Thursday, July 31, 2008

The chocolate chip cookie curse

I love chewy chocolate chip cookies. Don't get me wrong, the crispy and cakey varieties have their virtues. But when I dream of cookies, they have a dense, chewy interior. The curse is, no matter what recipe I use, my cookies turn out cakey. I've gotten recipes from friends who bake beautiful, chewy cookies, but when I bake them...cakey. Choose recipes that specifically call themselves chewy...mine, cakey.

My most recent attempt was on a grand scale, imitating New York's Levain Bakery's chocolate walnut cookies.
This is what I was aiming for. This is actually a copy-cat from a food blog, Cookie Madness, I found yesterday. You can see the crispy-gooey-chewy goodness.

So I try to bake these gargantuan cookies (4 oz each).
The blue tooth pick is 2 1/2 inches...so that makes these babies about 4 x 4 in. You're supposed to make them big for the texture...which is what I'm aiming for. Open it up, though, and...

CAKEY! That didn't stop me from eating it, of course...but the chewiness eludes me still. And it needs more chocolate chips.... :-)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Try the bread flour, V!

:)

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for your next batch.

kelly said...

mmmmm, they look so good that it's hard for me to feel very sorry for you... :)

Anonymous said...

I think you might be overcooking them. They look mighty pale in the picture of the original, but yours had some areas of light golden brown.

Unknown said...

i was thinking the same thing...overbaking?