I posted the following recipes during December to help cookie lovers celebrate the holidays. Please check them out.

Spicy Gingerbread Cookies Decorated with Edible Paint. This is a creative recipe for spicy gingerbread cookies including how to make an edible paint for decoration.

Eggnog Thumbprint Cookies – A Luscious Holiday Treat. Buttery thumbprint cookies covered with finely chopped walnuts and filled with rum eggnog make a delicious and irresistible treat for any special occasion.

An Easy Recipe for Savory Greek Cookies. It’s a very quick and easy recipe for traditional and savory Greek cookies. Using ordinary ingredients, you can capture the extraordinary taste of these kouloukaria.

Homemade Party Cookies – Easy Recipes, Helpful Hints. You find many easy recipes and helpful tips on baking homemade party cookies.

An Easy Biscotti Recipe for Hors D’oeuvre Cookies. The secret ingredient in this easy biscotti recipe is a combination of dried thyme leaves, oregano, and rosemary. Follow the recipe or create your own blend.

A Biscuit Recipe for Delicate and Savory Cookies. This biscuit recipe just asks for three ingredients – flour, salt, and whipping cream. It makes baking excellent homemade crackers just as easy as baking cookies.


CONTENTS


Baking Trivia

  1. Most cookie recipes call for “softened” and unsalted butter. What does “softened” actually mean? Answer

  2. Your sugar cookie recipe calls for 1 cup of granulated sugar, but you only have about ¾ cup available in your pantry. For convenience sake, you decide to use just that much sugar. What would the texture of your sugar cookies likely be? Result


Recipe Comparison

This segment is to give you a general idea of possible taste and texture cookies might have before you actually bake them. It is not to determine that one recipe is better or worse than the other.

In this issue, we will compare the proportion of some ingredients used in baking chewy and crisp sugar cookies.

You can find both R 1 and R2 in The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion – The Essential Cookie Cookbook. First Edition. The Countryman Press. 2004.

1 cup = 8oz = 16 Tbsp = 48 tsp
1 whole egg is approximately 2 oz., yolk is about 0.5 oz. and the white 1.5 oz.

Amount Baker’s %
R 1 R 2 R 1 R 2
All purpose flour 2½ c. 2½ c. 100% 100%
Unsalted butter ¾ cup 1 cup 30% 40%
Granulated sugar ¾ cup 0 30% 0%
Brown sugar ½ cup 0 20% 0%
Confectioners’ sugar 0 1½ c. 0% 60%
Corn syrup ¼ cup 0 10% 0%
Egg 1 large 1 large 10% 10%

I’m confident that you can tell which recipe yields which cookie texture by just looking at the above table of bakers’ percentage.

Although the total bakers’ percentage of sweeteners in R1 is the same as that in R2, it comes in different forms.

Egg is the major source of liquid in R2, whereas egg and a combination of various sweeteners contribute significantly to the amount of liquid in R1. For additional information, visit An indispensable Ingredient in Sugar Cookies and Sugar Cookie Recipes.


As our Web site is about baking homemade cookies and sharing interesting recipes, baking techniques and hints, I’d like to introduce you to the following verses written by Valerie Cox and printed in 101 “Answers” for New Teachers & Their Mentors.

The Cookie Thief

“A woman was waiting at an airport one night,

With several long hours before her flight.

She hunted for a book in the airport shop,

Bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.

She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see,

That the man beside her, as bold as could be,

Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag between,

Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

She read, munched cookies, and watched the clock,

As the gutsy ’cookie thief’ diminished her stock,

She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,

Thinking, ‘If I wasn’t so nice, I’d blacken his eyes!’

With each cookie she took, he took one too.

When only one was left, she wondered what he’d do.

With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,

He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half, as he ate the other.

She snatched it from him and thought, ‘Oh, brother!

This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude.

Why, he didn’t even show any gratitude!’

She had never known when she had been so galled,

And signed with relief when her flight was called.

She gathered her belongings and headed for the gate,

Refusing to look back at that ‘thieving ingrate.’

She boarded the plane and sank in her seat,

Then sought her book which was almost complete.

As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprised.

There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes!

‘If mine are here,’ she moaned with despair,

‘Then the others were his and he tried to share!’

Too late to apologize, she realized with grief,

That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief!”


Please share this newsletter with other cookie lovers you know.

Have a Happy and Healthy New Year.


Published date: January 6, 2007

Copyright 2007 by Trinh Lieu. All right reserved.