Experiments in Baking

Brad requested chocolate chip cookies again. Having been reminded myself of how delicious they are, I couldn’t refuse. But I could do a little experiment with an ingredient I’ve been wanting to try.

I accidentally bought an extra can of Ovaltine a few weeks ago, so I’ve been wanting to make it an extra ingredient in something.

1/2 cup of white sugar
1/4 cup of brown sugar tightly packed
1/4 cup of margarine
1 tspn of vanilla
2 Tbspns of egg-in-a-carton

1/2 cup of white flour
1/2 cup of whole wheat flour
1/2 tspn of baking soda
1/4 tspn of salt
2 Tbspns of Ovaltine

1/2 cup of chocolate chunks

1/8-1/4 cup of white flour (if necessary)

Preheat oven to 375F. In a medium-sized bowl, mix the first five ingredients together. Add everything but the chocolate chunks and extra flour, and mix it in too. It may seem like a great shortcut to just mix everything together at once but every time I’ve done that (on accident), I’ve come out with flat cookies. Fold the chocolate chunks in.

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. By the teaspoonful, place the dough an inch or two apart on the cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes. Since two of my three cookie sheets are otherwise occupied at the moment, I spooned cookie dough onto a separate piece of parchment paper while one batch was baking; when the first were done, I simply slid them off and slid the uncooked dough on. Then the cooked cookies could cool a little on the counter while the next batch started.

After the first batch, I noticed that my cookies were coming out flat,

so I experimented with adding a little bit of flour. I didn’t think it would work, considering my past experiences with mixing everything together, but it actually seemed to help. The cookies with the extra flour didn’t spread as much, stayed taller, and had the texture that I expect from this recipe. I guess I just had too much liquid in them.

I determined the amount of Ovaltine to put in it by how much liquid there is in the recipe: not much – just the vanilla and egg. Since the Ovaltine can says to add 4 Tbspns per 8 oz. of liquid, I originally only put 1 Tablespoon in, but when I tasted the dough (I know you aren’t supposed to when it has raw egg in it but I can never resist), I couldn’t taste anything so I added another Tbspn. The extra flour made the fluffier cookies a lighter color, which made them look like dirty cookies, but other than that, I couldn’t tell any difference at all.

Next time: Determine amount of Ovaltine to put in the recipe according to how many ounces of ingredients there are, rather than ounces of liquid. Make sure the dough is about the consistency of Play-do before starting baking.