Best cookie recipes buzzfeed12/9/2023 ![]() The Science / What We're Expecting : Toying with a recipe that calls for all dark brown sugar is a bit like jumping into the deep end. The color was a tad dark, but overall a good cookie. The texture was a bit chewier compared to the ones made from a combination of white and brown sugars, and the texture was somewhat gritty - but not in an unpleasant way. The Results: These cookies had a much deeper flavor - similar to caramel. The Test: Swap the 50% white sugar + 50% light brown sugar, originally in the recipe, for 100% light brown sugar. Since you're losing less moisture, you can be sure of a cookie that stays moist and is probably more chewy than it is crisp. If creaming the sugar with room-temperature butter, the increased density of brown sugar means less air pockets, less mechanical leavening, and wider spread. Of course, part of this depends on your fat choice. What can you expect from a cookie baked with brown sugar? A rich, warm molasses flavor and slightly chewy texture. It's lighter in color and not as bitter, so when a recipe simply calls for "brown sugar," this is your go-to. Contrary to popular belief, it's actually a little more versatile than its darker counterpart. Most people default to light, and there's a reason why. The Science / What We're Expecting : Walk into any grocery store and you'll be greeted with two variants of brown sugar: light and dark. These were your standard chocolate chip cookies. The caramel/molasses notes from the light brown sugar were relatively mild, but certainly not bland. They spread nicely and had a subtle caramel flavor from the brown sugar. The Results: As expected, these cookies had the best of both worlds. (This is what is called for in the control recipe.) The Test: Use 50% white sugar + 50% light brown sugar in the cookie recipe. At least that's what Toll House tells us. Then again, if you're a lover of thin and crisp cookies, you might prefer the neutral white that will spread across that pan.īy combining the two, you're (hopefully) getting the best of both worlds. ![]() (We're talking about the denser texture and extra moistness brown sugar often lends.) There's another catch, too: Brown sugar is a little acidic in nature, causing it to interact with the leavening agent at play, possibly resulting in a a cakier cookie. Turns out, this is how Toll House likes to do it, so this is where we will begin.īrown sugar, as it turns out, is more capable of retaining moisture, which explains its many characteristics that you've probably experienced while baking with it. The Science / What We're Expecting : Now, it might seem counterintuitive to begin this analysis with a combination of sweeteners, but hey, we must show respect where respect is due. We used the classic Nestlé Toll House cookie formula as our base recipe and simply swapped out the sweetener, keeping the quantity the same. We stuck to five of the most popular varieties and combinations of sugars professional bakers swear by and kept all of the other variables the same. So, to better understand how sugar affects cookies, we decided to test five batches of cookies and compare them in a side-by-side taste test. "I like the structure white sugar provides paired with the rich flavors you get from brown sugar." "I'm all about combinations," says McGorman. Her sugar of choice? A combination of both brown and white. "Sugar will not only drive flavor, but also aid in texture and overall composition of a cookie," says Anna McGorman, director of culinary operations for Milk Bar. (Sucrose is just common table sugar, FYI.) That 5% change in makeup might not seem earth-shattering, but it's enough to make professional bakers choose their sweetener with a keen eye. Most brown sugars are made up of 95% sucrose and just 5% molasses. So, for the sake of accessibility, we chose to stick to the basics: white, light brown, and dark brown. ![]() But how much variation is too much? After all, once you extend beyond the confines of your traditional supermarket choices, there's a world of alternative sugars to choose from: muscavado, demerara, Sucanat - the list goes on. A spoonful of sugar might make the medicine go down, but in a chocolate chip cookie, it does a lot more than you may think.īut the real question is, how much is too much? And no, we don't mean how much sugar - our recipe will tell you that.
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