Chocolate chip cookies are a crowd favorite, seriously who doesn’t love a chocolate chip cookie. But what’s happening in that oven? Today I made a modified version of BA’s “Best chocolate chip cookie.”
Brown Butter
For someone who has never browned butter it either sounds pointless, or terrifyingly hard. Well, I am happy to inform you it is the baking world’s best kept secret and it just take’s some practice. So, butter is essentially water and fat. It doesn’t want to be together, like oil and water, it’s trying to get away from itself. This is all well and good but we can use this to our advantage browning butter, is essentially heating up the butter to get rid of the water. When you brown butter it bubbles vigorously and might splash up but this is all the trapped water being released. The fats and milk solids in butter start to denature- turning brown and releasing a nutty aroma. In cookies this nutty flavor adds a layer of depth, or caramel taste.
Wet Ingredients
Besides the butter this recipe calls for “1 large egg, 2 large egg yolks, and 2 tsp. vanilla extract.” The 1 egg is used for structural support in cookies, when baked the eggs will firm up and hold the cookie together (think of when you make scrambled eggs how it goes from a liquid to solid this is what it is doing in the cookie). Just the egg yolks is less about the structure and more about the emulsifying properties. Egg yolks have this cool ability to bind 2 substances that don’t want to be together, together. In other words, how butter wants to be apart egg yolks want to put it together (it’s like your mom who just wants you to be friends with all your cousins…). These emulsifying (holding together) properties are essential in cookies they make sure everyone stays together. Lastly, the vanilla extract it doesn’t have a neat reason it’s solely there for flavor.
Dry Ingredients
This cookie recipe uses flour, salt, baking soda, sugar, dark brown sugar, and chocolate chips! The main role of flour is… structure. Flour is truly the brick foundation of any baking recipe without flour it’s just a pile of mush. However, flour is not as easy to work with as everyone thinks to get the most bang for your buck flour should be hydrated. This means letting your dough sit for at least an hour so the flour can really absorb all the moisture from the dough and form gluten structures (when flour is wet it makes gluten matrices, which are very strong structures). You might notice the recipe does not say to let your dough rest, however I went ahead and rest my dough. The salt adds flavor and it also strengthens the gluten structures made by yeast (this is more important for bread than cookies, though). Baking soda is a leavening agent, which means it helps the dough spread out and release gases (become a porous structure). This is essential in cookies so they can spread and become that classic thin structure. Sugar not only makes cookies sweet, it also makes them soft and moist (dark brown sugar does roughly the same thing). Lastly, the best part the chocolate chips they add… chocolate (honestly, you can make the cookies without them but then they’d be chip cookies).
The Actual Baking
When in the oven the butter melts and flattens out, but the little water that is left starts to vaporize. The egg proteins denature and tangle up with surrounding ingredients, forming tighter bonds at different temperatures (emulsifying) and truly bringing together all the ingredients. Eventually all the water evaporates leaving behind empty holes and a deflated cookie. The baking soda reacts with acids in the dough to create carbon dioxide and puff the cookie back up again by making air pockets. The last reaction is carmelization, sugars break down and release nutty, slightly bitter, and well caramel flavors.
Conclusion
Baking is more of a science than it seems, and chocolate chip cookies are no different. I did my best to follow and modify this recipe in a dorm room kitchen, but I encourage you to give it a try! The recipe can be found at: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bas-best-chocolate-chip-cookies. If you have any cooking or baking suggestions please let me know? Is there anything you’ve always wanted to know about cooking/ baking? Or is there anything from home you really miss? I make no promises but I can try my best! Keep on baking.
sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6wpNhyreDE
https://www.thoughtco.com/chemistry-baking-cookies-4140220
I really like your scientific approach to cooking! As a biochemistry major, I could always appreciate some science. Perhaps when I learn more about chemistry in cooking, I can work to become a better cook…
Now I am craving a cookie. I really enjoyed reading this blog, as it reminded me how much I love to bake! I excited to read more of your blog.
I love this! I’ve always been a baker at home, and I actually spent some of my Christmas break trying to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I tried to find a recipe with the perfect rations, but I never thought about browning the butter! I’m definitely going to give that a try. Interestingly enough, my family most enjoyed a gluten free cookie that I baked. I’d love to know what your favorite recipe is!
This blog is dangerous too early in the morning because now I am craving a cookie… nice job though I love the alternate approach to baking!
Woah this post was so in-depth and I truly learned so much about the science that goes into baking. I really like to cook but baking has always been foreign to me for some reason. But I would love to make a nice batch of cookies now that I know the tricks! As far as suggestions I would honestly be interested in learning how to bake anything.
I love learning about baking and can’t wait to eat a cookie in west in about 45 minutes because of this blog. There is so much chemistry that goes into cooking and this blog could prove to be very intriguing.