Jacques Torres Chocolate Chip Cookies - Post Freezing Baking Issue. SO bready!
Made the dough in December, rested for 36 hours, baked off a few to test... Excellent! Spread out, chewy, right chew to crispy outside balance. At 48 hours, froze remaining dough into individual balls wrapped in plastic wrap.
Had people over last night, so I thought to bake off cookies. Multiple types including this one. Turned out the opposite from previous bake : bready, no chew at all. Tried 1. baking straight from the freezer 2. completely defrosted and softened on counter top 3. defrosted in fridge, but still hard.
All three turned out, technically, well baked - golden brown edges, lightly golden brown bottoms, out of the oven still looking underdone. After cooling for a bit though... just SO bready. Not a single bit of chew. They also did not spread out, and instead puffed up.
Is this a over resting fresh raw dough issue (48 hours versus 36 hours, even though the recipe says 72 hours is fine), a baking issue, or a freezing issue? For other reference - the other cookies I baked yesterday, that were also previously frozen raw, baked off with minimal to no issues as if they were fresh dough. I've heard other people have had excellent success with this cookie being frozen, but then I read a comment by David Leite who also helped popularize Jacques Torres' recipe, and he said he did not care for the texture of the cookie once frozen and then baked.
8 Comments
Without seeing the recipe/ratio, I'd say a few things - it's best to store frozen cookie dough in a "tupperware" of some sort. At home I use glass because it keeps in the most moisture, and keeps out the most freezer smells, and freezer burn issues diminish.
Home freezers can be tricky. They fluctuate in temperature quite a bit. And, yes, not all doughs like the freezer. Doughs that love the freezer, tend to be high in butter. I have never felt that chocolate chip cookies need to live in the freezer, they do just fine staying put in the fridge.
It sounds like the flour in the dough just kept hydrating itself, drying the final product too much.
If you like chew, make these changes to the "Tollhouse" recipe: use dark brown sugar instead of light brown. Cane sugar is better than beet sugar. If you want them really really chewy, substitute 1/2 of the white sugar in the recipe with more dk. brown. Make sure your baking soda is fresh, and sift it into dries. It only needs to rest 24hours, but baking them straight is never a bad idea either..
I agree, I think the dough hydrated itself too much, and so I don't think it'll bake up the way it did when it was fresh. :( Oh well, lesson learned.
Re: plastic wrap - I wrapped the cookies in plastic wrap when I was aging the dough in the fridge, since the dough itself was too hard to scoop when out of the fridge. After looking through the comments of both the Food52 and David Leite recipe, I saw people had success by individually wrapping the cookies. So then after, I stored them in a freezer bag. Not sure if that makes any difference in what you're suggesting though.
Thanks, I really appreciate your feedback! I think I'm going to stick with buying the cookies straight from the Jacques Torres shop from now on.