Since I'm British, I'm used to biscuits that are crisp, dry and crunchy all the way through, with no soft chewy centre. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes are trying to do the exact opposite. How can I bake chocolate chip cookies with a more British texture? Essentially, I want the exact opposite to the answers to this question.
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The classic Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe produces crunchy cookies (biscuits). I just use the recipe from the back of a pack of chocolate chips.– Ross RidgeJan 9, 2016 at 18:53
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@RossRidge I can't get Toll House cookies in the UK, and even if I could the recipe would probably measure dry goods in cups instead of by weight, which we don't do over here, because it's hideously inaccurate. I don't own a set of measuring cups.– Mike ScottJan 9, 2016 at 19:31
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I don't know what you mean by "I can't get Toll House cookies", but it's not hard to convert the recipe or find an already converted recipe.– Ross RidgeJan 9, 2016 at 19:53
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@RossRidge I think he meant that he can't get the package in order to get the recipe off the back (and maybe misunderstood package of chocolate chips vs package of chocolate chip cookies).– Cascabel ♦Jan 13, 2016 at 6:57
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4 Answers
The best way to achieve what you are looking for is to lower the temp and lengthen the baking time. Lowering the temp will slow the edges from getting burned while the center is allowed to continue to cook.
Allow the top of the cookie to brown before removing from the oven. For soft cookies, the moment it starts to turn brown is the moment you are just a little too late for the cookies to stay soft after they've cooled. If you let the cookie brown just a touch, the cookie will harden on the cooling rack.
It shouldn't be too hard to find a crispy chocolate chip cookie recipe if you want one, but if you're interested in experimenting with an existing recipe, here are a few ideas for things to change:
Mix in melted butter instead of creamed soft butter. That will greatly reduce the amount of air trapped in the dough. The dough will not loft while baking; it will spread out, allowing for more evaporation. (Not chilling the dough is a related tip: the faster it melts in the oven, the more it will spread.)
Cool them entirely on the baking sheet instead of transferring them to a rack. This has a strong effect on the finished cookies' crispness.
Use white sugar instead of brown. Brown sugar is used in baked goods when you want them to be soft, because it is even more hygroscopic -- pulling water from the air and holding onto it -- than white sugar.
Change the egg ratio to decrease the amount of yolk. While the whites contain a lot of water, they also contain much more protein than fat. The fat in yolks will diminish gluten formation and increase tenderness and "fudginess".
If what you want is a classic crunchy cookie with some chocolate chips thrown in, use your favorite crunchy cookie recipe and throw a few chocolate chips in. As you said yourself, the American "chocolate chip cookie" is a totally different thing, characterized by a soft texture. It makes no sense to use a recipe for that type of cookie if you don't like it.
answered Jan 9, 2016 at 20:02
Melted butter (or browned butter better yet!) will make a crispy cookie. Obviously, omitting all leaveners will help as well, but you can get an even flatter cookie by adding extra leavener, which will over expand and then collapse the dough.