Ultimate Chocolate Cookie Book - Bruce Weinstein [7]
Humidity can greatly compromise baking soda. To test if yours is active, mix ¼ teaspoon in 2 tablespoons vinegar. If it bubbles vigorously, you’re ready to bake.
As a rule of thumb, replace baking powder every 4 months; baking soda, every 6 months. Never use the baking soda you’ve kept in the refrigerator to absorb odors—the resulting cookies will taste like onions, fish, or goodness knows what.
Chocolate
There’s really only one rule when you buy chocolate: buy the best you can comfortably afford. Good-quality chocolate makes all the difference.
If you’re going to be making a lot of cookies—say, a holiday production line—consider buying chocolate in bulk from a baking supply store. A 5-pound block is more economical than an endless parade of 1-ounce squares—more economical, that is, if you’re actually going to use it.
Time compromises chocolate. For one thing, chocolate “blooms.” It gets a superficial white film caused by the cocoa butter coming out of suspension—it’s still acceptable for melting, but not good for turning into chunks for cookies because its texture has been compromised. Chocolate also picks up pantry odors and flavors. What’s more, it can turn grainy because of humidity and excess moisture dissolving the sugar in suspension.
Better-quality chocolate is often sold with a percentage indicator, which marks the amount of cocoa liqueur (cocoa solids and cocoa butter) as measured against other ingredients (mostly sugar, vanilla, and some kind of chemical enhancer like lecithin).
Unsweetened chocolate is sometimes sold as “99 percent.” It’s also sometimes sold as “baking chocolate.” This should not be confused with the brand “Baker’s Chocolate,” although Baker’s Chocolate does make baking chocolate!
While standards vary, for the purposes of this book, semisweet chocolate is anything in the 50 percent to 69 percent range; bittersweet, anything in the 70 percent to 90 percent range. As a general rule, the lower the percent, the sweeter the cookies; the higher the percent, the less sweet.
White chocolate is just cocoa butter, no brown cocoa solids. The cocoa butter is blended with sugar, milk solids, vanilla, and stabilizers. If possible, buy pure white chocolate, not cut with hydrogenated shortening.
Most chocolate chips are made of semisweet chocolate; some gourmet stores and the like sell chips or chunks of bittersweet chocolate. In almost all cases, either of these chips will work in a recipe that calls for chocolate chips added directly to a batter.
Chocolate chunks are only called for by name in one recipe (Chocolate Chunk Cookies, page 61), but you could use chocolate chunks in any of the recipes that call for chocolate chips (for a complete list, see page 22). Chunks will yield a cookie with larger chocolate pockets, but not necessarily chocolate in every bite.
You can make your own chips or chunks by chopping chocolate squares or blocks with a chocolate chopper or a heavy chef’s knife. Cut the chocolate into chunks about the size of semisweet chocolate morsels by pressing steadily but gently into the chocolate, using the tines of the chopper or the point of the knife.
Some home cooks melt chocolate chips when a recipe calls for melted chocolate. While this is perfectly acceptable, the results will again depend on the quality of chocolate a baker uses.
In terms of weight and volume measurements in the book, chocolate chips are always called for by volume (that is, in cup amounts—1½ cups, 3 cups, etc.) because (1) many of us buy chips in bulk from various warehouse retailers, and
(2) volume is a reliable and convenient indicator for various additives (chips, raisins, nuts, and so forth) once a batter is formed. While the size and density of chocolate chips vary widely, a 12-ounce package of semisweet chips is about 2 cups.
That said, we call for all other chocolate by weight, not volume—that is, 1 ounce, 4 ounces, etc. We do this because (1) all chocolate other than