Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone's Favorite Treats Read Online Free PDF
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FRIEND. Usually. All too often, older home ovens can be temperamental and prone to uneven heating, or even worse, never being at the temperature your stove dial claims. If your oven is a dishonest sort you may already suspect it: burned cookie bottoms or baked goods that seem either very underdone or way overcooked when the estimated baking time has been reached. If that’s the case, you are in desperate need of an oven thermometer! They are inexpensive, and if you learn to use one, it’s as good as getting a new oven, almost.
Use only oven thermometers designed to be placed inside the oven and built to withstand those high temperatures. Follow the manufacturer’s directions or just place the thermometer in the center oven rack before preheating the oven, leaving the thermom - eter to gauge what’s going on as the heat rises. The average oven requires about 20 to 22 minutes to preheat so take a peek around then to get an idea if your oven is being truthful. If things are wildly off, you may need to let the oven heat longer or bring the dial down a notch. Recheck the temperature every 8 to 10 minutes until your desired temperature is reached.
THE SCIENCE OF COOKIES CRITERIA FOR CONSUMMATE COOKIES
Cookie baking is pretty straightforward, so chances are you will follow the recipes and your cookies will come out magnificently.
However, there are a few golden rules to insure fabulousness every time.
✤ Make sure your oven is at the right temperature. We don’t want to sound like a broken record, but your heat source is the king in baking. If you’re not positive how accurate your oven is, get an oven thermometer (see page 25). Always preheat your oven as directed and remember to set a timer so that you don’t just plumb forget how long the cookies have been in.
✤ Use the proper pans. Clean, aluminum baking sheets either lined with parchment or lightly greased (as the recipe directs) is the way to go. Don’t rely on a glass pan, or a hubcap, or a piece of aluminum foil, for that matter.
✤ Don’t overcrowd the oven. We often just bake one sheet of cookies at a time. Even putting two sheets of cookies in at the same time can result in uneven baking. You know the boundaries of your oven best, and if you don’t, then get to know them. See what your oven can and can’t handle and play it safe.
✤ You got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Knowing if a cookie is underbaked or overbaked takes a little experience. With drop cookies especially, they might appear to be underbaked when you follow the recipe cooking times, but remember that cookies are still baking a little as they cool on the baking sheet. The texture also changes drastically as it cools. Check that the bottoms are slightly browned; that is a good test for doneness. And the tops of cookies should not be firm (unless the recipe says so)—that means they’re overbaked.
✤ Make cookies consistently sized. Check out our tools section for information about cookie dishers (page 23); you don’t have to break out the food scale and be perfect about it, but aim for the same amount of dough in each cookie so that they bake at the same rate.
SUBSTITUTING
Some Tough Love for Trying Cookie Times
THE BEST DAY of school was always when your Spanish teacher was out sick and in came the sub. You would throw school equipment out the window, lock other students in the janitor’s closet, and deal Quaaludes right from your desk, right? Then one day a different kind of substitute arrived. Just as you were going to clean erasers on a classmate’s head, she used some sort of wizardry to hurl you back into your seat. Before you knew it, you were writing a 5,000-word essay extolling the virtues of the Chilean coastline.
The point is, not all substitutes are created equal. Every so often (when we’re Googling ourselves twenty-five times a day) we’ll find someone complaining that their cookies came out wrong. All they did
Use only oven thermometers designed to be placed inside the oven and built to withstand those high temperatures. Follow the manufacturer’s directions or just place the thermometer in the center oven rack before preheating the oven, leaving the thermom - eter to gauge what’s going on as the heat rises. The average oven requires about 20 to 22 minutes to preheat so take a peek around then to get an idea if your oven is being truthful. If things are wildly off, you may need to let the oven heat longer or bring the dial down a notch. Recheck the temperature every 8 to 10 minutes until your desired temperature is reached.
THE SCIENCE OF COOKIES CRITERIA FOR CONSUMMATE COOKIES
Cookie baking is pretty straightforward, so chances are you will follow the recipes and your cookies will come out magnificently.
However, there are a few golden rules to insure fabulousness every time.
✤ Make sure your oven is at the right temperature. We don’t want to sound like a broken record, but your heat source is the king in baking. If you’re not positive how accurate your oven is, get an oven thermometer (see page 25). Always preheat your oven as directed and remember to set a timer so that you don’t just plumb forget how long the cookies have been in.
✤ Use the proper pans. Clean, aluminum baking sheets either lined with parchment or lightly greased (as the recipe directs) is the way to go. Don’t rely on a glass pan, or a hubcap, or a piece of aluminum foil, for that matter.
✤ Don’t overcrowd the oven. We often just bake one sheet of cookies at a time. Even putting two sheets of cookies in at the same time can result in uneven baking. You know the boundaries of your oven best, and if you don’t, then get to know them. See what your oven can and can’t handle and play it safe.
✤ You got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. Knowing if a cookie is underbaked or overbaked takes a little experience. With drop cookies especially, they might appear to be underbaked when you follow the recipe cooking times, but remember that cookies are still baking a little as they cool on the baking sheet. The texture also changes drastically as it cools. Check that the bottoms are slightly browned; that is a good test for doneness. And the tops of cookies should not be firm (unless the recipe says so)—that means they’re overbaked.
✤ Make cookies consistently sized. Check out our tools section for information about cookie dishers (page 23); you don’t have to break out the food scale and be perfect about it, but aim for the same amount of dough in each cookie so that they bake at the same rate.
SUBSTITUTING
Some Tough Love for Trying Cookie Times
THE BEST DAY of school was always when your Spanish teacher was out sick and in came the sub. You would throw school equipment out the window, lock other students in the janitor’s closet, and deal Quaaludes right from your desk, right? Then one day a different kind of substitute arrived. Just as you were going to clean erasers on a classmate’s head, she used some sort of wizardry to hurl you back into your seat. Before you knew it, you were writing a 5,000-word essay extolling the virtues of the Chilean coastline.
The point is, not all substitutes are created equal. Every so often (when we’re Googling ourselves twenty-five times a day) we’ll find someone complaining that their cookies came out wrong. All they did
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