Since the pandemic, Americans have been eating 25% more cookies than before.
So how do you ensure that your gourmet cookies are worth it when you make them at home?
Luckily, the answers to that question are pretty simple. With practice, you’ll be a seasoned home baker with a reputation for making a mean gourmet cookie. Keep reading to learn more!
Ensure Some Ingredients Are at Room Temperature
Recipes for most gourmet cookies will instruct you to keep certain ingredients at room temperature, such as eggs and butter (unless they specifically ask for melted butter). Ensure you keep them at room temperature so all the ingredients can mix into a nice, smooth, even dough.
Use Quality Ingredients
Although most recipes won’t call for specific brands, it’s best to use high-quality ingredients. Technique is great, but great ingredients will inherently provide the best taste and texture. This is especially true for ingredients such as butter and any add-ins you’d add to your cookie dough, such as chocolate or nuts.
Measure With Grams
Instead of pulling out your cup measurements, take out your kitchen scale. Measuring with grams provides the most consistently precise measurements, whereas you might accidentally pack in ingredients with cup measurements and add too much of an ingredient. It’s also a lot easier and typically minimizes the number of dishes you need to do after your baking session.
Measure Ingredients Out Beforehand
The most effective bakers measure their ingredients out beforehand. Fishing around for certain ingredients can unnecessarily prolong the baking process. It could also cause ingredients like chocolate and butter to melt to unideal warm temperatures if it’s too warm.
Double Check Your Butter’s Texture
Once again, you should at least let your butter come to room temperature. Leave it at room temperature if you like your cookies to be cakier and fluffier. But if you want chewier cookies, it’s best to use melted butter since it’ll reduce the number of air pockets that would fluff up the final product.
Don’t Mix Things in the Wrong Order
Most recipes will generally ask bakers to mix dry and wet ingredients separately before mixing them. That’s to ensure that every ingredient is easily incorporated into the batter. If you avoid this, you could run into problems like streaks of baking soda throughout your cookie — not a gourmet look.
Don’t Overmix
Mix dry and wet ingredients just until incorporated. Although making sure that everything’s mixed by doing it aggressively seems like a great idea, you could overwork the proteins in the flour and make your cookie too tough and dense.
Sift Dry Ingredients
Ingredients like flour and baking soda can clump up. You might bite into powdery, flavorless pockets into your cookie if it does. Avoid this risk by sifting your dry ingredients, breaking up clumps, and throwing away impossibly hard bits.
Chill for At Least Several Hours
Although chilling your cookie dough might seem like a hassle, it is the key to a perfect cookie. Otherwise, your dough might be too warm and gooey to hold up in the oven. That’s why homemade cookies spread sometimes — because the fats are too warm and therefore melt too rapidly before the dough itself can cook.
Add More Add-ons On Top of Cookie Dough Balls
When your friends get gourmet cookies delivered, you want them to be stunned by their first impression. They’ll taste good anyway, but if you want their visual experience to be gourmet, add a few more cookie add-ons on top of the cookie dough balls before they bake in the oven. Whoever gets to eat them will be first wowed by the bold visual and be even more excited to take the first bite.
Use Parchment, Not Oil
Don’t grease your cookie trays with oil before putting your cookie dough balls onto them. Instead, use nonstick parchment paper to avoid the cookies sticking and taking on a new ingredient that could affect their texture.
Ensure Cookie Dough Balls Are Even
Gourmet cookies for delivery should be pretty even despite being homemade. It looks great and shows people you put a lot of effort into making them pristine. For best results, weigh out all of your dough, divide that measurement by the number of cookies the recipe calls for, and ensure that every cookie dough ball weighs just that amount.
Preheat Your Oven
Do not put your cookies into a too-cold oven. Your oven should be completely heated to the recipe’s called-for temperature before putting your cookies in. Otherwise, your cookies won’t cook properly and could dry out before they’re hit with high temperatures and thoroughly cook.
Cool Baking Sheet Before Reusing It
By allowing your baking sheet to cool before reusing it, cookies won’t melt before they cook in the oven. Warm cookie trays won’t be hot enough to cook and will only make your cookies spread or become crispier than you initially intended.
Follow These Tips for Perfect Gourmet Cookies!
Buying a box of gourmet cookies can be a real treat, both for yourself and for your loved ones. But if you want to make some yourself, follow the guide above to ensure you get the perfect bake.
At Batch Cookie Shop, we know how vital great desserts are for building community. That’s why we serve all sorts of cookies, even catering events attended by plenty of sweets-loving guests! So contact us today to have us at your next celebration.