Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book - Bruce Weinstein [5]
What if you have only one baking sheet but the recipe calls for two? Stack the racks as directed. Begin baking with the sheet on the bottom rack; halfway through baking, rotate it front to back and move it to the upper rack.
All that said, if you have a convection oven with proven and efficient air flow, reversing the sheets is largely unnecessary.
9. Cool the baking sheets before making additional batches.
We have not written these recipes with any one-size baking sheet in mind. But because your sheets may be smaller than ours, you may need to bake additional batches of cookies to use up all the dough. Before you do, always let the baking sheets cool for at least 5 minutes before placing unbaked cookie dough on them. Hot baking sheets make batters spread, resulting in flattened, overbaked cookies. If the sheets need to be greased (and floured), do so again once they’re cool. If you’re using parchment paper, check to make sure it’s not frizzled or dried out. If so, replace it with a new sheet of paper.
10. Store baked cookies as recommended.
At the end of each recipe, we’ve given our storage recommendations: at room temperature and in the freezer.
Make sure cookies have cooled completely before storing them. A safe bet is to leave them on the cooling racks for 2 hours. Then store the cookies in an airtight container at room temperature to preserve flavor and moisture. Seal a plastic container tightly, releasing any excess air. If you’re using a cookie jar, make sure the lid’s on tight. Store any iced cookies or fudgy cookies between sheets of wax paper.
Don’t store soft and crisp cookies together at room temperature. The moisture in the soft ones will cause the crunchy ones to go limp.
Most cookies freeze extremely well. (The exceptions are those with gooey centers or some filled sandwich cookies.) To freeze cookies, store them in stacked layers between sheets of wax paper in freezer-safe, zip-closed bags or in plastic containers. To defrost, remove the frozen cookies from the bag and place them on a wire rack so that any melting ice crystals don’t turn the bottoms soggy. Let the cookies sit in the open air for 15 to 20 minutes, but no more than 30 minutes, then store them at room temperature as indicated.
One warning: if you have a frost-free freezer, the cookies cannot stay in the freezer as long as we recommend, since the temperature comes up to 32°F (usually once a day) so the freezer will defrost. This fluctuation will lead to soggy cookies; store them no more than a couple weeks in a frost-free freezer.
Equipment
Most equipment you need to bake chocolate cookies is commonsensical: a wire whisk, rubber spatula, metal spatula, wooden spoon, and various bowls. Some things, however, may require a brief introduction.
BAKING SHEETS Technically, a cookie sheet is a large, flat baking sheet with one or two upturned edges, or maybe none at all; a baking sheet has four upturned edges. The latter is easier to handle (you can grab any side, provided you have a hot pad in hand), and its lipped edges will prevent round dough balls from slipping onto the kitchen floor or baked cookies from sliding into the oven.
Insulated baking sheets will indeed prevent cookies from burning. However, they can change the baking times dramatically, especially with short (i.e., dry) batters. If you have an insulated baking sheet, watch the times carefully—you may also try baking your cookies only in the bottom third of the oven to keep them from spreading too much as they bake.
CHOCOLATE CHOPPER This heavy-duty, rakelike tool is sold at some baking supply outlets and many kitchenware stores. Its tines are particularly adept at shearing blocks of chocolate into smaller chunks.
CHOCOLATE GRATER Some recipes ask you to grate the chocolate into the dough. A strange technique, admittedly, but this way the chocolate doesn’t bog the dough with excess fat as it bakes, so the cookies don’t spread out on the baking sheets. Use large chunks