best way to make something. Often, when they publish a recipe, you should follow it precisely to get the best results. However, sometimes I feel like this rigorous testing leads their recipes to be overly complicated or, alternately, dumbed down to the most pedestrian tastes. There are 23 base recipes in the cookie section that includes both cookies and bars plus variations on each. I have made ten so far. Here are my reviews:

Pecan Sandies
Excellent texture and taste, but add vanilla. Cook's omitted it citing tasters that found it overwhelming. I disagree.

Almond Sandies
Very good. Be sure to grind the almonds very fine. I made them too coarse. Also, I upped the amount of almond extract. Cook's called for a teeny 1/4 teaspoon. I would add a whole teaspoon especially since I found really nice tasting organic extract.

Molasses with Rum Glaze
These are AWESOME. Seriously, I ate most of the batch myself. Cook's found blackstrap molasses to be too strong, but I loved it. I used Pusser's Rum in the glaze. Killer. I'm make them again and again.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip
I flat out don't like Cook's version of these. They got very hard and needed vanilla.
I am on a quest to find the most perfect oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. In my opinion they need to be big and chewy with lots of brown sugar and really good chocolate flavor. The Cook's recipe turned out to be far below my expectations for this particular cookie. So, I branched out and tried 3 other oatmeal-chocolate chip recipes from various sources. One randomly from the internet which was so-so and needed an extra cup of flour. One from the family archives which turned out hard and curiously flavorless and then... a really good one from an unexpected source. I have a chocolate-lovers cookbook put out by the Hershey company. The recipes are good, but honestly, are even better if you use *good* chocolate/cocoa and NOT Hershey's. The best chocolate chips I've found are Callabeaut and are available in bulk at my co-op. As far as cocoa powder, get a high quality dutch processed.

Thick and Chewy Double Chocolate
Yes!! Chocolate and Espresso. Good god, these are good, but the Triples are even better.

Thick and Chewy Triple Chocolate
Nathan and my favorite so far. Use really good chocolate - dutch processed cocoa and good chocolate chips.

Peanut Butter
Hands down the best peanut butter cookies. The secret is to grind up whole peanuts yourself.

Classic Brownies
These did not turn out so well. I cooked them a long time, much longer than called for and they were still gooey to the point of being doughy in the middle. We ate all the way around the outside and three the rest out.

Lemon Bars (Key Lime Bar variation not in the book, but on their website)
Very good. Using fresh citrus and zest is the key to really good flavor.

Up Next:
I plan to try the oatmeal raisin variation today despite my dislike for the oatmeal chocolate chip variation in this book. I'm likely to doctor it as I see fit. I also plan to try the Hermits and Pecan Squares soon. Cook's doesn't have a recipe for homemade fig newtons, but there must be one out there somewhere and that intrigues me. I'll let you know what I find.