Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Chocolate Chip Cookie XS

My kitchen’s cookie baking season has officially started. There remains the question of how much will actually fit in my freezer, but I’ll deal with that as I go. I like to bake a so-called regular cookie or two to go along with the more festive ones. This particular cookie appears to be just an oatmeal chocolate chip. Looks can be deceiving. It’s actually a pretty spectacular version of an oatmeal chocolate chip. Back in September, I wrote about Demolition Desserts by Elizabeth Falkner and baked her smore brownies, and these cookies come from that book as well. The XS in the title is for extra sugar but it could also be for extra special.

Falkner devotes a couple of pages to types of sugars, their unique properties, and how she uses them. For this cookie, dark muscovado sugar is used which is an unrefined, natural product of sugar cane. It contains more minerals and rich molasses flavor than a standard brown sugar. Commercial brown sugar is actually refined white sugar that has some molasses added back into it. The second sugar used here is Demerara which is made in the same way as muscovado, but the grain is coarser. It’s named for the colony of Demerara in Guyana but is now mostly produced in Mauritius. By using both types of sugar in this cookie, the dough develops great molasses flavor, and the Demerara provides a little crunch. To make the dough even more special, the oatmeal is pulsed a few times in a food processor and then is toasted in lightly browned butter. And, the chocolate? No regular chocolate chips here, although they are listed as an option in the recipe. Instead, I chose to make chunks from a piece of Callebaut bittersweet.

For a little cookie recipe, Falkner provides a lot of insight and suggestions. For instance, she precisely describes the steps involved in chopping and toasting the oatmeal. I appreciate this kind of enthusiasm and attention to detail and take it as a sign that she really cares about the quality of the outcome. For baking times, she notes differences in the texture of the cookies for nine minutes, 10 minutes, 11 minutes, etc. Her preferred baking time is 10 minutes for these, but she encourages the home cook to find his or her own favorite. I decided mine was 11 minutes which resulted in a flatter cookie with crisp edges. Shorter baking times resulted in a puffier cookie. These unrefined sugars are delicious, and the texture and flavor combination of this cookie is definitely extra special. If I want something more regular on my cookie platter, I’ll have to bake something else.


8 comments:

  1. You can't go wrong with XS. These cookies look so good, the only thing we can do is be happy there's some healthy oatmeal in there to offset all the pounds we'd gain from eating so many. Delectable!

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  2. Well I guess that XS definitely isn't for extra small! These look great, Lisa. Wish I had a couple right now!

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  3. yum! these look so, so good. i love chocolate chip cookies :)

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  4. Looks like they have a good chocolate to cookie ratio. Also love that you used muscovado and demerara sugars here. People always look at me like I'm crazy pills when they see the salt and sugar collections in my pantry.

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  5. I just added this in my collection for Christmas. My family will surely love this. Thanks allot. :-)

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  6. I'll tell you what I can NEVER do with consistency is make them spread out like yours did...these look great - what is the secret?

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  7. mmm...thin and crispy, AND extra sugary. methinks xs could also stand for the excess poundage being applied directly to my hips. :)

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  8. These are some major cookies - they look great!

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