In Pursuit of the Perfect Cookie

Over the past couple of months, I have had occasion to bake several batches of cookies. Mind you, I say bake, not make. I will not deceive you . . . this has been store bought dough. Mostly the kind that is scored and ready to for you to break apart, place very lovingly on a cookie sheet, and watch with anticipation for the blobs to turn the perfect shade of golden brown, not a gooey tan or a tough dark brown, but a lovely, crispy, golden brown. I am, lest you think I am completely inept in the kitchen, quite capable of making cookie dough from scratch and have done so many times with delicious results. It just seems like premade dough has come such a long way and it's so much easier, and cheaper, to buy the Nestle dough already made rather than buy all the ingredients to make the recipe off the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag, which is probably the same recipe as the premade Nestle cookies anyway.

So I've toyed around with the process a bit – baking time, temperature of the dough when I put it in the oven (straight out of the fridge or set out on the counter a bit first), smooshing the dough flat before putting it on the pan, lowering the oven temp a tiny bit and extending baking time a bit – all this tweaking with the goal of producing the perfect consistency cookie. I prefer a nice crispy, crunchy cookie with absolutely NO burn on the bottom. This is not all that easy to do folks. I'm pretty picky and kind of a perfectionist. I am also so gunshy about burning the bottoms of the cookies that I often prematurely take the cookies out of the oven only to have a chewy cookie that is probably not quite baked all the way through. Not bad tasting, but not the perfect consistency cookie I was aiming for. I am amazed at how much difference even thirty seconds can make when you are in pursuit of perfection. I am also amazed at how you can be looking at a blob of dough (or twenty-four of them) and they look really . . . ummmm . . . doughy . . . . in the middle, gooey and not quite baked through, yet it truly is time to take them out. They are in fact baked through and the centers harden up really nicely once removed from the oven.

I am coming to realize that a lot of what I am striving to learn is more undefined than oven temperature and baking time. It's not as simple as just following the directions. What I really want is to be able to look at a baking cookie (or brownie or cake or any other goodie) and judge by it's texture and color and other characteristics when it is done. And this is something that can only be learned through repetition. Eventually I will become an old hand at baking and I will be able to tell by looking, not just at Nestle premade cookies, but at any cookie whether it is ready or needs a bit more baking time. I'm almost there. Tonight I made a batch of cookies and they turned out almost perfect. Practice makes perfect, yes? It's really a bummer that I have to eat at least a couple of the cookies from every batch. I must sample from each batch so I can test the different techniques, see what works and what doesn’t, and keep altering the combination until I find the formula that is just right. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. Ed hasn't been complaining about the frequent plates of cookies either. Here's to an almost perfect cookie : )

PS. Ed seems to agree that this batch is quite good. I am watching the plateful of cookies disappear even faster than usual. Score Mary!!