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Cookbook Giveaway

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The American Cookie Jar

"I'm for a bulging cookie jar...." James Beard, American Cookery (Little Brown, l980).

Cookies: images of idle after school moments, legs in knee-socks swinging under the table, moving in tandem with the munching up above. Cookies hastily crammed in pockets while racing out to play; cookies tucked in hockey bags or Tupperware, destined for the school bake sale.

Though cookies are synonymous with childhood days and ways they are undisputedly cherished by all generations. Sweet, but not decadently so, with just the right amount of crunch and chew, cookies satisfy all sizes of appetites.

Though they have evolved quite a bit since the Mayflower days, cookies have are never out of vogue. Homemade cookies are always head-and-shoulders better than store bought. But let's take a look at cookies then and now before showing you how to re-spin some homey classics.

The cookie that broke the mold
American cookies, like Americans themselves, have been a melting pot of cookie tastes and styles originating with the colonialists and thriving on waves of immigrant culinary contributions. Spice cookies, soft raisin cookies, shortbread, brown sugar-laced oatmeal, molasses and ginger drop cookies were delectably familiar. Our ancestors favored oversized cookies (a must for hungry farm hands) and yesteryear's cookbooks yield countless receipts for traditional delights as Snickerdoodles, raisin-filled Hermits, Sand Tarts, and Jumbles, as well as all sorts of delectable butter cookies such as Southern-style Tea Cakes, and a myriad of sweet delicacies inspired by the Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites, Amish, and Moravian communities. But around the mid-nineteen hundreds something happened and this vast assortment of cookie-dom was supplanted by one infinitely important cookie that broke the mold - Tollhouse.

 

Tollhouse: The Inn That Became A Cookie Palace
The original chocolate chip cookies had their 1930 debut in the cozy, but inspired kitchen of Massachusetts housewife and Tollhouse innkeeper, Ruth Wakefield. One day, presumably embroiled in her favorite butter cookie recipe, Mrs. Wakefield, ever the resourceful New Englander, hastily threw in some chocolate pieces in her Butter Do Drop batter and baked up the legendary prototypes.

These "pieces" were in fact, small "chunks" which segued to "chips" and then again relaunched as chunks. Since Mrs. Wakefield's watershed cookie, the Tollhouse has only continued to grow as the national cookie of record. The Tollhouse success story awakened an insatiable cookie appetite that has never really abated. In fact, it is probably entirely due to Mrs. Wakefield's serendipitous moment in the kitchen of American history that we have come to think "Tollhouse" when we think about chocolate chip cookie, and think chocolate chip cookie, when we conceive of cookies in general.

Since Mrs. Wakefield, who never got the recognition she deserves as a legend, there have been generations of chocolate chip cookie bakers and entrepreneurs (Famous Amos, David's and Mrs. Fields to name a few legends). Bakery trends come and go--from cinnamon buns to muffins to croissants to bagels to muffin tops to foccacia. But cookies--whether chocolate chip, hearty oatmeal, sandy Chinese almond cookies, classic Sugar Cookies, traditional Shortbread or any variety of chocolate chunk you like -- have retained their throne from bakesale to Christmas cookie exchanges to lunch box barter fare.

Truth is, aside from tasting darn good, cookies represent something that is at once both positive and simple, a hallmark of a home baking homey-ness those appeal never dims. Make all the tiramisu and crème caramel you want, kids (and lucky guests) will still root out your cookie jar, looking for a handful of food history and a good munch.

Cookie Clinic--Tips for Cookie Monsters

1. To make soft and/or chewy cookies change the sugar in your recipe to a liquid sweetener such as honey, corn syrup, or molasses. You can experiment substituting about one to three tablespoons of liquid sweetener at a time (omitting the granular sugar by the same amount). Too much substitution however, will alter the liquid balance in the recipe.

2. Reduce the soda or baking powder slightly in a recipe if you want to increases the chewy or soft sensation. Leaveners give cookies a more caky, aerated texture. Reducing the leavener produces a lower, flatter cookie that can seem chewier.

3. Work with ingredients at room temperature for best incorporation of ingredients. Chill very soft doughs briefly for easier handling. Too fresh or too soft doughs may spread too quickly or thinly since the fats in them may be quite warm when just mixed. Conversely, if you want a thin cookie that has a lot of spread, a room temperature dough is the way to go. A greased cookie sheet (or greased parchment paper) further encourages spread and one last ploy would be to press the dough down slightly before baking.

4. If you want to avoid spread (and not change your basic recipe) use chilled dough, an ungreased cookie sheet, and do not press the cookie dough down before baking.

5. Incidentally, unbleached all-purpose flour is recommended for the best spread on cookies. Bleached or chlorinated flours reduce spread. Hodgson Mills white all-purpose flour made for best shaped cookie with optimal spread.

6. Using parchment or baking paper results in cookies with an even, rolled edge that is also more professional looking. A lightly greased baking sheet results in cookies with thinner, more uneven ragged or thin edges.

7. For slightly raised or puffier cookies, bake on upper third of oven. For thinner, crisper cookies, bake on lower third of oven.

8. Regular chocolate chips retain their shape when baked. Chopped chocolate bars (that have not been tempered for baking) tend to melt and ooze effectively, as well as loose their shape after baking. Saco Chocolate Chunks were perfect for chunk style Tollhouse.

9. You can easily double or even quadruple cookie doughs and freeze the dough, a la Pillsbury style, for bake-a-thons up to six months later. Freeze dough in large, flattened discs or in , if you are ambitious, in individual drops (use a miniature ice-cream scooper). Wrap up discs in waxed paper or baking parchment. For individual drops, freeze drops on a baking sheet before bagging up in a Ziplock bag and freezing.

l0. Most doughs are best if chilled slightly before baking. Too soft a dough tends to melt or fry before baking as the fat in it is sometimes to warm from having just being mixed.

ll. Most cookies retain their flavors better if stored in a cookie jar or tin in the fridge. Also, most cookie dough recipe (not these) can benefit from an extra teaspoon of vanilla.

12. When mixing cookie batter, after creaming the fat, sugar and eggs, the batter often will look curdled. To remedy this, stir a few tablespoons of the flour content of the recipe to bind the batter, then proceed as.

13. Large cookies taste different. Size matters. Make oversized versions of these recipes for entirely different results. Kids find this especially appealing too.