When we restarted Bill's group after a summer recess, I gave myself a personal challenge: bring a different homemade dish for the buffet each week. Last week's dish (which I'll repeat for this blog because it was awesome) was deer chili. It was warm, robust, and somewhat healthy. This week, I decided to bring a selection of cookies. Snickerdoodle and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, to be exact.
Cookie baking, as with all baking, is a pretty exact science. It took me a lot of batches and research to figure out the tricks to making soft, chewy-yet-still-crunchy cookies that melt in your mouth. I feel comfortable telling you that good cookies boil down to three crucial steps:
- Measure flour correctly
- Cream and mix correctly
- Undercook
First, the flour. I used to think "measuring" flour involved dunking the measuring cup into the flour and just scooping the excess off. Not so coincidentally, I used to make awful cookies (as well as muffins, cakes and anything else that called for flour). There are two "correct" methods to measuring flour. If you have a kitchen scale, you can weigh it out. This is the most accurate method, but it's difficult to follow sometimes since most American recipes don't use the metric system. A standard cup of flour usually weighs 4.6-4.8 oz, but it varies based on the type of flour being used. A second, simpler way to measure is to "sift" the flour into the cup. I usually do this with a spoon. Give your flour a quick stir in the container to loosen it up, then hold your measuring cup over an empty bowl and sift the flour out of a spoon and into the measuring cup. If you don't believe this results in a different amount of flour than just scooping, try measuring with both methods and see which "cup" weighs more. I did this once and the scooped cup weighed 1.5oz more than the sifted cup. Using too much flour will result in breadlike cookies which are not, as someone once said, good eats. After the flour is measured, I toss in the rest of the dry ingredients (salt, baking powder/soda, etc.) and give the mix a few good stirs with a whisk to mix them together.
Step 2 to great cookie making is to cream and mix correctly. Creaming involves beating sugar and butter/shortening into a light batter. Don't underestimate this step, as it's very important. As you cream, the sugar cuts into the butter/shortening and creates gaps. These gaps will hold your cookies together and keep them from flattening as they cook. If you're using butter, make sure to set it out for about an hour before you get ready to use it so that it's at room temperature. Toss the sugar and butter/shortening in a bowl and cream on low for a few seconds, then bump up to medium-low. I usually cream for about 2 minutes, or until the mixture takes on a light yellow color. Once this happens, toss in the rest of the wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, etc.) and mix till well combined.
Combining the wet and dry ingredients correctly is simple, as there's only one rule to it - don't overmix. Too much mixing will create long strands of protein called gluten, which is great for making chewy breads but not great when you want soft cookies. I like to fold the dry into the wet in four stages. I mix until my dry is just combined and then add more. Don't worry about small lumps of flour, as they'll cook out. The final mixing step is to mix in your oats, chocolate chips, fruit, or whatever other large flavorings you'd like. I give the batter 3 or 4 folds to get everything incorporated, then walk away.
Finally, undercook your cookies. I always err to the lower side of the recommended cook time, but this will vary depending on how large your portions are and how many batches you cook at once. Just keep two things in mind: your cookies will continue to cook on the sheet after being removed from the oven, and you can always put them back in if they're too mushy. There is, however, no saving an overcooked batch. Leaving your batch a little mushy in the middle will result in cookies that stay soft and chewy for several days (if they last that long).

I made a big batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and a smaller half-batch of snickerdoodles for small group and watched like an old lady at a church potluck as they were quickly devoured. I got lots of compliments and even had several requests for the recipes, so here they are. I'm still thinking about next week's dish...maybe it's time to go "old school."
Ingredients:
Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
- 1 cup shortening
- 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 cups rolled oats
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
Snickerdoodles
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 2 eggs
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 cup sugar (for coating)
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (for coating)
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