Icebox Cookie Cutting - How to keep them from crumbling/cracking?
I just made the world peace chocolate cookie recipe. I like the texture of those log-rolled cookies that you freeze or refrigerate before slicing and baking, but they always break apart when I'm slicing them (not just this recipe, although this one does warn you that they crumble). Also, they don't rise much, and so they keep the shape they had from the log, which is not usually very pretty when they are hand-rolled and not from an extruder. Any advice on keeping them from crumbling and keeping them looking nice? Using the crumbs to press into a cookie results in a very different texture, almost like gooey raw cookie dough instead of sandy. Is freezing and slicing better than refrigerating and slicing?
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6 Comments
Here's what I had to say:
I read all the comments before I made the cookies, so I wasn't surprised when I mixed them up and had a pile of crumbs. I resisted the urge to use more butter or some liquid. Instead, I gathered up the piles into plastic wrap, did what I could to form logs, and put them in the refrigerator. The next day, I gingerly sliced them with a very thin serrated knife (a tomato knife). I managed to keep a lot of them pretty much together, but there were still a lot of pieces, which I did my best to reform into slices. The upshot? They looked just like the picture in the recipe, and even more importantly, they were delicious! I guess that's where the "genius" comes in.
You are right that firmly pressing crumbs together makes for a different cookie. But gently pushing the pieces together works surprisingly well. Others added more fat, and there was also some discussion about various brands of cocoa powder--I disagreed with that discussion, as I had in fact used one of the recommended brands.
I also noticed the reduction of the brown sugar (my copy shows 180g instead of 120g) and I baked by weight so perhaps that affected it.
Ones that simply cracked in halves or thirds were easy to push together but I ended up w/ a mound of literal crumbs that equated to at least 6 cookies (double batch).
I will keep the serrated knife idea in mind; that seems ideal for these with the added challenge of keeping the chocolate chips in the cookie.
I posted the question after making the WP cookies, but I've had this problem with some other cookies of the same type, so I figure it's just the nature of the dough and I'm really just looking for some tweaks or hacks (like the rice) to make it easier to work with.