I baked up about six cookies each day to get a sense of how the flavors changed over time. S and I both loved the Day 0 cookies, as usual, which were tender with intense salted butter flavors. The Day 1 cookies tasted less buttery and significantly nuttier (S remarked that they made him think of peanut butter cookies). The Day 2 and Day 3 cookies had a subtly darker, more molasses-y flavor. As far as texture was concerned, the dough became more crumbly and harder to scoop with each subsequent day, and the cookies seemed correspondingly drier.
I also froze six unbaked cookies each day so that at the end I could bake "flights" of cookies from all four days and directly compare their flavors. Here is a crappy picture of the unbaked cookies from one of those batches:
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| Left to right: Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 |
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| Left to right: Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 |
The verdict? Surprisingly, S and I both liked the Day 0 cookies best for flavor, texture, and appearance, all of which were clearly different from the more aged cookies. The differences between the cookies from Days 1-3 were much more subtle -- I probably wouldn't be able to pick out which was which in a lineup. The Day 1-3 cookies were still good, and did have an interesting depth of flavor, but we missed the butteriness of Day 0. We also prefer our cookies more tender than crumbly.
So I guess we'll be sticking with our usual make-and-immediately-bake routine. Although, I may try the experiment again without chocolate chips, or with far fewer chocolate chips -- I felt like my palate would have been able to pick up any differences between the cookies more easily if it hadn't been overwhelmed by chocolate.
This is AMAZING. This post belongs on a real blog!
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you liked the Day 0 cookies the best. I have let my dough age for varying amounts of time... mostly because I'm lazy. I've even let it sit there for a week. The cookies are fine but sometimes I rehydrate the dough with a little bit of water when I'm scooping out the cookies.
One great chocolate chip cookie tip I picked up from the Flour cookbook: mix in some grated or finely chopped milk chocolate (I think her ratio is 2.5 oz milk chocolate to 9 oz chocolate chunks). The milk chocolate gets absorbed into the dough and provides that caramelized flavor, but you'd never know it's there.
Glad you liked the experiment. :) When you've aged your cookie dough, have you noticed any differences in flavor? The other thing I was thinking was that I should try this with normal flour, instead of our usual white whole wheat flour (which I think adds some flavor of its own and also might absorb liquids differently than AP flour).
ReplyDeleteGreat tip re: the grated chocolate (and interesting that it specifically has to be MILK chocolate!) -- I'll have to try that next time. It's similar to my scone trick: chop up some white chocolate and throw it in to make the scones richer with a more melt-in-your-mouth texture.
I'll keep that in mind... although in reality, I never have white chocolate on hand and can't remember the last time I made scones. But I'm sure I will again one day. That reminds me, I need to make some biscuit dough to freeze. I have a container of heavy cream to use up.
ReplyDeleteI think it's the taste of milk chocolate that makes it work. If you add grated dark chocolate, I bet it would just taste like you added cocoa to the dough. (Also, chocolate chunks are better than chocolate chips for texture and melt, but less convenient.)
Do you usually use 100% white whole wheat flour, with no AP flour?
I've been planning to make biscuit dough to freeze too! We have extra buttermilk left over from cookies I made last weekend. Do you usually make cream biscuits? I hear they're faster -- no cutting in butter, etc.
ReplyDeleteI usually chop up a bar of good baking chocolate for cookies, which we thought we liked better for texture and for chocolate distribution throughout the cookie. But for the cookie experiment, I used chocolate chips, and remembered anew how much I like the sections of cookie without any chocolate. Maybe I'm chopping the bars too finely for proper chunks.
Re: flour, we've used everything from 100% AP to 100% white whole wheat with decent success, but I think my favorite ratio so far is about 2 cups of white whole wheat to 1/2 cup AP.
Yes, cream biscuits are SO easy, and I usually can't be bothered to make biscuits, so when I have extra cream on hand I like to mix up a batch and freeze the dough to bake individual biscuits whenever we feel like eating them.
ReplyDeleteFor me, once in a while a bite with no chocolate is OK... but maybe once per cookie.
I like every bite to have chocolate... but for there to be enough cookie around the chocolate that you can clearly distinguish the flavor of the cookie itself. :)
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