bake club 4: cookies cookies cookies

I mean, it's December, which is unanimously cookie season

Hi hi hello!

Another month of bake club hath come and gone! Everyone’s cakes last month looked and sounded so so so amazing. I loved seeing all of your riffs and remixes on some of the base recipes I’ve previously shared in the recipe archive, as well as all the “little” life moments you chose to celebrate with cake. Because, forever and always, you do not need an event like a birthday or a wedding to eat a cake!! Parallel parking without hitting the curb deserves a slice of cake too, honestly.

Now, it’s a new month and time for a new bake club prompt. So, I think we can all agree that December is the month of the cookie. So, it only makes sense that this month for bake club we are diving IN on cookies. Specifically, a “drop” style cookie. Ya know, the kind you prep, scoop, and bake. Mostly, because they’re easy enough for you to prep the dough now (before holiday madness truly sets in and you have no time or mental clarity to do it later), store it in the freezer and bake off as needed throughout the month.

There are at this point probably millions of cookie recipes swirling around on the internet, in books, pastry corner binders, index cards in a rusty tin box. They’re everywhere!! I’m eye to eye with at least 6 cookie specific cookbooks on myself right now. That’s literally 600+ cookie recipes staring me down AS WE SPEAK!! If you’re here, following along on a baking heavy newsletter, it’s safe to assume, you’ll make at least *one* cookie recipe this month. I mean you have plenty to choose from. But, like well you know the point of bake club, I want you to make these cookie yours.

Last year, I shared a post on how to start customizing your favorite recipes by adapting them.

11. how to start customizing your favorite recipes

We’re going to be building on that, diving deeper into cookies. Because, honestly, I think when it comes to adapting or developing your own recipes, cookies are the best place to start. They’re, the basics. Today, I’m sharing my updated chocolate chip cookie recipe (yeah, I’m ALWAYS updating and revising my recipes because things can almost always be better) plus, one of the 4 ways I adapted the recipe to create new flavor profiles and texture by swapping ingredients (the other 3 will be shared over the next week… I don’t want to totally overwhelm ya) : an espresso + rye white chocolate cookie, an orange blossom oat & dried cherry cookie, a brown butter pecan cookie, and a double chocolate chip cookie. Just as a starting point for your own creativity.

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Before we get into the recipes, we gotta look at the key cookie players, what they do for cookies (and you know baked goods in general) and some of the options you can swap them out for.

Butter/fat: Butter is the most common fat used in cookies, usually for flavor and richness. It tenderizes and aerates baked goods. The more fat you add the more spread your cookie will have, but be careful- too much fat and you have a greasy glob of a cookie.

Fat will coat the starches in your flour which will inhibit gluten formation by shortening the gluten “threads”. This gives your cookies a softer, chewier texture.

Butter also contains 12-20% water- depending on the type you use. Butters with a high butterfat content of 82-85% have more fat and less water- which does play a role in the final result of your cookie. But, that water content, a) hydrates the starches in your dough and b) creates steam during the bake helping the cookie to rise.

Some fat alternatives to butter could be brown butter or even olive oil. Both of these though are devoid of water, either naturally, like olive oil. Or, through the process of browning where all the water boils off. Something to consider if you’re choosing to adapt a pre-existing recipe to use one of these butter alternatives. This may looking like adding liquid back to the recipe elsewhere, even if it is straight up adding 25 grams of water in with the brown butter. Or dropping the amount of flour slightly to avoid having a dry cookie.

Other alternatives to butter could be vegan butters, coconut oil, and shortening (I’m not gonna lie, a mf crisco ass cookie… it hits sometimes)- just depends on what the end goal for your cookie is.

Sugar: Sugar is so much more than “just sweet”. Sugar is key to helping leaven your cookies- mechanically and chemically. During the creaming process, the sugar granules trap air which helps your cookies rise in the oven. Sugar is also an acidic ingredient, in pH not like lemon juice, which when introduced to baking soda creates a chemical reaction causing your cookies to spread.

Sugar also attracts water to your ingredients, giving you a moist and tender crumb/texture. This helps your cookie retain moisture. So, If you were to cut the sugar in a cookie recipe by 50 or even 25% you’ll be left with a dry cookie that doesn’t spread in the way you might want.

The two main types of sugar you’ll see in a cookie recipe are granulated and brown. Cookies made with [a higher ratio of] granulated/white sugar tend to be crispier overall. While cookies made with [a higher ratio of] brown sugar tend to be a little fudgier in the center, with a deep caramel flavor thanks to the molasses content. The higher moisture content in brown sugar also lends to a softer, chewier cookie.

Some alt sugars for you to play around with on your cookie journey could be coconut sugar, muscovado (for a very deep, toffee/molasses-y flavor- think of it like the final boss of brown sugars), or even powdered sugar which lends itself to a cookie with a more crackled brownie like outer finish to your cookie.

You can also add things like invert/liquid sugars to your dough to invite more moisture to the party. Things like honey, molasses, corn syrup, golden syrup, glucose, dextrose are all considered humectants which can extend the moisture/shelf life of your final cookies. The one's like honey and molasses also bring more flavor to your dough. You can add 5-10% of one of these liquid sugars (in relation to the weight of the flour in the recipe!) to the dough, if you want a chewier cookie! These liquid sugars make a great addition to a cookie recipe you plan to use for an ice cream sando btw.

Eggs: Eggs are an emulsifier, they bind your cookie together. Considering the fact that eggs are 75% water- they also help to give rise and moisture to a cookie. Most of that water content can be found in the white- so if you want to steer away from a cookie that is on the cakier side- consider using a higher ratio of egg yolks (more fat yayyyy!!) for a gooey centered cookie.

The thing about eggs though, is that they’re not totally necessary in a drop cookie. Sure, the presence of lecithin in egg yolks acts as an emulsifier in cookies. But, you can use plenty of other ingredients as a binder in cookies. When making vegan cookies at Mr.Holmes we didnt mess around with vegan liquid “egg” replacers or flax seed eggs- we just replaced the eggs by weight in a standard cookie recipe with almond milk. So you could use something like apple sauce or mashed bananas to replace eggs by weight and achieve similar textures to your original cookie. Considering that a large egg weighs 50 grams and you replace it with 50 grams of whatever egg substitute you want to use.

*if you want to use more mashed banana or apple sauce in a recipe, pair it with browned butter and use the mash to also replace the moisture lost during the browning process!*

Flour: Flour gives structure to a cookie, cookies with a lowers amount of flour spread more, while cookies with a higher ratio remain thicccc and lofty.

The protein percentage in the flour you choose will also dictate the loftiness of your cookie. A cookie made with cake flour (7-9%) kinda has a more melt in your mouth experience- though for a cookie I wouldn’t do 100% cake flour, more of a 50/50 AP/Cake split. Otherwise your cookie, just like me, will barely hold it together.

All-Purpose, the standard flour for most cookies, has a protein content of 10-12% (depending on brand). The same recipe made with all AP flour will have more structure to it than a cake flour cookie, more hefty and chew to it.

Then we’ve got our high protein (12-14%) bread flours. Cookies made with bread flour are the chewiest of the bunch. The high ratio of sugar and fat in cookies help to keep too much gluten from forming and giving you a tough cookie- but, be careful you still don’t want to over mix, you’re sure to get a tough cookie that way.

A great way to bring flavor in with your flour is to use whole grains, some of my faves for cookies are: rouge de bordeaux, rye and sonora. Whole wheats are thirstier than conventional flours, the bran soaks up more of the moisture in doughs and can dry your cookies out if you don’t also adjust the hydration of the dough, either with added butter, sugar or egg (yolks). For the most part though you can *usually* sub in 20-25% of the weight of the flour in a recipe for the equal amount of your whole wheat of choice before you have to go around tinkering with the ratios of other ingredients.

Leavening agents: of the chemical variety you’re most likely to see baking soda and baking powder in a cookie recipe. Though sometimes you’ll see cream of tartar in something like a snickerdoodle or sugar cookie recipe.

These agents provide carbon dioxide through a series of chemical reactions that cause your baked goods to rise and spread.

Baking soda needs the presence of an acid to react, like I mentioned earlier, sugar is an acid that can kick start the reaction in a cookie. It raises the pH of the dough which slows down how the proteins coagulate giving the dough more time to spread. Adding too much can leave you with a cookie that has a metallic aftertaste. The general rule of thumb is to use 1/4 teaspoon baking soda per 120 grams of flour.

Baking powder is baking soda + another source of acid, like cream of tartar. Baking powder with react on it’s own when introduced to water and doesn’t neeeed another form of acid to get going. Forgoing baking powder in a cookie leaves you with a cookie with less lift to it. Using too much can leave you with a cookie that has a bitter after taste. Rule of thumb here is 1 teaspoon of baking powder per 120 grams of flour.

The way I think about what leavener I want to use is if I want something that rises up, out or both? For something with more of a spread, baking soda. If I want rise, baking powder. If I want both? Well, then use both.

Cream of tartar gives cookies this very distinct tangy flavor, you know, that little je ne sais quoi that a snickerdoodle has going on. It also slows down the browning of a cookie, which is why it’s used often in soft sugar cookie recipes. Because is also prevents sugar from crystalizing, which is what gives you crisp caramel cookie edges. So, recipe that use cream of tartar tend to be… ugh goddamn for the 900000000th time… chewier!! You can use 1/8 teaspoon per 120 grams of flour.

Mixing Method: The way we mix our dough also affects the final outcome of the cookie. The creaming method, where you beat softened butter and the sugar(s) together to cream the mixture aerates things. As the sugar cuts into the butter, air is being trapped which later on down the line will expand in the oven giving lift to your cookie and a crispier edge.

Instead of using softened butter, you can use melted butter and simply mix it together with the sugars. You skip the rise from the incorporated air from creaming and are left with a, say it with me now, fudgier, chewier cookie.

For drop cookies you can typically employ either method depending on the results you want for your cookie. Because remember a recipe is not only the set of ingredients you use, but the technique you use to prepare it. Different techniques will yield different results.

Temperature: We’re talking temp of the dough as it goes into the oven as well as the temp of the oven itself.

I chill all my doughs, either in the fridge or the freezer for a minimum of an hour before baking. And i’ll bake straight from the freezer, no thawing. This gives the dough time to evenly hydrate, the flours will absorb all the water from the sugars and butters. It also gives ingredients time to know each other and for their flavors to meld. Baking chilled dough also slows down the spread in the oven which will leave some heft to the center of your cookie. Dough baked straight away after mixing, will spread much wider than dough that has been chilled.

The true temp of your oven (not just what you set it to) will also dictate the spread of your dough. Cookies baked at a higher temps (375-400F) will set before the cookie has time to spread, and will have a softer interior. They also require a shorter bake time. Cookies baked in midrange temps (335-350F) will have time to spread and bake more evenly throughout for a cookie that is the perfect combo of crisp around the edges and gooey in the center. Cookies baked at a low temp (275-325F) will have the most time to spread, they will also take longer to full bake, resulting in a cookie that is thinner and crispy.

The size of the dough balls you choose to bake will also vary in accordance with the temp you decide to bake them off at. I personally love a 2-4 ounce cookie. That’s like your typically bakery sized jumbo cookie and it’s needs are gonna vary from the needs of a 1 ounce dough ball. For the big binch cookies- I prefer a higher heat, whereas the same dough in a 1 ounce size I’ll bake at a lower/mid range temp to achieve the same results as the thicc cookies at higher temps. The best thing about cookie though is you can bake a few at a time from each batch in different conditions to see which results you prefer the best. Bake times will vary, I typically start every cookie off with 8 minutes on the middle rack before rotating and assessing if they need more time.

I KNOW you’re like damn bitch!! that was A LOT how the heck am I supposed to use it all. Yeah girl, like I say in the post from last year about customizing your fave recipes, it’s best to make one change at a time and see how it affects your dough. Which is why we use our favorite recipes to start, we know what the usually look like and we’ll be able to clock what changes when we start playing around with things. With everything listed about, you’ll have an idea of where to start and an understanding of what the heck the things you’re mixing together are actually doing! You can always turn to the group chat to chat about how to make the changes to recipes you’re thinking about!

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Now, don’t even get me started on ALL the ways you can flavor a cookie recipe with out even having to touch the chemical makeup of the recipe. Because, I see you casual yet adventurous bakers in the back cowering at the massive info dump above. But, you want to change up and bring more or different flavors to your cookies with minimal scientific calculations:

• Add a little spice to it! Or swap the pre-existing spice in your favorite recipe for something more rounded. Love yourself an oatmeal raisin cookie? Okay grandma!! Well then, give this blend of Royal cinnamon, coriander, wild mesquite, smoked star anise, and cardamom a try instead of just cinnamon.

• Play around with the chocolatey mix-ins! Yes, do we love a dark chocolate chunk in a cookie? Yes, of course but, swapping it for something with a different flavor profile changes the experience. Swapped for andes mint pieces? Well, that’s a festive holiday cookie immediately!! Playing around with different varieties of Valhrona feves will give you a different cookie experience everytime! Something white and milky, reach for Ivoire. Something sweet and caramelized? Dulcey or Carmelia- great choices.

• Explore different extracts! Vanilla is great but like even I personally dont use it in my CCC SUE ME! You’ve got tons of options out there, the freaks making extracts are getting crazy and you can too! They make it all from cake batter extract to root beer flavoring, get freaky with it!! They’re your cookies now. In place of vanilla extract you can also opt for other flavorful alcohols, my dad loooooves rum in a chocolate chip cookie. Use Frangelico for a hint of herby hazelnut and cocoa. Or Cointreau for a bitter orange note.

• Play around with your flours! As I mentioned earlier, you can get away with swapping out 20-25% of the flour in a recipe for a whole grain flour without comprising the final texture/hydration of the dough. Whole wheat flours range from nutty in flavor, as is the case with rye to having spiced notes like Rouge de Bordeaux. And something like a soft white sonora gives you notes of corn and a toothsome bite.

• Let loose with the mix-ins! I watched a girl earlier put christmas crack into her cookies (saltines, chocolate and toffee). I’ve been known to candy thick cut bacon, chop it up and toss it into cookie dough with reese’s pieces and Lay’s potato chips. A raisin can be a raisin, or it can be a dried cranberry, cherry or blueberry. Nuts? Yeah baby, throw some chopped pistachios or glazed walnuts in there.

• You get the idea! Just make the cookie YOU want to eat.

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Finally, enough yapping!!! Time for what you’ve been scrolling past all the information above for ugh.

Here’s the updated version of my choc chip cookie recipe. Over the next week I’ll share other versions of the recipe and the “simple” changes I made to create completely different flavor profiles. Some, like the espresso rye white chocolate cookies I’m sharing today implore simpler ways to flavor while others transform the base recipe in to something else completely, like the orange blossom oaties.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Tools:

• Stand mixer or electric hand mixer *optional*

• Digital Scale

• Rubber Spatula

• Baking Trays

• Parchment paper, precut sheets for the WIN

• Cookie Scoop

• Mixing Bowl

• Teaspoon measures

Ingredients:

• 150 grams butter, melted & cooled

• 75 grams granulated sugar

• 140 grams dark brown sugar

• 1 large egg

• 1 large egg yolk

• 225 grams all purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon (10 grams) cornstarch

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 3/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

• 150 grams dark chocolate of your choice, I opt for 64% and higher to balance out the sweetness- chips, wafers, feves, chopped however you like it

Espresso Rye & White Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 150 grams butter, melted & cooled

• 75 grams granulated sugar

• 140 grams dark brown sugar

• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder

• 1 large egg

• 1 large egg yolk

• 170 grams all purpose flour

• 55 grams dark rye flour

• 1 tablespoon (10 grams) cornstarch

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 3/4 teaspoon Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt

• 150 grams white chocolate chips, chunks, or feves

Directions:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer add the 150 grams melted butter, 75 grams granulated sugar and 140 grams dark brown sugar. Beat with the paddle until combined. Yeah, you can do it by hand or with an electric hand mixer too.

2. While the butter and sugar gets to know each other, weigh out the 225 grams all purpose flour, 1 tablespoon cornstarch, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, and 3/4 teaspoon DC kosher salt into a medium bowl. Use the spatula to quickly give it a mix and disperse the leavening agents throughout. Set aside.

3. To the butter and sugars add the 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk. Beat until the mixture is emulsified and smooth.

4. Add the dries to the mixer. Mix on low speed just until the dries are just incorporated to the wets, with a few floury streaks remaining. Stop the mixer and scrape the bow and the paddle to ensure an even mix.

5. Add the 150 grams of dealer’s choice dark chocolate to the mixer and beat on low for a few seconds just until the chocolate is dispersed, you can finish folding everything together by hand with a rubber spatula.

6. Using a cookie scoop, scoop your desired size of cookie onto a parchment lined sheet tray. They can be close enough to touch at this point because you’re gonna put the dough in the fridge/freezer for at least an hour but preferably overnight. Wrap the tray in plastic wrap to keep everything fresh and free of freezer smells. *you can also stick the dough balls in the fridge just long enough to firm up before transferring into a freezer bag or other container*

7. 30 minutes before you’re ready to bake preheat the oven to an actual temp¹ of 355F.

8. Arrange your dough on a parchment lined baking tray.

9. Now, the size of your desired dough ball varies and so will the bake time. Smaller cookies will take 8-12 minutes to bake, while larger cookies can take up to 18 minutes. 8 minutes is a great starting point, at which time you can rotate the baking sheet and add more time as needed for cookies. You’ll know the cookies are done when the edges are golden brown and the center is set, it won’t have that oily sheen to it.

10. Allow to cool before eating, just enough so you don’t burn your mouth (;

For the espresso rye variation:

• Add the 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder In with the melted butter and sugars

• Add the 55 grams of dark rye flour in with the now 170 grams of all purpose flour and leaveners.

• Lastly, sub the dark chocolate chips/chunks out for 150 grams white chocolate. Or don’t.

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And with that I set you free on your cookie journey! I’ll be back with more cookie variations for ya soon, until then drop a line in the chat and we can brainstorm infinite cookie variations and how to execute them!

1. An oven thermometer will give you an actual read on the internal temp of the oven btw

1.