dunked: a lesson on drop cookies

a lovely morning, a kitchen filled with cinnamon smells! i feel the need to share the secrets of professional bakers - secrets i have learnt from books and other people - just read ahead.
these are the things i used to make today's cookies, whose recipe is based on that of the jeffrey cookies. i did these in my bedroom today, so that i could use the air-conditioner, though this must be a very costly operation.
creaming the butter and sugar (by hand) in a cold room is real hard work, because the butter remained firmly solid. but after ten minutes of mashing at the butter, i finally got it soft enough. i really liked the sandy feel of creaming the butter and sugar.

time for some baking science! creaming involves nothing more than a spoon, a bowl, butter and sugar. if you're using an electric mixer, use the paddle attachment. the act of creaming butter with sugar introduces air into the dough/batter. this mixing method is used for many cookies, cakes and tart doughs. introducing air into the dough/batter is to make use of the air as a leavener: in the oven, the air spaces expand and cause the dough/batter to rise. in general, creaming time for cookies is kept short, so you want a sandy feel; we normally do this by hand. for cakes, we cream towards fluffiness - or even moussiness - and this is usually done using a mixer, otherwise our hands will just die. a short creaming time gives cookies their brittle texture, while a long creaming time gives cakes a very fine crumb.

so now you know what 'creaming' means! when i next do pie doughs, i'll talk about 'rubbing'.
adding the egg, cinnamon, flour, and then chocolate chips.

after adding eggs, the butter-sugar mixture sometimes hardens into flecks. this curdling is due to the eggs being too cold when it is added. we use room-temperature eggs, not fridge-cold eggs. this is especially important in cake-making, where every ingredient must be at room temperature when mixed. if the mixture hardens into flecks, just keep beating until the flecks disappear. also, for this reason, we add eggs one by one, ensuring good mixing before adding the subsequent egg.

today's dough definitely felt stiffer than those i made last time, which i think should be the right way! the dough smelled (and tasted) very nice too. oh yes you could see the spots of cinnamon powder dispersed in the dough. it's so cute! if i found vanilla beans, i shall use them instead of vanilla essence. (this also gives dots of vanilla, like those you see in beardpapa's cream puffs.)
because the dough was stiff enough, i could spoon them onto the baking sheet easily, without much sticking, unlike my previous attempts. and i managed to make them almost all the same size. i am eternally grateful to my classmates who bought me the american book; it's such an essential book on techniques.
following the advice of the american book, i used the bottom of a glass dipped in sugared water to flatten the dough. and a lightly moistened finger to press the dough into nicer circles. this would produce cookies with a better look. and looks matter!
true enough, because the dough was properly cool until it went into the oven, the cookies spread just enough. if the dough was warm, like in any typical singaporean room, then the cookies would have spread much more and run into each other. yes, the american book speaks the truth! i will always prepare drop cookie doughs in a cold environment now. anyhow, the kitchen was soon filled with the smell of cinnamon.

another tip for anyone who wants to bake cookies! this one's from sonya, last year, or even two years ago. when baking cookies, don't look for the entire cookie to harden in the oven - it would have burnt by then. instead, take them out of the oven when the edges are set and firm to the touch of a fork. let them cool at room temperature (without any fan blowing in the vicinity). you want the cookies to cool naturally, so that the residual heat inside will finish cooking the cookies themselves.
perfectly circular cookies! the only problem was that the cinnamon in the cookies was very masked by the taste of butter, though you can still smell it. you'll also notice that the cookies i made last time, with the exception of the ones on 7th december 2007, in general had gently sloping edges. these, however, have very convex edges, if you know what i mean. i think it has everything to do with sending the cookies into the oven while the dough is still cool.

with such success on technique, i can't wait to find an excuse to bake a pie again! this time i would do the pie dough in my bedroom too, air-conditioned. the last times i did pie dough, i had always hoped and waited for cool weather, but now i shall control my own destiny! the only problem is i'll have to find a surface in my room on which to work the dough.
anyway, korean strawberries for brunch, anyone?