Trouble-shooting cookies
The holidays maybe over but my love of cookies goes on and on and on. Is there a better snack, reward, or late night snack than a cookie? Does life getting any better than a cup of hot cocoa with a crisp sugar cookie at a campfire after a day of hiking? But cookie making in an RV when camping can be a challenge. Here are some tips and tricks learned by the fail-or-success method and from friends, family, and the Amuse Bouche’s blog.
- Reduce cookies getting burnt bottoms by using an “insulator” on the bottom of your oven. Just slip an old cookie sheet on to the bottom of your oven.
- Cookies that appear to melt when baked are the result of too warm butter. Use butter that is soft but not heading into squishy.
- Cookies that puffs up nicely but collapses to flat disk while cooling means you have beaten too much air into the dough. To eliminate this problem mix by hand with a wooden spoon. Consider it your upper body workout for the day and treat yourself to a fresh-from-the-oven reward <G>.
When camping, use any cookies crumbs leftover in the bottom of your container as a topping to pudding for dessert.
- Cookies that are dry and crumbly are a sure sign of either too much flour or to little liquid. This is probably my most often experienced problem and is a factor of altitude. Usually, the only adjustment to the recipe I need to make is adding a tablespoon of water or as much water as a half an egg shell holds, solves the problem.
- If the dough for rolled cookies is too sticky, you have several options. You can let it set for a little while to see if the moist is better absorb by the flour, or chill the dough for an hour or so, or, if these don’t seem to work, gentle knead in a little more flour.
- If your “perfect” cookie gets hard and dry, put in an air-tight container with a slice or two apple. This is my personal favorite “trick” for a snack when hiking – sliced apple and some cookies were always a hit with my children.
- Don’t crowd the cookies. In my opinion, the best part of a cookie is the crisp edge that surrounds a soft center.
- Cookies freeze remarkable well. At home, I often stuff a plastic freezer bag with a dozen cookies for later. On the road, they are usually gone in short order.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 20th, 2012 at 4:00 am and is filed under camping, Recipe, recipe, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
