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chembake
 
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Default cookies crispy vs soft

:
> I found this a couple months ago while researching the
> crispy vs. soft issue...
> http://allrecipes.com/advice/coll/al...cles/177P1.asp

Some of that is at odds with popular recipes and personal
experience.
> For example, granted that Alton Brown is an admittedly novice baker

at
>best, his three chocolate chip cookie recipes are often posted and many
>people have used them.


I tend to agree of that....basing upon his recipes I can deduce that he
is an amateur baker who compensates his deficient baking ability with
good promotional skills .< grin>....no different from many cookbook
authors.....that many newsgroup posters regards as demi- gods in the
kitchen....


Many of the hobbyist cooks and unfortunately even some professional
cooks are shallow ....an in extreme ..cases .....stupid...
They load their limited book shelves with such literary trash
....<lol>......
Collecting cookery books does not make you a better cook or baker if
you lack common sense......And if a certain cook or chef has practical
common sense he or she will not prodigiously collect books to enhance
his/her cooking skills...!

Unless he or she just enjoyed reading books for the sake of its
entertainment value if not literary content...then that is
understandable.....



>The above article states that bread flour results in crispier cookies,
>while the 'chewey' recipe uses bread flour.


Technically, higher gluten flours tend to result in tough eating
cookies which shrinks a lot ,therefore results in cookies that have
lower diameters, lower cookie spread to height ratio....are more
chewier..

...If the fat content is not that high and is mixed also improperly it
will drastically affect the cookie quality.

One factor that influences crispiness is the amount of crystallline
and undissolved sugar; in the cookie dough.
.. Higher sugar level with higher gluten flours results in a crispier
cookie than with lower gluten flours.

Cookies differ from the other baked products such as cakes due to
their limited moisture so the gluten is not well hydrated and tend to
exist patly in a flinty state due to coating of unhydrated flour to
the partially hydrated portions .The texture can be modified by using
more fat and sugar
Less tenderizing ingredients in form of fat and sugar results tough
eating cookies.( too chewy)

>It also states, "Butter melts at a much lower temperature than the other
>solid fats, so cookies made with it will tend to spread out. And oil, since
>it already is a liquid at room temperature, produces cookies that keep
>their shape."
>In my personal experience, this isn't true.


Yes.....
The fact is butter if compared with other plasticized solid fats used
in cookie baking has a lower melting point;
Oil does not exhibit the melting characteristics if compared to fats
containing a mixture of hard fat and vegetable oil found in vegetable
shortening.

>
>My own experimentation has been with peanut butter cookies. In those,

t>he peanut butter necessarily amounts for a large portion of the fat.
I
>find that the more 'natural' peanut butter - where the primary fat is
>peanut oil - produces cookies that are hard and have an oily texture, where

'>stabilized' peanut butters in which much of the peanut oil has been
>replaced with shortening produces soft cookies with a dry texture.


It depends on the cookie formulations in terms of the ratios among
flour , fats and sugar.
>And, fwiw, the peanut oil version bakes up a little bit flatter.


Indeed.....oils tend to promote cookie spread and so results in flatter
cookies.