by Chef Ben Lierman
As a chef that teaches cooking classes in Indianapolis, I am often amused at how often the cart goes before the horse. Many times, the student that has the highest expectations, and seems to want to get the most out of the program falls short under the weight of impatience and underestimation. What some have failed to see here, is of the utmost importance, is that food is a process like mathematics in many ways. Each process builds on a skill mastered in the previous section.
Take, for instance, the humble bruschetta. A creation of the Tuscany region of Italy, the bruschetta is a slice of bread, toasted, rubbed with garlic, and moistened with olive oil. The dish has become exceedingly popular in restaurants often topped with some sort of elaborate vegetable and cheese relish.
When I mention this dish in class, folks get excited that we are going to discuss a dish that they often enjoy in their favorite restaurants. The talk often goes to what sort of beautiful marinated, broiled, infused or otherwise concocted fluff that is going to be atop of this culinary masterpiece. What did we forget?
Bread. Simple, basic, and the stuff of life. While everyone sat salivating over the potentials for high falutin’ toppers, no one asked where the bread was going to come from. I am sure that the assumption was that the bread would be purchased from a high-end grocer, proofed and baked to company specification. We need to learn to bake great bread. 4 simple ingredients intertwined in a miraculous framework of starches, proteins, fermentation, and respiration that changed the course of human history. Pretty powerful stuff if you ask me.
This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to what’s important in food: Back to basics.
By Chef Steve Bart
I have found an easy recipe for the perfect oatmeal cookie, it has the perfect balance between crisp and chewy, sweet but not too sweet.
You start with the best ingredients; toasted old fashioned oats, real butter, pure vanilla extract, chocolate chips and last but not least the secret ingredient - English toffee pieces. With the addition of toffee the cookies will get crunchy on the outside but the toffee melts with the other ingredients making them chewy and still soft on the inside. Next you add the proper execution of the recipe, sifting the flour, properly creaming the butter and sugar. Finally, the proper application of the heat completes the circle. Without all three pieces of the puzzle your oatmeal cookie recipe will come up short.
The one key aspect that is often overlooked is the proper application of the heat. You could have done everything perfectly but if you do not cook them correctly you’ll be disappointed.
Three keys to baking the best cookie possible:
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Lower the temperature. Recipes that call for the oven to be at 375 degrees for 7 to 9 minutes are destined for failure.
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Remove the cookies before they are done. The next trick for that perfectly baked cookie that is that you have to take them out of the oven just slightly before you think you should. By removing them slightly before you think that they are done, and letting them sit on the cookie sheet for a few minutes they gradually and gently finish cooking on the cookie tray.
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Convection baking. Switch from a conventional oven to a convection oven. The big difference is the ability to have even heat and multiple racks. In a typical convention oven you normally have two heating elements; the lower bake element and the upper broil element. When trying to bake multiple trays of cookies you get some unevenness since the heat is coming from the bottom. In true convection a third element in the backwall of the oven around the convection fan is the only heat source. The benefit is that you can bake multiple trays at the same time with the same results for all three racks. With the heat coming from the backwall of the oven and the fan stirring the air (as opposed to the bottom bake element) each tray cooks the same.
Can you cook good cookies in a regular oven? Yes, but at a price; one tray at a time and rotating that tray. Each time you open the oven you change the temperature inside the oven, leading to uneven results.
In pursuit of perfection when it comes to cookies remember that all three pieces of the puzzle are important. Good recipe, proper execution and the proper application of heat. With out all of the pieces the puzzle is never complete.
Toasted Oatmeal Cookies with Toffee and Chocolate Chips
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