Chocolate chips haven’t always been around, you know (though they’re such an American staple, many of us assume they have been). Ruth Wakefield cut/broke bars of chocolate into pieces to make her original cookies. Once the chocolate chip cookie became popular in the mid-1930’s, most home bakers continued to do just that. Fully aware that […]
READ ONAs if on cue, my good friend Gerhard writes in from Vienna to say: I have one question about the cookie recipe… it features baking soda, but no acids (like vinegar, lemon juice, sour milk products etc.blablablah). How will that one work… you write that brown sugar is acidic? btw: Chocolate Chips are unknown here. […]
READ ONThe chocolate chip cookie is one of the few examples of American bakery that has earned at least some measure of respect on the Continent. Visit one of the more bourgeois bake shops of Paris or Amsterdam and you’re likely to find a small American ghetto section — often stuffed into a far corner — […]
READ ONThis is one small corner of food history where everybody tells pretty much the same story (which is actually quite refreshing). It goes like this: the chocolate chip cookie was invented by Ruth Wakefield, who, along with her husband, owned an historic establishment called the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusettes. A studied cook and […]
READ ONNot that you’d have any trouble finding it, of course, but for reference sake: here is the Rosetta Stone, the Dresden Codex if you will, of chocolate chip cookie recipes: 2 1/4 cups (11.25 ounces) all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 1 cup (8 ounces or two sticks) butter, softened 3/4 cup […]
READ ONThere are so many possible ways to go with chocolate chip cookie formulas it would take me weeks to go through them all. Extra-chewy, double chocolate, super chunky, double butter…a baker could get so lost in the forest of variations he’d never come out again. However I think it’s clear that all of them have […]
READ ONDue to an overwhelming number of recent requests (eight) for solutions to chocolate chip cookie problems, I am once again preempting my regular request list. How to explain the recent influx of questions — from as close as Indianapolis to as far away as Indonesia and Israel — other than there’s some sort of disturbance […]
READ ONReader Bill asks: I noticed in the focaccia recipe you mentioned durum flour as an optional ingredient. Can you tell me why, and also where I might get some? Durum flour makes an excellent addition to focaccia (and many other breads) because it adds not only a more exotic flavor, but a very attractive golden […]
READ ONKen, who goes to culinary school in Florence, Italy, weighs in on the subject of focaccia: Bell peppers, zucchini and tomatoes are all native to the new world. Especially the latter is probably the fundamental ingredient in “authentic” Italian cuisine. Thinking of the parallel development of pizza is especially pertinent. In terms of the potato […]
READ ONMake it into a sandwich. It’s not traditional, but what the hey, America is a nation that’s based on the principle of re-invention. I’m by no means the first one to think of this, but where is it written that a food has to be original to be delicious? Using focaccia for sandwiches just makes […]
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