Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Saddest Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

First, here is the "picture is worth a thousand words" version of The Saddest Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever:


I should mention a few details as to why I even tried making these. First, chocolate chip cookies are not my favorite. My mom made really great ones when I was growing up, and although the neighbor kids loved them, I liked others. Probably an early indicator that I would one day grow into an obsessive palate was that my favorite cookies were Ghiradelli Chocolate Crinkles. Or snickerdoodles. My mom's cookies really spoiled me. I mean, what kind of 4-year-old does not list chocolate chip cookies as her favorite?

Despite the fact that they are not my favorite, I was craving chocolate chippers, and nothing else would do. So I followed the good ol' Toll House recipe. You can see the disaster. Now, at this point I might have gone to my high altitude cooking guide I downloaded from Whole Foods, which has wonderful, detailed suggestions for altering recipes.

Instead I shunned cookies, and turned to something I've almost never failed at: bread. Baking bread in Denver is a revelation. The altitude and air pressure and dryness combine in a superb way that translates to your bread dough rising in about a half hour as opposed to up to two hours. While this goes somewhat against my slow food, take-your-time tendency, I can't tell you how happy it makes me to throw together a pizza dough when I get home from work on Friday and have it be ready so soon.

Speaking of pizza dough, I've been making it every week, playing with the ratios of white and whole wheat flours. The thing I love about bread is, once you've got the hang of it, you can substitute practically anything and just adjust the amounts by feel. If it's not springy and elastic, you've done something wrong; you just add water and flour until it feels good again. Pizza dough was initially challenging for me; I tried it a few times in San Francisco, but never got the results I wanted.

Enter Alice Waters and her recent bible, The Art of Simple Food. Her pizza dough recipe is the best I've made so far--and, although she calls for an initial 2-hour rise followed by a 1-hour rise, in Denver that translates to a 1-hour rise followed by a half-hour rise. It puffs up wonderfully in the crust but is still chewy--and light. Curiously, it does not call for proofing the yeast with any sugar or honey, which I haven't had success with in the past, but no problems with this one.

If you've never tried your own pizza dough before, this is a good one to start with. It's not too fussy and can be done in a mixer, if you have one. It does take some time, especially if you're not living above 5,000 feet, but it will spoil you off delivery or take-n-bake forever.