I’m no expert, but I believe every word that comes out of Alton Brown’s mouth.
I think the episode is available online if you want him to explain the science behind it. He uses a puppet that looks like Oscar the Grouch. Actually, I just searched for it so I could post the link, but I can’t find it. I know I watched it online once, but I don’t see it on Hulu or the Food Network site. The episode was called “Chips for Sister Marsha.”
Sorry, I always assumed it was an Ohio company driving past the Pioneer Sugar Silos in Findlay. However, turns out Pioneer Sugar (and Big Chief Sugar) are both made by a Michigan-based company that bought the Ohio Sugar Company in the 80s. They produce about a billion pounds of beet sugar annually.
Anyone actually use real butter for cookies anymore?
My family always used margarine for baking. The rare times they bought butter it was only used on toast, or a baked spud where the real taste of butter could be appreciated.
Yep - I always pick up a couple of pounds of unsalted butter when I’m going to be baking.
I’m going to echo the others who say your new oven is hotter - cook them a bit less, or set the temperature a bit lower.
Here is my trick – replace the white sugar with brown sugar, so you’re using all brown sugar; also use half butter and half margarine. Butter makes for a crispy cookie; whereas margarine helps with chewiness. I also echo a baking a few less minutes.
Don’t cut back on the sugar - it’s part of what keeps cookies soft. Increasing the amount of brown and decreasing the white might help, say 1.5 cups brown, .5 cup white. And yes, twice as much sugar as fat is a standard cookie ratio.
There! That’s your answer. Eat all the cookies as they come out of the oven, with a tall, cold glass of milk. If only all problems had such an elegant, nommy solution.
That’s my first guess. Oven temperature settings aren’t very accurate, so your new oven’s “350” might not be the same as the old oven’s “350”.
I’d try setting the oven to say 325 and see if that helps.
**THIS. **
Whenever I move to a new place that has a new stove, an OVEN THERMOMETER is an absolute must. I’ve never found an oven where the temperature on the dial matched the temperature in the oven. Never.
Unless your stove is brand new, do not trust the number on the dial. And frankly, even if I ever got a new stove (I finally settled down and have been using the last stove for 20-ish years WITH my oven thermometer), I would STILL use an oven thermometer. While you’re at it, get a refrigerator thermometer.
I’d recommend hiring an electrician to come by and check out your wiring. A lot of times, it’s not that the stove is miscalibrated but that someone screwed up the wiring in your house.
I found this out the hard way when we moved our stove down to our vacation cabin. The oven, which worked perfectly in Ohio, was undercooking everything. We finally figured out that we couldn’t use the burners and the stove at the same time because it was drawing too much juice.
We moved the oven to its own dedicated circuit and now it works fine.
That’s pretty extreme for a case of tough cookies. From the OP, it really sounds like a one off problem.
You’re right, of course. I should have recommended an electrician only if he has further evidence that his stove is off. In our case, we had plenty of evidence that something was not working right with the stove. It would burn one batch of biscuits and not brown another.
“Never trust an oven!” Get a thermometer in there and calibrate that sucker.
Also, you may not be using the same amount of flour, even though you are measuring it the same, as settling does occur. But that’s less likely than it being the oven.
An inaccurate oven thermostat is also my guess, either running too cool in Ohio or too hot in Virginia.
Rock-hard cookies can sometimes be salvaged by heating them in the microwave for 10 or 20 seconds. They only stay soft a few minutes, so only heat as many as you’ll eat right away.
Try using plain Crisco like I do.
Butter is an abomination in Tollhouse cookies. It turns them into nasty flat little disks that are burnt around the edges.
I was going to say the same thing, but cut it back to 2 cups. That recipe is virtually identical to the one I used hundreds of times when I baked a lot of cookies as a teenager, except for the amount of flour. 3 cups is definitely too much.
Hmm. Actually, I think the recipe I used was slightly different on a couple other ingredients (changes in red):
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter/shortening
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
chocolate chips
Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes.
Also the OP didn’t list the mixing instructions, but I’d do it as follows:
Mix the wet ingredients (eggs, vanilla, butter/shortening) and the sugars with an electric mixer until nice and smooth, and then use a spoon to blend in the flour, salt, and baking soda by hand. Add the chocolate chips last.
I would reduce the oven temperature by 25 degrees or so and take the cookies out of the oven 2 minutes earlier.
Also, I’ve found that the absolute best way to store cookies is in an unzipped Ziploc bag or in a lidded container with the lid resting slightly askew on the top. Air-tight seems to stale them, open-air definitely stales them, but this in-between state is just right.