I’m currently procrastinating because I don’t feel like getting started on my to-do list, and I found this great blog post on chocolate chip cookies:
http://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/the-food-lab-the-best-chocolate-chip-cookies.html
Kenji, the author of the post, is a foodie with a serious passion for researching the science behind cooking. This post is one of my personal favorites, as it takes a very in-depth look at the process of baking. I’ve heard the phrase “baking is like a science” thrown around before, but Kenji takes it to an extreme. In order to develop his ideal chocolate chip cookie recipe, he bakes over 1500 (!!) chocolate chip cookies to test the different variables. He also discusses many of the biochemical processes at play in cookie-formation, many of which relate directly to what we are studying in class. Here’s some of my takeaways from the article.
- Gluten develops when flour mixes with water, and is actually a network of interconnected proteins. The formation of this network in cookies helps the cookie spread, and also lightens the texture. This network can’t form in fats, which is why a higher amount of butter in a cookie recipe leads to a more compact, less cakey cookie.
- Browning reactions (aka the Maillard reactions, as previously discussed on this blog) lead to the color of the cookie. A larger amount of proteins in the dough lead a darker cookie.
- For the best cookies, allow the dough to rest before you bake. He suggests letting them sit overnight before baking. The rationale is similar to issues we face in biochem lab: many of the reactions taking place in the dough (protein interactions, acid-base chemistry, etc) occur gradually. Letting the dough sit allows more of the reactions to occur, leading to a more complex cookie.
- Order and technique matters! Changing around the order in which ingredients were added to the dough led to textural and visual differences. Same with the techniques used, i.e. whipping the butter vs. browning the butter. This reminds me a lot of lab, and the importance of writing a thorough methods section.
- White sugar is crystallized sucrose, and is mildly hygroscopic and relatively neutral in pH. Brown sugar is crystallized sucrose, with some glucose, fructose, and trace minerals. The addition of glucose and fructose makes brown sugar more likely to retain water, while the trace minerals provide additional flavor and slightly lower the pH of the sugar.
If you too are procrastinating, I highly recommend his blog. This article is a bit of a long read, but well-worth the time (and the comments are a goldmine of cooking advice as well!)