Cookie time and temperature tests

This past week I have eaten lots and lots of portions of cookies, key word "portions".  Why?  Well, here's the reason.  The cookies in the above photo are oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that I have listed on the Bruce Bakery and Bistro menu.  A couple weeks ago, I was making a batch and on a whim I decided to cook a single cookie at 350 F instead of the 325 F temperature setting that I normally use for these cookies.  As I mentioned in a recent post, I like to reserve portions of whatever I am making to use for experiments, tweaks, "what-ifs".  Well, I was intrigued by how this cookie came out after being subjected to more intense heat than usual.  That started me on a trek of several days of experiments with this cookie during which I varied temperature, time, and even the type of material it was baked on.

First I compared cooking this on foil sheets versus parchment.  I've always baked these on foil sheets but the ones baked on parchment during this experimental period were very nice.  I still prefer the ones on foil, but it is nice to know that cooked on parchment they still come out as delicious cookies, albeit with some small but noticeable differences.  (A small note here: cookies in general are rarely ever cooked on foil.)

Then I began working with temperature and time variations, only cooking on foil, no parchment.  I tested various times cooked at 325 F and 350 F temperature settings, and then sampled cookies side by side.  In the end, this whole run of experimental batches didn't change how I cook this particular cookie.  After all that was over, it still came down to my favorite cookies being those cooked at a 325 F setting for 17 minutes.  However, what I found incredibly interesting was that unlike most cookies which have a rather narrow range of optimal time and temperature settings (within which they are good/excellent and outside of which they are noticeably average at best and oftentimes much worse than that) these cookies were very good at both temperatures and ranging in time from 13 minutes up to 19 minutes.  These sound like small variations, but when it comes to something as small as a cookie, a little extra time or a little heat, or the opposite of both, can have a dramatic effect.  However, these were delicious and had wonderful textures.  There were differences, of course, but nothing so dramatic as I expected from direct experience with a multitude of cookie recipes over many years. 

Tonight I finished the last batch in this experiment.  I cut cookies in half and ate portions from each of the different bakes.  Over the past several days, I ate many many cookie portions.  Thank goodness I didn't try to eat all the cookies in their entirety.  I love these cookies, but I've had enough of them for a while -- well, maybe for a day or two at least.  After all, these are really good cookies. 

I added it all up: over the last 10 days, I made 9 individual batches.  And I had to sample each of those batches multiple times since I was also checking out differences between dough that was chilled versus dough at room-temperature.  Even eating only portions, that came out to a lot of cookie sampling.  All I can say about that now that it is over is this:  tomorrow I am making banana bread.