Know your cookies: moisture

I know I've mentioned it in a few posts, but I'm glad to be done with cakes for a little while. Really, there's only so much cake a person can eat, and only so many cake-related posts a person can write before he starts to go a bit loopy.

I can now testify that the same thing happens with cookies. After making four batches of cookies today, with more planned soon, I'm seeing them when I close my eyes. But it was all in the name of science (or at least pseudo-science), and because of it I now know a bit more about the role of moisture in cookies.

Each batch was made by using a standard cookie recipe and changing the amount of liquid in the recipe (counting the water in the eggs and butter) based on the flour weight. So if the cookie had 10 ounces of flour in it, the water weight for a cookie with 50% water would be 5 ounces.

Batch #1: 30% water
This batch was with no milk added. All of this water came just from the butter and eggs. I had to knead in the last of the flour at the end, and it was a very crumbly dough. It turned into a fairly dry and crumbly cookie as well. It reminded me of a snickerdoodle when I bit into it. This cookie was fairly chewy, but a bit to dry for optimum chewiness. They did not spread at all, and I had to flatten them manually during the baking.

Batch #2: 50% water
These cookies were a bit easier to work with, being a more moist dough, and reminded me of my mom's cookies (cakey). They were slightly less chewy than batch #1 and had some spread.

Batch #3: 100% water
These cookies had considerable spread. The consistency was very light, soft, and cake-like. They had a very fine and soft grain (little holes inside cakes, muffins, etc).

Batch #4: 50% water + 200% baking powder
I knew what to expect from a higher moisture content that 100% (more cakey texture), and so I decided to try a different variable: baking powder. I honestly expected more of a difference between these and batch #2. These cookies were slightly more airy than batch #2, but that didn't change them much at all.

And so went my day. I still have two very large containers full of cookies that I'm not sure what to do with. But I did learn a very important factor for cookie recipes. Moisture content for dry cookies should hit about 30%, and super soft cookies 50-100%. That puts my perfect chewy cookies somewhere around 40% water content. My series on recipe development for cookies is off to a good start, folks.

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