Baking is no Engineering Business
August 11th, 2010 by James | This article was viewed 11,156 times.
When I moved into my current house early this year, I noticed a huge oven (which is obviously better than the one I had back in my hometown). I had these thoughts of baking cookies myself over the summer and I started baking a month ago.
The cookies were surprisingly well made, they look and taste exactly like Cottage Cookies. The only thing wrong was that these are all a dream yet to come true.
Baking is no engineering business. Engineering and baking, even though they sometimes use the same unit, they meant different things!
I am a huge fan of chocolate chips cookies and I was surfing the internet for recipes until I found Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. Apparently they claim that Famous Amos grabbed that recipe straight off and start profiting from it. Since Famous Amos’ cookies were pretty good, I tried the recipe.
So far I have baked for a total of 3 times.
The first attempt of cookies came out compact and looked like butter cookies. Friends on facebook had a good laugh at them.
The second attempt failed miserably. I will explain on that earlier.
The third attempt was the best so far, with better texture and taste. But still, not quite the Cottage Cookies taste yet.
Blunders
Like I said earlier, baking is no engineering business. Even as an engineer (we’re supposed to know everything there is about units!) we have to relearn the whole new language of “Baking”.
1. Teaspoon, not tablespoon.
First rule of baking, know your sizes! When recipe says for teaspoon, it is the smaller spoon, not the one used you use for breakfast.
I actually did that on the second attempt for both the salt and baking soda. Cookies came out extremely salty and bubbly (lots of holes). I had to throw the rest of the batter away.
2. Sticks does not literally mean sticks.
As you can see from the Toll House recipe link above. It says “1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened”. As a non-baker, what would you do?
I can tell you what I did, I bought two sticks of 250 grams of butter and mix all of them according to the recipe from the link. Cookies in the oven did not retain its shape and came out flat and oily.
What happened there was that there was too much butter in the mix. 1 Cup (2 sticks) of butter actually means 227 grams of butter since a stick of butter is 113.4 grams. Not two sticks of 250 grams butter.
3. If you don’t have an insulated baking pan, SPAM baking sheets!
One thing I realized is that the more baking sheets I have placed on my lousy baking pan, the less cookies I burn. On my third attempt to bake, I actually had around 5 baking sheets stacked together so that the bottom of my cookies would not burn too quickly.
So you can easily guessed it, usually the first batch of cookies are the fried ones.
Also, how does the cookies manufacturers are able to retain the crispiness of their cookies for such a long time. The cookies I bake usually becomes less crispy on the second day, even when they are in an airtight container. If there are some experts out there reading this, would you please answer this question.
I wonder when I could bake the “perfect cookie” …
In a Nutshell
With my professional engineering analysis on this matter called “baking”, I can conclude that the units used in baking is not standard … or I should take up another Bachelors Degree on baking.
Thank you for reading. I appreciate any Comments, Complaints and Advices that you might have. And if anything I wrote isn't clear enough. Please Tell Me about it.
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10 Responses to “Baking is no Engineering Business”
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August 12th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
Well either way, from the photo you did an awesome job on the cooking! I think if I had done it, it would definitely not have turned out that good! As to your question about manufacturers, I think it’s because they likely add some extra preservative ingredients to keep it fresh.
Till then,
Jean
August 21st, 2010 at 11:30 pm
“When recipe says for teaspoon, it is the smaller spoon, not the one used you use for breakfast.” – oh dear, I think we’ve all been there though!
August 24th, 2010 at 8:40 am
Amusing recap of your baking experiences. It sounds like you are on the right track. Unless someone teaches you, there are a lot of little mistakes that you can make. Eventually you’ll learn all those details. As for the cookies burning, it sounds like either the rack is not in the middle of the oven, or else your oven is hotter than regular ovens.
August 24th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Also, using too much butter and/or oil might cause the cookies to burn too fast. Really though, a lot of it just comes down to having the experience to know just how long your oven takes. Be sure to test them with a toothpick instead of just judging by how brown they are.
September 5th, 2010 at 2:39 am
I think baking is also like engineering, you have to have complete knowledge of all the kitchen equipments and their usages. Great post to read..
September 7th, 2010 at 7:52 am
@Aluminum, good point about too much butter/oil, and I always use a fork or knife instead of the toothpick, but I guess I should really change it up to a toothpick so that I make less of a hole in the cake or whatever I am baking, haha.
Till then,
Jean
October 2nd, 2010 at 7:36 am
@used tires: I don’t think a fork would work as well for checking readiness. The dough would slide off the metal too easily. The toothpick provides a bit of friction to catch the uncooked bits.
October 13th, 2010 at 7:36 am
I agree baking can be hard. Even my wife has trouble following a recipe book because of all the difference measurement sizes and types.
- Robert
October 19th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
I think you had a lot of fun baking those cookies. They look great and I bet they taste good too.
September 16th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
try baking muffins then! super easy and fills ur tummy anyway :) even a noob like me can get it right on my 1st try hehe