let me tell you a thing or two about baking 250 cookies in a month
Remember the cookie bracket? Remember how I predicted I’d finish it by the end of May? Let’s pretend that didn’t happen. I did, however, finish the first round a few days ago, which made me think it was time to check in on all things cookie.
If you’re new to Grazing and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s some background: I’m on a quest to find my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I figured the best way to do so was through a 16-cookie bracket.
the very sweet 16
A few years ago, I ate some spoiled mussels in Anadolu Kavagi, a town in Turkey near where the Bosphorus Strait meets the Black Sea. My biggest concern in the aftermath was whether the bad bites would ruin my taste for mussels permanently, or even for a few weeks or months. It didn’t.
Here we are, 16 batches into the chocolate chip cookie bracket, and I’ve made absolutely zero bad cookies. That’s not because I’m some kind of exemplary baker; some have been misshapen, and others have grown together into one massive megacookie. Some have been super sweet, super chocolate-y, not quite chocolate-y enough. And some have been downright bizarre. But every single bite has been pleasant. There are no bad chocolate chip cookies.
I’m not entirely sure how many cookies have emerged from my oven since I started this process, but I’m guessing it’s well north of 200. And along the way, I’ve learned some things. So before I start re-baking the eight winning cookies for another round, I figured I’d share some of the wisdom I picked up across several weeks of intermittent sugar highs.
Resting dough overnight does make noticeably better cookies. Not every recipe in the bracket called for resting dough, and I made each one exactly as authored, but I started to be able to tell the difference. Cookies that rested had more dynamic, deeper flavors — sometimes even caramel-y. In the next round, I’m toying with the idea of resting all the dough, no matter what the instructions say. It’ll be an exercise in self control.
It’s hard for me to buy in to dried fruit. I don’t dislike it. But I also don’t seek it out. As far as food goes, I deem it… fine. And I also don’t think it adds much of anything to a cookie. That’s why the Mokonuts rye-cranberry cookie got booted in the first round, which is kind of a shame. The poppyseeds made it super interesting, and I loved the somewhat cakey consistency. But I just didn’t particularly love the bites that included lots of cranberry. If you’re a dried fruit person, you should absolutely give this recipe a try.
Making halva at home is really easy. Instead of buying it, I decided to try out making it for the pistachio, brown butter and halva cookies. I’m really glad I did. I used this New York Times recipe.
Oh, and speaking of the pistachio cookies, they were a hit. My best friend told me I should sell them. I won’t, but when I bake them in the next round, I might just give some away. These cookies achieved the perfect balance of crispy around the edges and chewy in the middle, and the halva and brown butter added a really subtle, nutty depth. Plus, pistachios and chocolate are a foolproof pairing.
There’s a reason my mom loves Toll House. They were the only upset of the first round, and I think I owe my childhood an apology. Why did I doubt these cookies? There’s a reason they’re the basis for pretty much every respectable recipe. They’re simple and perfect and I am sorry for besmirching them with a No. 3 seed.
Turbinado sugar is an amazing stealth ingredient. Smitten Kitchen’s salted chocolate chunk cookies call for two tablespoons of it mixed into the batter, and it really does give them the most satisfying crunch. For that reason — plus the salt and copious amount of good chocolate — these cookies were some of my favorites I baked in the first round.
Just an opinion, shouldn’t the R in the title be a cap. Maybe even a giant cap?
Just saying