Hi all,

How do I achieve the crunchiness of storebought cookies? I have no problem
making flaky or chewy cookies but somehow that really dry crunch is
something I can't seem to achieve. Any recommendations, specifically:

- fat/flour/sugar ratio
- processing/kneading technique
- baking temperature

What I'm actually after is getting a crunchy shell to fill with a maccaroon
mixture.

Thanks much,
Andrew

at Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:17:07 GMT in
, (andrew
queisser) wrote :

Hi all,

How do I achieve the crunchiness of storebought cookies? I have no
problem making flaky or chewy cookies but somehow that really dry crunch
is something I can't seem to achieve. Any recommendations, specifically:

- fat/flour/sugar ratio

Use butter, which generally leads to crisper cookies, all things being
equal. Also, you're forgetting another key ingredient, which often seems to
be overlooked (see my various posts on soft, all-butter chocolate chip
cookies, where I talk about this more): eggs. Mimimise egg content for
crunchy cookies. Don't go crazy on the sugar either, both because a lot of
sugar leads to softer, chewier results, and because sugar, being
hygroscopic, makes cookies that much softer with time, as the sugar absorbs
humidity in the air. (That wouldn't apply of course if you lived in
Arizona)

- processing/kneading technique

Not many things you do will affect *crunchiness* per se. However, vigourous
kneading will develop gluten in flour, increasing chewiness, Creaming
butter reduces density and makes the cookie a bit drier as well.

- baking temperature

High temperature promotes a crisp outer shell but a moister, softer middle.
Low temperature makes for drier cookies at the same crispness level, with
more control over how crisp the cookie is as a whole. *Very* low
temperatures, however, will prevent surface caramelisation and thus lead to
washed-out flavour (for most cookies - there are some special cases like
meringue) along with little crisping.

One other note for crunchiness. Let your cookies sit for several days.
Cookies generally become crunchier and harder with age (which is one reason
storebought are usually pretty crunchy - they've been sitting around).
After 3 days a cookie which started out unacceptably soft might well be
quite nicely crunchy.


What I'm actually after is getting a crunchy shell to fill with a
maccaroon mixture.

Do you want something that is like a nest (a disc with a hollow in it) or
more like an actual shell (something with a big void in the middle that you
could e.g. pipe a filling into)? Your macaroon mixture could be appropriate
in either case. I will say that when I heard what you're doing my thoughts
immediately gravitated towards meringues.

--
Alex Rast

(remove d., .7, not, and .NOSPAM to reply)

On Mon 24 Apr 2006 06:02:08p, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it Alex Rast?

at Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:17:07 GMT in
, (andrew
queisser) wrote :

Hi all,

How do I achieve the crunchiness of storebought cookies? I have no
problem making flaky or chewy cookies but somehow that really dry crunch
is something I can't seem to achieve. Any recommendations, specifically:

- fat/flour/sugar ratio

Use butter, which generally leads to crisper cookies, all things being
equal. Also, you're forgetting another key ingredient, which often seems
to be overlooked (see my various posts on soft, all-butter chocolate
chip cookies, where I talk about this more): eggs. Mimimise egg content
for crunchy cookies. Don't go crazy on the sugar either, both because a
lot of sugar leads to softer, chewier results, and because sugar, being
hygroscopic, makes cookies that much softer with time, as the sugar
absorbs humidity in the air. (That wouldn't apply of course if you lived
in Arizona)

- processing/kneading technique

Not many things you do will affect *crunchiness* per se. However,
vigourous kneading will develop gluten in flour, increasing chewiness,
Creaming butter reduces density and makes the cookie a bit drier as
well.

- baking temperature

High temperature promotes a crisp outer shell but a moister, softer
middle. Low temperature makes for drier cookies at the same crispness
level, with more control over how crisp the cookie is as a whole. *Very*
low temperatures, however, will prevent surface caramelisation and thus
lead to washed-out flavour (for most cookies - there are some special
cases like meringue) along with little crisping.

One other note for crunchiness. Let your cookies sit for several days.
Cookies generally become crunchier and harder with age (which is one
reason storebought are usually pretty crunchy - they've been sitting
around). After 3 days a cookie which started out unacceptably soft might
well be quite nicely crunchy.


What I'm actually after is getting a crunchy shell to fill with a
maccaroon mixture.

Do you want something that is like a nest (a disc with a hollow in it)
or more like an actual shell (something with a big void in the middle
that you could e.g. pipe a filling into)? Your macaroon mixture could be
appropriate in either case. I will say that when I heard what you're
doing my thoughts immediately gravitated towards meringues.


Substituting rice flour or cornstarch for part of the flour will also
produce a crisper cookie.

--
Wayne Boatwright @¿@¬
_____________________

"Alex Rast" wrote in message
...
at Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:17:07 GMT in
, (andrew
queisser) wrote :



What I'm actually after is getting a crunchy shell to fill with a
maccaroon mixture.

Do you want something that is like a nest (a disc with a hollow in it) or
more like an actual shell (something with a big void in the middle that
you
could e.g. pipe a filling into)? Your macaroon mixture could be
appropriate
in either case. I will say that when I heard what you're doing my thoughts
immediately gravitated towards meringues.


Alex, thanks for the exhaustive information. My plan is to make something
similar to a pastry I used to eat in Germany, usually just called
"Makronentoertchen" or, regionally, "Leipziger Lerche". If you google that
you'll see lots of yummy thumbnails in the "Images" page.

The shell does have a deep void. The dough is usually rolled out and layed
into small brioche-shaped tart pans.

I've made these several times and they are really good but the tart dough
tends to get soft and I'm envisioning a crunchier shell. So I wanted to
prebake the shells and use a recipe that results in a crunchier more
cookie-like texture.

As to the filling: most recipes use a very rich butter/sugar/yolk/almond mix
and then fold in the stiff eggwhite. I always ended up with a shell and
filling that were too similar in texture. For the filling I'm thinking of
something denser and chewier, almost like marzipan so I was thinking of
using a maccaroon-like filling with the eggwhites barely beaten. Not sure if
that even qualifies as a macaroon but I made a pistachio recipe once that
used that approach and I ended up with very chewy cookies that actually
stayed chewy.

Andrew

"Wayne Boatwright" wayneboatwright_at_gmail.com wrote in message
28.19...

Substituting rice flour or cornstarch for part of the flour will also
produce a crisper cookie.

--
Wayne Boatwright @¿@¬

Is that because of the gluten? In that case, would the same effect be
achieved by using a lower-gluten flour?

Thanks,
Andrew

On Tue 25 Apr 2006 09:05:29a, Thus Spake Zarathustra, or was it andrew
queisser?


"Wayne Boatwright" wayneboatwright_at_gmail.com wrote in message
28.19...

Substituting rice flour or cornstarch for part of the flour will also
produce a crisper cookie.

--
Wayne Boatwright @¿@¬

Is that because of the gluten? In that case, would the same effect be
achieved by using a lower-gluten flour?

Thanks,
Andrew

Sorry, I have no idea, but I know it works. It's a common addition to some
shortbread recipes that have a crisp texture.

--
Wayne Boatwright @¿@¬
_____________________

also if you turn the oven off after they have finished cooking and
leave them in there for a few minutes then take them out of the oven
but leave on the tray untill almost cool they will crisp up really well

Tessa

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:03:27 GMT, "andrew queisser"
wrote:

"Alex Rast" wrote in message
.. .
at Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:17:07 GMT in
, (andrew
queisser) wrote :



What I'm actually after is getting a crunchy shell to fill with a
maccaroon mixture.

Do you want something that is like a nest (a disc with a hollow in it) or
more like an actual shell (something with a big void in the middle that
you
could e.g. pipe a filling into)? Your macaroon mixture could be
appropriate
in either case. I will say that when I heard what you're doing my thoughts
immediately gravitated towards meringues.


Alex, thanks for the exhaustive information. My plan is to make something
similar to a pastry I used to eat in Germany, usually just called
"Makronentoertchen" or, regionally, "Leipziger Lerche". If you google that
you'll see lots of yummy thumbnails in the "Images" page.

The shell does have a deep void. The dough is usually rolled out and layed
into small brioche-shaped tart pans.

I've made these several times and they are really good but the tart dough
tends to get soft and I'm envisioning a crunchier shell. So I wanted to
prebake the shells and use a recipe that results in a crunchier more
cookie-like texture.

As to the filling: most recipes use a very rich butter/sugar/yolk/almond mix
and then fold in the stiff eggwhite. I always ended up with a shell and
filling that were too similar in texture. For the filling I'm thinking of
something denser and chewier, almost like marzipan so I was thinking of
using a maccaroon-like filling with the eggwhites barely beaten. Not sure if
that even qualifies as a macaroon but I made a pistachio recipe once that
used that approach and I ended up with very chewy cookies that actually
stayed chewy.

Andrew

You googled and only got images? Were there no recipes too?

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 01:02:08 -0000,
(Alex Rast) wrote:

at Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:17:07 GMT in
, (andrew
queisser) wrote :

Hi all,

How do I achieve the crunchiness of storebought cookies? I have no
problem making flaky or chewy cookies but somehow that really dry crunch
is something I can't seem to achieve. Any recommendations, specifically:

- fat/flour/sugar ratio

Use butter, which generally leads to crisper cookies, all things being
equal. Also, you're forgetting another key ingredient, which often seems to
be overlooked (see my various posts on soft, all-butter chocolate chip
cookies, where I talk about this more): eggs. Mimimise egg content for
crunchy cookies. Don't go crazy on the sugar either, both because a lot of
sugar leads to softer, chewier results, and because sugar, being
hygroscopic, makes cookies that much softer with time, as the sugar absorbs
humidity in the air. (That wouldn't apply of course if you lived in
Arizona)

- processing/kneading technique

Not many things you do will affect *crunchiness* per se. However, vigourous
kneading will develop gluten in flour, increasing chewiness, Creaming
butter reduces density and makes the cookie a bit drier as well.

- baking temperature

High temperature promotes a crisp outer shell but a moister, softer middle.
Low temperature makes for drier cookies at the same crispness level, with
more control over how crisp the cookie is as a whole. *Very* low
temperatures, however, will prevent surface caramelisation and thus lead to
washed-out flavour (for most cookies - there are some special cases like
meringue) along with little crisping.

One other note for crunchiness. Let your cookies sit for several days.
Cookies generally become crunchier and harder with age (which is one reason
storebought are usually pretty crunchy - they've been sitting around).
After 3 days a cookie which started out unacceptably soft might well be
quite nicely crunchy.


What I'm actually after is getting a crunchy shell to fill with a
maccaroon mixture.

Do you want something that is like a nest (a disc with a hollow in it) or
more like an actual shell (something with a big void in the middle that you
could e.g. pipe a filling into)? Your macaroon mixture could be appropriate
in either case. I will say that when I heard what you're doing my thoughts
immediately gravitated towards meringues.

Alex, nice answer. I was going to reply with some of these, but you
had even more than I thought of.

You googled and only got images? Were there no recipes too?

I got plenty of recipes as well, I just wanted to point out that you can get
images to get a viusual idea of what I'm trying to make so Alex would have
an idea of the shape and size of these things.

Andrew