Friday, 28 May 2021

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Tasty

Makes 9 large cookies or 25 medium cookies

Ingredients:

1. 110g flour or white whole wheat flour (1 cup)
2. 1/2 tsp baking soda
3. 1 tsp vanilla powder
4. 1/2 tsp Nescafe coffee powder
5. 160g (3/4 cup) sugar consisting of 110g brown sugar (1/2 cup) and 50g white sugar (1/4 cup) (or you can reduce to 145g sugar, consists of 100g brown sugar and 45g white sugar, and it still turns out chewy)
6. 115g butter (1/2 cup)
7. 1 egg + 1 egg yolk *
8. A handful will do - I use 110g chocolate chips (2/3 cup) containing a mixture of dark, light and white chocolate chips
9. A handful will do - I use 110g chopped walnuts (1/3 cup)

(Note I use the same amount of eggs as in the original recipe, even though the ingredients listed in this recipe is based on half a batch of the original recipe. This egg quantity is not a mistake)

Directions:

1. In a separate bowl, mix flour, vanilla powder, Nescafe and baking soda and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter, brown sugar and white sugar until combined and creamy. You can do by hand or machine.

3. Add the egg and yolk and beat until incorporated.

4. Mix in the dry ingredients until combined.

5. Add chocolate chips and chopped walnuts and mix well.

6. Refrigerate the dough for an hour or overnight (I don't have self-control, so I never quite succeeded in following this step. This step is if you want perfection, but the cookies still taste great skipping this step.)

7. Use a trigger-release ice-cream scoop (equivalent to 3 tablespoon size to form 9 cookies. 

8. Bake at 175 degree Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes for large cookies or 7 minutes for medium cookies or until golden on the edges. Take them out when they are just barely starting to turn brown and still look doughy.

9. Let them sit on the baking tray for 2 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

Additional Information:

Cookie is made up mainly of flour, fat, sugar, but it is the wining combination of these ingredients that enables a cookie achieve the heavenly melt-in-your-mouth chewiness.

I have failed many times while trying to bake the most chewy chocolate chip cookies, as they usually turned out cakey, instead of chewy *. So now I decided to follow this recipe from Tasty.co faithfully (apart from omitting salt since the butter I used is salted and adding cornstarch). Not sure if the cornstarch helps, but the cookies made from this recipe turned out so good - absolutely delicious, chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. The downside is that this recipe is SINFULLY UNHEALTHY thanks to the amount of sugar used relative to other recipes that I have come across. I guess this must be the reason that gives it the chewy texture. Everyone at home loves them. These cookies are very addictive, but everyone is aware that this is only going to be for an occasional rare treat.

I reduced the original recipe by half to make half the batch. Below is the original recipe making a full batch:

Makes 18 large cookies or 50 medium cookies

220g (1 3/4 cup) flour consists of 125g bread flour (1 cup) and 95g flour (3/4 cup)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Nescafe decaf coffee powder
2 tsp vanilla powder
330g sugar (1.5 cup) consists of 220g dark brown sugar (1 cup) and 100g white sugar (1/2 cup) (or you can reduce to 290g sugar, consists of 200g brown sugar and 90g white sugar, and it still turns out chewy)
225g butter (1 cup)
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
215g chocolate chips consisting of milk chocolate and dark chocolate
220g chopped walnuts (2/3 cup)


It is not necessary to go through the trouble to melt the butter over the stove top, that is too much work. I didn't heat or melt the butter. I simply used soft butter and I still achieved the heavenly "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness.

I discovered after a few rounds of experiment that the "melt-in-your mouth" chewiness is mostly credited to the sugar content in the cookies. The greater the sugar content, the more chewy the cookie is. In general, the ratio of sugar to flour has to be higher, around 3:2, in order to achieve the "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness that we all desire in a chocolate chip cookie.

I tried using the more nutritious white whole wheat flour instead of white flour. It turned out fantastically great and retained the same kind of "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness. I also tried substituting butter with olive oil. The cookies still tasted good, soft but were no longer in the league of "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness.

* Below are the three recipes that I have tried and the cookies turned out cakey :-(




Update:

I have now reduced the sugar content to 145g consisting of 100g brown sugar and 45g granulated sugar and they still retain the chewiness.

References:



https://www.momontimeout.com/giant-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies_28/

https://www.bobsredmill.com/blog/baking-101/how-to-make-chewy-cookies/

https://bakerbettie.com/the-science-of-the-chocolate-chip-cookie/

https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/30254/difference-in-cookie-texture-if-we-use-melted-vs-softened-butter

https://www.purewow.com/food/how-to-keep-cookies-soft

https://www.seriouseats.com/cookie-science-how-do-eggs-affect-my-cookies

https://www.mytastednk.com/o/chokolade-sm%C3%A5kager-som-lidl-49285057.html

https://www.lidl.dk/p/bake-off-kager-og-soedt/triple-chocolate-chip-cookie/p34119

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U80aSRBAAY0

You can use plain flour, but I like to use this white whole wheat flour as it is more nutritious, provide more fiber, and still achieve the same "melt-in-your-mouth" chewiness that plain flour does :-) You can buy it from Føtex Supermarket for 23.95 DKK a pack.

In a mixing bowl, add 110g of brown sugar

Add 50g of granulated sugar.

Add 115g of softened butter

Mix until combined by hand or mixer.

Add an egg and an egg yolk.

Mix until combined by hand or hand-mixer. Don't over-beat.

In a separate bowl, add 110g of white whole wheat flour.

Add 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda.

Don't forget 1 teaspoon of vanilla powder and 1/2 teaspoon of Nescafe decaf coffee powder too (I forgot to take a picture).

Mix in the flour. I like to sift it into the cookie dough, but it's probably not so necessary.

Combine the wet ingredients and the dry flour ingredients.

Now the dough is done.

Add chocolate chips anywhere between 50-130g as desired. I usually add 110g of a mixture of white, milk and dark chocolate chips.

Add 50-130g of desired nuts. They are so nutritious and make the cookies more nutritious. It also provide a nice crunch. We like chopped walnuts. We usually add 110-130g of walnuts.

Mix well.

Refrigerate the cookie dough for an hour. This prevent over-spreading when the cookie is being baked in the oven.

Scoop into 9 large balls, but only place 6 dough balls on each tray, as they would spread as they are being baked. I like to use trigger-release ice-cream scoop, but using a spoon will do too.

You can decorate it with a few chocolate chips on each dough ball if you wish (optional)

Bake at 175 degree Celsius for 12 - 15 minutes for large cookies or 7 minutes for medium cookies or until golden on the edges, but soft and moist in the middle. Take them out when they are just barely starting to turn brown and still look doughy.

Let them sit on the baking tray for 2 minutes before removing to cooling rack.

Now it's done :-)



Wednesday, 26 May 2021

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Easy, Crispy & Healthier Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 50 chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients:

1. 100g flour
2. 25g Grahams flour or whole wheat flour
3. 1 tsp vanilla powder
4. 1/2 tsp baking powder
5. A dash of salt (optional)
6. 50g sugar consisting of 35g brown sugar and 15g granulated sugar
7. 50g fat consisting of 25g butter and 25g olive oil
8. 1 egg
9. 1 TBS Nescafe coffee powder (optional)
10. 50g chopped walnuts
11. 50g chocolate chips

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, add and stir all the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla powder, Nescafe coffee powder and salt.

2. Mix in the butter into the dry ingredients with your hands so that it becomes very small crumbs.

3. Add in the olive oil and egg to form into a dough. 

4. Add in chocolate chips and chopped walnuts and mix well.

5. Weigh 10g of dough for each biscuit. Form into a ball and press down into a round flat biscuit-shape.

5. Bake in a pre-warmed 160 degree Celsius oven for 10 minutes or until cooked.

6. Let cool before serving. When it is cooled, it will harden.

Additional information:

This chocolate chip cookie recipe is relatively easy, healthier and quicker to make compared to the typical chocolate chip cookies recipes. It is adapted from the Danish Summer sweet biscuits called kammejunker. It contains only one-third amount of sugar compared to most other chocolate chip cookie recipes, but it is sweet enough. You also don't have to beat the butter and sugar. You don't have to beat the egg. You don't have to refrigerate the dough. You don't have to add cornstarch. It is still tasty and decent - not cakey. If you like chewy chocolate chip cookies, then this recipe is not for you.

References:

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Diary of a Stay-At-Home-Mom: Much Ado About Nothing About Chocolate Chip Cookies...


At first everyone in the family were so thrilled that I actually bother to bake them cookies that are, ahem, decent enough to be eaten!! I tend to bake things too healthy ;-P They walloped them all up. 

In search of the most chewy chocolate chip cookies, our Little FECS is too happy to sample them for me...

Then I baked and I baked and I baked... this batch with less sugar, that batch with more brown sugar, this batch with melted butter, that batch with softened butter, this batch with olive oil, that batch of 7 minutes bake time, 10 minutes bake time, refrigerated dough, etc etc... 

Finally our Little FECS ran away when I asked him to try yet another sample (Baby FECS volunteered to take over Little FECS' task, but I didn’t allow her of course. This sweet tooth would finish them all up!)

And I am still not done with finding the perfect recipe that produces the perfectly chewy cookies yet!!!

The quest continue... I am a ONE determined mom...

Too much of a good thing for our kids I guess to have to put up with a full-time mom like me.

Who’s having all the fun? 

Guess it’s me no doubt 😊

When I hear friends lamenting on their fate of being a full-time mom... and missing the career they left behind.... I thought I might have the same problem, but I didn’t.

The grass is not always greener on the other side. My grass is the greenest now... and it’s not going to last forever. I better enjoy the moment while it lasts...

It’s bought with a price which I am keenly aware of and am grateful for. Thank you Daddy FECS for working so hard to allow me to have all the fun at home. Life can’t be any better. 

I am going back to all my home projects now... and man, there are many!!! 

Talking about home projects, the latest I have completed is a 14-year trend analysis of the grades of primary schools in Copenhagen for Baby FECS. That said, analyzing over 14 years still didn’t give me a clear picture of which school to send her to... oh ya... the paralysis of analysis. 

Should I follow my heart or should I follow my head? 

Maybe adding the 15th year from this year’s result will finally provide the final tilt to a clear decision.

Daddy FECS suggested why don’t I try to code it with Python to make my graphs dynamic, and my model more versatile, so that it’s easier for this perfectionist mom to find the perfect school for her daughter!!! Okie okie I got the Danish humor here. Hmmm... but maybe I would try coding it in Python after all.

Alas the perfect school doesn’t exist in Denmark or here on this earth... Singapore comes close, but we don’t live in Singapore, right!!!  (ok, I am bias!!!) 

The perfect school exists only in heaven I guess, and thus my dilemma... 

Okie, so much ado about nothing about my chewy cookie quest and my perfect school quest... I have yet to accomplish any of them yet...

Maybe the perfect chewy chocolate chip cookies recipe doesn’t exist. If you have found it, please share 😊

Monday, 24 May 2021

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General Cookie Flour-Sugar-Oil-Baking Powder-Egg Proportion

 

In general, below is the "standard" proportion I would like to remember for making cookies:

Makes 50 small cookies of 5g each

Ingredients:

1. 100g flour (Can increase by 20% to 125g without feeling the difference)
2. 50g sugar (Can reduce by 10% to 40g without feeling the difference) 
3. 50g olive oil or butter (I use half/half to make 50g)
4. 1/2 tsp baking powder 
5. 1 egg
6. 100g any topping you wish e.g. chocolate chips to turn them into chocolate chip cookies, smarties to turn them into smarties cookies, chopped walnuts, etc.

Directions:

1. Weigh balls of 5g each for each cookie.

2. Bake at 175 degree celsius for 8 minutes or 160 degree celsius for 15 minutes

References:


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Danish Summer Dessert Koldskål

Makes 4 - 6 servings

Ingredients:

1. 3 egg yolks
2. 3 TBS sugar
3. 1 tsp vanilla powder
4. 1 lemon's juice
3. 500ml Ymer
4. 500ml buttermilk
5. 1 lemon's grated peel (optional)

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, beat egg yolk with sugar and vanilla powder.

2. Add Ymer and stir well.

3. Add buttermilk and mix well.

4. Add juice of one lemon and mix well.

5. Sprinkle some grated lemon peel and serve with Danish kammerjunker biscuits.

Additional information:

My family loves having koldskål during the summer time. It's very easy to make and great fun to make it on your own. It is also fresher I guess. The Danes eat their koldskål with kammerjunker Danish summer biscuits. You can find the recipe here.

Ymer is a kind of yogurt like milk. If you can't find ymer where you live, you can substitute it with natural yogurt or Greek yogurt.

Verdict from Daddy FECS? It tasted very good, just like the store-bought ones.

In general, you should just half ymer/yogurt and half buttermilk. I increase the sugar from two tablespoons to 3 tablespoons as it wasn't sweet enough.

References:



This is the Danish store-bought koldskål

Here are the ingredients to make the Danish koldskål: Ymer, buttermilk, egg yolks, vanilla powder, lemon juice and sugar











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Danish Sweet Summer Biscuits Kammerjunker

Makes 50 kammerjunker

Ingredients:

1. 50g plain flour
2. 50g white whole wheat flour
3. 25g Grahams flour or whole wheat flour
4. 1 tsp vanilla powder
5. 1/2 tsp baking powder
6. A dash of salt (0.3-0.5ml)
7. 50g sugar
8. 50g butter (or 25g butter and 25g olive oil)
9. 1 egg

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl, add and stir all the dry ingredients, flour, sugar, baking powder, vanilla powder and salt.

2. Using hands, crumble the butter into the flour mixture until it is completely fine and uniform. (If you are using olive oil, add them in after the butter)

3. Add egg, gather the dough with egg and knead it together quickly.

4. Cut the dough into pieces of approx. 5g. 

5. Roll the pieces into balls and place them on a baking sheet with baking paper. 

6. Give the kammerjunker a little pressure in the middle so that they become a little flat.

7. Bake them in a preheated oven at 160 degrees C fan for 15-18 minutes, until they are slightly golden around the edges. 

8. Let cool before serving. When it is cooled, it will harden.

Additional information:

My family loves having these Danish biscuits with koldskål during the summer time. Today is a holiday. Our Little FECS suggested to make this together as our bonding activity.

The original recipe asked for 50g butter, but I substituted half of it with olive oil, and they still come out fantastic, with the aroma of butter in the biscuit but healthier. I think next time I can still reduce the sugar to 40g without feeling that it is not sweet enough.

Daddy FECS gave a thumbs up after trying it. Most store-bought biscuits don't include the grated lemon skin. I made it the first time and I didn't like it so much. It was also more work. The second time I made these biscuits, I left it out of the recipe.

References:










1/2 baking powder















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