What really is the perfect chocolate chip cookie? I like mine warm, thin, crispy on the edges and chewy/soft on the inside. Some people I know like them thick and soft or with butterscotch chips in their cookies. I know that I can never get my chocolate chip cookies right, but I found out the way to do that is within the chemistry of the ingredients.
It makes sense of course– each ingredient in a recipe, especially baking recipes, is made to do something else to the cookie. So, it’s easy to see that in order to get the perfect cookie, one must mess with the different ingredients to get the properties that they desire. A picture has been circulating online recently of 8 different cookies labeled with the changes in their recipes to really cater to everyone’s cookie needs.
For example, if you want the thicker, soft cookies, it’s best to use a recipe with more flour. The molasses in the brown sugar vs using regular granulated sugar definitely affects the color and taste of your cookies. It’s also important to me to use both baking powder and baking soda so that my cookies will have the texture I enjoy most. In this article, there’s even a way to get your cookies to taste store-bought, (but I don’t know why anyone would seek that).
There you have it; it is possible to get baked goods in the fashion that you decide.
Back at home when I would bake with my friends, we would always mess up the recipe a little on accident and each time we would make cookies they would turn out a little different. It is so interesting to see how just one little ingredient change can alter the entire make up of the cookie. Baking really is so similar to chemistry, and we don’t even realize it. Everything is related to science in some sort of way, even baking. A little extra sugar or too much flour makes it a completely different cookie. For more info on each ingredient of a cookie, check out this article:
http://sugarkissed.net/cookie-chemistry/
Great post for catching the eye, anything with the title “the perfect chocolate chip cookie” definitely gets my attention! Although all of those cookies look great to me, I found an interesting article about chocolate chip cookies myself, talking about why chocolate chip cookies end up looking nothing like how we plan them to. The link is right <blockquote
This is a very interesting post because I like to bake as well. Baking is all about the right amount of ingredients to satisfy the consumer. I personally prefer the cookie with all granulated sugar because I do not like puffy cookies with tons of chocolate chips in them. Cooking and baking is heavily related to science and math. Too much of a ingredient will ruin the recipe and a extremely high oven temperature can burn everything. Its all about judgment.
This must be a cookie-lover’s favorite post! Especially since everyone prefers their cookies slightly different from each other, now they can learn how to perfect their personal cookie recipe! Little do we know, but there is quite alot of chemistry involved with baking, or cooking any meals. Food companies who sell their food in the frozen/refrigerated section of grocery stores need to have cooking instructions on the package. But the only way for them to know how long to instruct the consumers to bake the product and at what heat is to know what ingredients they put in the product. Different baking ingredients react differently to heat over a period of time. So experimental trials must have been conducted to find the perfect amount of heat and time in the oven to get the sought out end result.
Hey Katherine! Like what Allison said, this blog title instantly get my attention. I like baking and especially like to make cookies. It is interesting that you come up with a scientific perspective from such a daily topic. My mom always tells me that baking is all about chemical reaction. You can get huge different results by changing a little bit of ingredients. Here is a video talks about the cookie and chemistryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6wpNhyreDE. I really enjoy this blog! Thank you.
This post immediately caught my eye. I have a soft spot for sweets and chocolate chip cookies are my favorite! However, I believe that there is no such thing as “the perfect cookie” because everyone has a different liking for different tastes. Here is a website that explains why people taste things differently. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-03/fyi-why-does-some-food-taste-bad-some-people-and-good-others It would be awesome to come up with a cookie that everyone thought was perfect!