Chocolate Chip Cookies galore and a Brownie Recipe

No cookies for me please. We made these today in a big batch. I personally did not like the texture or taste of the cookie from today's recipe. It tasted something like a soft biscotti.  Ahhh personal preferences :) its a beautiful thing.  BUT with that in mind, I will use this experience to figure out which ingredients I need to play with in order to get them the way I normally like:  just sweet enough, chewy with a little crisp on the outside. 

Cindy Lee, the answer to your question from yesterday's blog: Why do we sift ingredients?  A lot of people think its not necessary to sift, but as we are all slowly learning in class, baking is a science. Sifting serves quite a few purposes.  To name a few, it adds air into the mixture and it also gets rid of all the lumps prior to mixing it into your batter. This is of high importance because unless the lump is a nice chocolate chip or other tasty inclusion, it shouldn't be there. 

Today's class was about mixing methods and the creation of Gluten when mixing. This is exactly why I came to school. To understand the hydration that occurs when blending, to know that gluten is created in a flour product when mixed with liquid, the anatomy of a wheat kernel, the purpose of flour, ingredient substitutions, etc. It was quite an interesting day and I'm grateful I read and did my homework! Even if Noemi kept interrupting me. Just kidding Nemi!

After the cookies were made we did a Mise en place for tomorrow. Icebox Cookies. One batch of vanilla and one batch of chocolate that we will create and either cut into Pinwheels or checkerboard. I cant wait to do these tomorrow. From here we went on to finish up the brownies we made yesterday.  These were in the cooler overnight and quite honestly, I had forgotten about them.  The chef prepared a DELICIOUS chocolate Ganache which we in turn spread all over our brownie's, decorated them with a baking tool and then put back in the cooler so we could wrap them up and take them home. THESE I did like, and they do taste very good. Not so sweet but chocolatey. I never used to like chocolate Ganache but right now its up there in my top 5.



If you want the brownie recipe, here it is:

14 oz of butter

24 oz of sugar

14 oz of eggs

1 tsp of vanilla

9 oz of All Purpose Flour

4 oz of Cocoa powder

1/2 oz of salt

2 1/2 oz of Chocolate Chips (optional)

2 1/2 oz of Walnuts, lightly toasted (optional)

Oven should be at 350 degrees.

Melt the butter and set it aside. Put all your dry ingredients in a bowl. Add eggs and scrape the sides. Add the melted butter and scrape the sides. Add the chocolate and nuts. Bake for 3 minutes or so.

Enjoy!