I wa trying to make cookies. Not any cookies, Alton Brown’s “the Chewy” chocolate chip cookies.
Except, for whatever reason I only put half the butter in. I kind of wondered when the first six didn’t spread out, then the second batch (which I flattened with a fork) remained the same size and shape and very, very hard. Tasty, though. Just really, really hard. I popped the rest into the fridge, in an airtight container and decided to appeal to the Dopers’s collective wisdom.
So, considering the following… I have no mixer, just a braun multistick immersion blender (strong hints going around that i want a Kitchen Aid for my 40th birthday coming up soon) or a spoon and my hands… is there a way to add the butter… or something… to make a more edible cookie?
Or ideas what to do with a very hard cookie… could it be a crust for the bottom of some kind of dessert? (Im thinking Magic Bars, with cookie bottom?)
(If not, well I have a five year old. He thinks these cookies are"Just great mom… Really really great) And of course, cookie dough. Thats a given.
You could bring the butter & dough to cool room temp and mix 'em together and see what happens. Might be better than what you have now, but it’s still not going to be the intended end result, as USCDiver said. Might end up with something worse, too.
Creaming butter and sugar isn’t just about mixing the two ingredients together, but there are some other things going on as well. First, creaming incorporates air into the mixture, which contributes to the final product crumb, among other things. Second, the fat coats the flour proteins and prevents them from developing long, strong gluten strands. If you didn’t add enough fat to begin with, then you may have passed the point of no return in that regard.
You could try cutting the remaining butter in as if you were making a pastry dough. It won’t be anything like the original would, but it could turn out flaky instead of crunchy. I think I would then roll out the dough*, and roll it into a “snake” and cut rounds from it with a sharp knife. This will cut through the long gluten strand and reduce the chewiness.
*You could even spread it with marmalade, compote, or a cinnamon sugar mixture at the point, sort of a rugelach. . .
You made AB’s The Chewy recipe? That’s the one where you melt the butter ahead of time, and use bread flour specifically to get gluten. Since the butter is melted, you never really get a good creaming when you mix in the sugar. So you may be fine just bringing the dough to room temp, melting the butter and mixing it all together.
If you try adding the butter after all, and they still don’t work out:
Go ahead and bake them, cool them, then break them up and add them to vanilla chocolate chip ice cream. Sounds like they’ll hold up and make a yummy crunchy yummy cookie ice cream concoction. No waste that way!
Since I started a thread about The Chewy a few days ago, my memory is fresh in making them. Did you follow the steps exactly for the ingredients? It was a pretty wet dough until the very end so my first thought was “did you melt the butter completely?” Soft isn’t good enough. Also, he specified bread flour, which has much more gluten in it than regular flour. Not using it would definitely alter the taste. Usually when he specifies something, it’s for a good reason. I would think that having a mixer, while nice, isn’t necessary as long as it is well mixed, which a stick blender would be terrible for. They are more like blenders than mixers and that may have done something.
I would probably take the dough, put it in a bowl, put that bowl in a larger bowl of pretty warm water and let it get warmer than room temperature, then work the dough a bit more. Of course, the dough being in the fridge has allowed the gluten to do its magic, but it might just work.
Sounds like they would be great dipped in milk for a while.
FTR, I’m waiting for my husband to bring me more brown sugar. I’ve made 4 batches of them in less than a week.
If it’s that alton Brown recipe, then I agree with muldoonthief, you should be able to salvage it by simply mixing in the remaining butter. Another option, if you don’t have enough butter is to add an equivalent amount of veg. oil.
I took half the recipe, and just baked as they are. Awesome with coffee. Son loves em.
Other half…well I added the butter and melted it…and the dough … and have a chocolatey mess the consistancy of fudge. They fall apart into crumbs when baked. So now I have a bunch of crumbs to make worms and dirt like things for foolieboy. Monsieur Foolie is getting told [mr subliminal] these things happen sometimes, when you don’t have the tools Kitchen Aid Mixer but Im sure that will be fixed soon birthday and I will make lots of yummy things then pizza dough, tourtier[/mr subliminial]
You would have loved his family Christmas…meat pie, potato pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, sugar pie, banana cream pie, pumpkin pie…no meal had any less than 3 different kinds of pie…I think I ate myself into a carbohydrate coma for a week and a half…
Yes I came home and ate tuna and green salads for a week… why do you ask?
Okay but you have to learn French. (Not really but it helps…not so much with the immediate family, their English is all very good, but with the other inlaws…)
The worst part is the seven hour drive after days of eating all that. No, we didn’t stop for lunch on the way back. My son had cheese strings and granola bars and oranges in the car. I drank water and black coffee (even milk in my coffee seemed too rich)
At least next year I won’t be a newbie and won’t have to try some of everything (it was all delicious, but mashed potato in pie crust is excessive, even for me…)
