Life in the Cheese Drawer

i knew this would be the real test. and it’s pretty darn close. america’s test kitchen classic chocolate chip cookies are really good, a very close second to my family recipe, but i’m not giving up my recipe.

the recipe seems pretty innocuous – basic CCcookie ingredients. i’ve never added just an egg yolk to a CCC recipe, but i’ll go with it.
as with the brown sugar cookie, this one called for browning the butter.

you know it’s ready when it stops steaming and the froth is gone from the top. this pan of melted butter is good to go.
reading directions, blending dry goods, etc., etc., then OOOH – there it is. the weird thing.

whisk sugar and butter for 30 seconds, then let rest for 3 minutes. repeat 3 times. what?? the only think i can think of that this accomplishes is it cools off the butter and lets the wet ingredients cream a little better.

16 oz. of vanilla from penzey’s. no messing around with vanilla this time.
i love CCCs because all you have to do is scoop them up and put them on the cookie sheet. no rolling, dipping in sugar, all that jazz. the recipe called for this to make only 16 cookies – that’s huge!! instead i made normal sized cookies.

i have to admit: if i didn’t have my own recipe already, i would make these cookies (with maybe less chocochips – there were a lot).
point: it’s a tie.
ATK:1; kate: 2; draw: 1
next up: chocolate cookies.

here’s the problem with having tried and true cookie recipes that i’ve gathered and used over the last 15 years of christmas cookie baking: they’re tried and true. so i found with the sugar cookie. i had never tried the brown sugar cookies, so those were awesome. i’m expecting the ATK chocolate chip cookies to fall flat (there’s a reason our family recipe has been around so long).
i use a molasses/ginger cookie recipe that i modified from a martha stewart recipe i found about four years ago. it’s awesome, but i was really expecting the ATK recipe to outdo it.

the weird thing in this recipe? it calls for pepper. and a seemingly ungodly amount of spices, the likes of which (the measurements, that is) i’ve never seen in a cookie recipe.

this alton brown liquid measuring cup was the best present i ever got nate 🙂

 
i poured the molasses onto the whipped sugar and butter, and it looked so much like chocolate syrup on ice cream that i almost dug in. that would’ve been a mouthful of weird, though.
basic cookie assembly. roll into balls, roll in sugar, bake. once again, ATK called for 22 cookies, and i came out with 32.

 
they sure LOOK pretty! final result? there is something about them that just doesn’t cut it. maybe they’re now quite sweet enough, or the huge amounts of all these kicky spices just don’t play well together. and one of the things mentioned in the recipes is that molasses cookies generally are dry and taste like cardboard. quite frankly, i found these a little dry. well, dryer than my tried and true molasses cookie. that said, they are still cookies, and still yummy.
so, ATK 1, kate 2. i will TRY the chocolate chip ones, but i’m not holding out much hope.
 
 

i ordered the “america’s test kitchen” cookbook, which has EVERY RECIPE EVER from the PBS show in it. since my dad has given up on his search for the martha stewart cookie cookbook, i’ve decided to make all the cookies from the cookie section of ATK.

 
the recipe calls for a couple weird things: 1. cream cheese and 2. vegetable oil. i have never seen vegetable oil used in a cookie. but, this is ATK, so i’ll go with it. they obviously have tested it!

 
followed the directions, mixed everything together like a normal cookie. i did use a sifter instead of a whisk (sacrilege?), and i busted out the kitchenaid instead of just mixing it together.

roll into balls, roll in sugar, and flatten with the bottom of a glass. easy peasy.

is it chewy? yes.
is it the best sugar cookie i’ve ever had? well, it’s certainly better than my grandma’s sugar cookie recipe, but i think my amended eggnog snickerdoodle-to-sugar cookie is a better tasting cookie. the cream cheese leaves a slightly odd aftertaste. it’s not bad, just different.
would i make these again? probably not. i’d just make my snickerdoodle-cum-sugar cookies instead.

EDIT: i had one of these after they’d cooled a bit. they’re really crunchy and not THAT chewy. they’re still cookies, though. i’ll still stuff my face with them!