How long after baking do American chewy cookies get their normal texture?

Question

I just baked my first ever batch of American-style cookies (chewy chocolate chip cookies). I used the correct ingredients, including actual wet brown sugar, except for the chocolate - I had no chocolate chips, so I used chopped milk chocolate (I know, I know...).

I have experienced this type of cookies as a light, but not soft baked good. When I have had them, they have been slightly airy, but more tough than brittle. I suppose that this is the desired texture, as they are called "chewy".

I took my first batch out of the oven, and it seems that I reached too deep with the glove and touched a cookie. It was squished. All the cookies turned out to be puffy and prone to deflating. Also, they have a cracked surface, unlike the pictures in the recipe illustrations.

Is this normal? Will they get their expected texture later? How much will I have to wait for them to get the desired texture? Or did I make a mistake?

I didn't cool the dough, although I have read often that cookie dough should be kept cold. The reason is that this recipe directed me to melt the butter, and didn't include cooling steps, so I assumed that a warm dough is normal for the recipe.

Asked by rumtscho

Answer

The cookies will set (take on their final texture) about by 20 - 30 minutes out of the oven. Coming directly out of the oven, cookies will absolutely be soft and squishable; which is why you should wait a few minutes before moving them off the baking sheet and onto a cooling rack (you can cheat this time if your cookies are all on a sheet of parchment paper, and you move the parchment paper as a whole).

Answered by KatieK

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How to make sweet-tasting noodles?

Question

I've never made noodle dough before, and I want to try it today. However, I'd like to make the noodles more sweet.

Is the base ingredient ratio for making the noodle dough one egg per 100g flour?

How can I make it sweeter? Would I just add sugar or is there a better ingredient to add that will not change the texture of the noodles?

Will adding butter and milk change the texture of the noodle?

Asked by thejh

Answer

Butter and milk will add fat and water which will definitely change the consistency of the dough (the noodles may possibly fall apart when cooked). You will have to adjust the ratios if you add them (surely more flour if you add milk).

If you want sweet noodles my best bet would be to add sugar, although I wouldn't do sweet egg noodles... maybe sweet rice noodles?

Why don't you just do plain noodles and then make a sweet condiment instead?

Answered by nico

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How can I marinate meatballs without making them “mushy”?

Question

I like to marinate my meatballs in a sauce on the stove for several hours, but they always seem to be "mushy" after cooking for so long. Is there a way to marinate the meatballs without having them cook?

Will the meatballs marinate while sitting in the cold sauce just as well as in the hot sauce?

Asked by John

Answer

I would crispen the outside a bit by frying or baking them first. To improve the outer crust, you might dust with flour and corn starch before frying. Typically I have not previously had problems with meat balls in sauce becoming mushy using minimally breaded mix, spices, and lean -ish (90%) ground meat. Here are some additional points to consider;

• If you use bread in your meatball mix, you might tilt the ratio more in favor of the meat
• If you are not using egg or some other binder, you might try doing so to create a tighter bond inside the ball
• If you are cooking the sauce at too high a heat (I normally have mine set as low as possible when doing a long cook) it may come to a simmer, making the sauce likelier to disrupt the meatballs. Maintain a lower heat or use a heavier pot
• If you are using ground meat, there is more room for the sauce to creep in. Make sure that they are packed sufficiently tightly when rolling them

Short of leaving the sauce and meat overnight, flavors will transfer more quickly in warmer temperatures. I am having trouble locating definitive resources to back this claim up, so I am speaking mainly from experience. However, one caveat exists particular to collagen and connective tissues in meat; here it is explaining why stews and other foods taste better the next day. Mixing water and strong acids is an exothermic process (gives off heat, does not benefit from warmth). However, this process is about mixing strong acids and fats. I would also mention that you are supposed to store tomatoes at room temp as the cold does not preserve their flavor and inhibits ripening, though I'm not sure this is relevant.

Answered by mfg

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What determines sweet potato softness?

Question

I often make stews with sweet potato. I prepare it by cutting it about 1/2 to 1 inch every time, and stewing it for about 30-45 minutes.

I make sure to keep everything consistent but sometimes it ends up as hard as apple, and other times it turns to mush.

What makes the difference? The age of the sweet potato? The variety? Something else?

Answer

Edit: If cooking longer softens the potatoes, then this isn't what's happening. In that case, well, you just need to cook longer. The main variable is probably temperature (maybe the pot isn't actually all hot for all 30-45 minutes), followed by variations in cut size and in the firmness of the original potatoes. But the rest could apply to some readers too!

I'm going to take a wild stab at this. It can explain this sort of thing, but it does depend on how you cook your stew. The following is a quote from On Food and Cooking (excellent book!), one of my favorite discoveries from reading through the sections on fruit and vegetables.

It turns out that in certain vegetables and fruits - including potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, beans, cauliflower, tomatoes, cherries, apples - the usual softening during cooking can be reduced by a low-temperature precooking step. If preheated to 130-140F/55-60C for 20-30 minutes, these foods develop a persistent firmness that survives prolonged final cooking. ... Firm-able vegetables and fruits have an enzyme in their cell walls that becomes activated at around 50C (and inactivated above 70C), and alters the cell-wall pectins so that they're more easily cross-linked by calcium ions. At the same time, calcium ions are being released as the cell contents leak through damaged membranes, and they cross-link the pectin so that it will be much more resistant to removal or breakdown at boiling temperatures.

So, if you started the stew from cold (or drastically reduced the temperature by dumping in the sweet potatoes and other things) and had it on low heat, so that it took a while to come up to temperature, then your sweet potatoes may have been in that 50-70C range where the enzyme is active for a while. So maybe while your length of cooking time is consistent, your time before simmering isn't; that could depend on how cold the ingredients were before adding, the pot you used, whether you got exactly the same setting on your stove, the temperature in your home, and so on. (I know you said this isn't it, but having larger chunks of sweet potatoes could conceivably contribute to that too; the inside would take longer to heat up, so you could end up with a firm interior, and the softer part on the outside could get rubbed off.)

Sweet potatoes do also vary some in firmness, but certainly not by that much. It could still be a factor, though, in combination with the rest! In any case, if you want to avoid the firm potatoes, I'd try making sure to get everything heated up quickly.

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Looking to add some texture to my tomato soup recipe

Question

I have been working on perfecting a tomato soup recipe for the past month or so and I've reached the point where the soup itself is to my liking.

I am now trying to figure out the garnish and so far I've decided on a dollop of creme fraiche and a few drops of basil infused oil.

Presentation wise, the red, white and green looks fantastic, but the one element I'm missing is texture. You see, the soup is very smooth as are the creme fraiche and oil, so I'm looking to add some contrasting texture. I am at a loss of what would pair well with tomatoes. Does anyone have any suggestions to add some "crunch" to my soup?

Answer

Croutons. They are a cinch to make at home, and just top with lemon and garlic. Or, if you are pressed for time, get some at the store.

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How can I get chewy chocolate chip cookies?

Question

My chocolate chips cookies are always too crisp. How can I get chewy cookies, like those of Starbucks?

---

Thank you to everyone who has answered. So far the tip that had the biggest impact was to chill and rest the dough, however I also increased the brown sugar ratio and increased a bit the butter. Also adding maple syrup helped.

Answer

I like my chocolate chip cookies chewy too and I do it all the time. Here is what I do:

• Flour: I use a higher gluten flour instead of AP, such as Bread flour.
• Eggs: An additional egg yolk will help
• Sugar: A bigger Brown Sugar to Sugar ratio helps but not vital if you do not have brown sugar at hand.
• Butter: Butter should be melted. I think this is the key to chewiness.

The recipe is straightforward: cream butter with sugar, add wet ingredients, incorporate dry ingredients slowly and lastly add the chips.

Be sure to chill the dough for at least 30 min. The more you rest, the better. See this NY Times Article for effects of resting the dough.

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How can I melt cheese for dipping?

Question

I love dipping things like pretzels in metled cheese.

I've done this lots of times at fairs and other places with 'pretzel carts', but I've never been able to replicate it myself at home.

Whenever I try it, I get really thick, stretch cheese with a layer of liquid oil sitting on top of it. It's gross, and not good for dipping.

So, how can I melt cheese into a nice, smooth, liquid that I can use for dipping in?
I'd love to learn if there's a particular type of cheese that will work best, how to heat the cheese, and any other tips that you can provide.

Thanks!

Answer

Normal cheese melts like that. It is made of proteins, fats, and water, and these separate when they are heated.

For dipping, you need processed cheese. It has additives which keep the fat, fluid and solids mixed in a smooth mass. Also, it really helps to use very slow and even heat. This is the easy option.

If you want to do it "for real", without processed cheese, you have to make a cheese fondue. It is traditionally made with Swiss cheese (I am fond of Appenzeller fondue), but you can use most types of semi-hard yellow cheese. It also contains some fluid, traditionaly white wine, and is emulsified with simple starch. It is preferable to have a special pan for this, as you can serve it heated. But if you make a big portion in a pan with a high thermal capacity, and make it immediately before serving, you can do without the special gear.

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Effect of rice cooking techniques

Question

I rarely ate rice growing up, and only recently started cooking it. I started with basmati, and seemed to do alright with that, but my wife (who used to live in Korea) said she preferred rice to clump together, as opposed to the perfect individual grains of a nicely cooked basmati.

Well, as embarrassed as I am to say so, I've been struggling with this two-ingredient dish. I've tried using short-grain rice, which helped somewhat, but using my basmati technique on it is not yielding the desired result.

After doing some research, I've found a slew of conflicting advice, on nearly every point, including:

• Wash / don't wash
• Soak / don't soak
• Use less / more water
• Boil hard / steam on lowest setting

What I would love to know is, what do each of these factors really do?

Answer

Rice is mostly made of starch. Starch is, in itself, a molecule made up of glucose components attached to each other. There are two types of starch: Amylose - it is a long straight chain of glucose - and amylopectin, which has a branchy and fuzzy structure. When you cook a rice which is rich in amylose, the grains stay separate. When you cook rice which is high in amylopectin, its starch molecules catch on each other and cause clumping. So the main factor is indeed the type of rice. While the amylopectin rich varieties in general are short grained and amylose rich ones are long grained, it can be that you accidentally picked a non-sticky short-grained rice.

Washing will cause less sticking. Normally, the starch in rice has to be released from the cells before it can stick. In a bag of rice, there are many cells which are broken mechanically during handling/transport, and their starch is free, clinging to the surface. If you wash it away first, you have less sticky grain so less clumping.

Now for soaking. Starches are packed very close in a grain. For gelation (that's when they cook and swell) you need both enough water and the right temp (70 degr. C). As heating is quicker than water penetration, presoaking makes things quicker. I guess soaking will help stickiness a bit, because there will be more molcules ready to swell in a short time. Plus, some of these will come undone from the grains and start swimming free around. This turns the water itself into a weak glue (so don' discard).

Using less water will help with stickiness. This will result in a bigger concentration of free starches in the water.

A slow simmering should also promote clumping slightly, as the starches will have more time to swell, move around, and hook to new starches.

All arguments above are the theoretical explanation for the direction in which the factors you mention are likely to influence clumping, given that the rice is always the same. In practice, their effect should be much smaller than choosing the correct type of rice. In fact, amylopectin rich rice types aren't soaked as often, because they don't need it - amylose is packed tighter. I don't know about washing habits, but it is cooked with less water, because it needs less. And any rice should be cooked slowly, a hot boil overcooks the outside and leaves the inside hard.

In the end, if your wife wants the rice she is familiar with, you must buy short-grain japonica rice. Else ask for a "sticky" indica, that's better than just eyeballing grain length.

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