Yahoo Lifestyle The Clever Chef-Approved Trick for Making Soft and Crispy Cookies
Some foods—like pancakes—shouldn’t be pressed down, while others, such as a gooey grilled cheese, could actually benefit from a little extra pressure. It sounds pretty sacrilege to press down on perfectly baked cookies straight out of the oven but it turns out, doing so may actually be the difference between a good cookie and great one.
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What is a Smash Cookie?
Baking enthusiasts will likely already be familiar with Sarah Kieffer’s iconic pan-banging Giant Crinkled Chocolate Chip Cookies. With their chewy interior and crisp edges, there's not a more perfect cookie out there. The smash cookie is aiming for a similar texture using a different method.
The smash cookie is from New York Times bestselling author and Emmy-nominated TV host, Zoë François. While the original chocolate chip cookie recipe is from her book Zoë Bakes Cookies, the folks at King Arthur Flour also took notice of this genius technique and applied it to a different recipe.
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Why You Should Be Smashing Your Cookies
François says in her book that she was inspired by the famous Levain Bakery cookie to create "a big, thick, chocolaty pile of deliciousness." Her recipe has you mix together dough balls that have the consistency of a crumb topping that gets chilled in the fridge before smashing them with a spatula when they come out of the oven. "This way the inside stays soft, but the outside has a toffee-like flavor," she writes.
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This technique caught the attention of King Arthur Baking’s Test Kitchen Director Sarah Jampel, who ended up creating another version based on François's, the gigantic Oatmeal-Date Smash Cookies. In the King Arthur recipe, the cookies are actually smashed twice so they achieve that dense, slightly underbaked inside and crackly outside. What could be better?
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How to Smash Your Cookies
Make your favorite cookie recipe, portion out the dough balls and let them chill—in François' recipe, she recommends 1 hour or up to 36 hours. Bake the cookies, then, while the cookies are still hot, take a metal spatula and smash them down to 1-inch thick discs. Let the cookies cool for at least 5 minutes before enjoying.
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Tips for Smashing Your Cookies
Use a scale. François says that no matter which cookie recipe you choose to smash cookies, weighing your ingredients is key. "I am a big fan of the baking scale. All of my recipes are in weights," she says. "I am trying to get people excited about using a scale, so their baking is more consistent from one batch to the next."
Chill your cookie dough. She also notes that making sure you chill the dough thoroughly (a step most people skip) is important for getting the magical smashed texture. "With [smashed cookies] it is essential to chill the dough thoroughly or the cookies will spread when you are baking and there won't be anything to smash," she says. "The smashing is what gives these cookies the perfect ratio of crunch on the outside and a gooey center."
Brown sugar is key. François says that using brown sugar gives the cookies a soft, chewy texture thanks to its higher moisture content. We love a baking science moment!
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