Last Week's Cooking

So last week before I went out of town, there were 2 more recipes that I tried.
Here's how it went.

Huge Cookies!


Yote wanted cookies, so I decided to make him some. I used real vanilla not imitation vanilla extract for these, and I think it made a HUGE difference. They really do taste a lot like bakery cookies, and I found that storing them in a tight container they didn't get too hard. If I had put a piece of bread in there to keep them moister that would have worked too. The only downside here is how HUGE the cookies are (Soda can included for reference). For the record, the dough if you aren't terrified of the raw egg in it, is absolutely the best.


It may be my (crappy cheap) oven, but contrary to the reviewer's comments about needing to shorten the cooking time, I needed to lengthen it by several minutes.

SparkleFox's Rating 5/5
Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie From All Recipes.com

Greek Restaurant Whole Wheat Bread
Unfortunately no photo again. I have to get better than that.

I was fairly disappointed really. I used non-fast acting yeast and converted the times per the books instructions, and I also note I don't use parchment paper but silicon baking liners.

Problems:
1. Even cutting the time to the "low" end of the conversion, I let the bread rise much too far on the first rise, so it came out very big, but a little too dense and flat in the end as the second rise didn't go as far. The crumb wasn't bad otherwise.
2. The bread was fairly bitter. That may be how wheat is supposed to be, but I was already disappointed in the density so this did not make me any happier.

I am considering trying this one again, adjusting my rise times, as #1 may have caused #2. I may also need to make a slightly firmer dough for the spreading vs rising on the 2nd rise.

Overall I'm not sure this recipe is really worth a second try for the bread itself, but I do think I will just for the learning.

SparkleFox's Rating 2/5
This one came from A Passion for Baking by Marcy Goldman.

No book rating yet, this is the only one I've tried. I will say, I have never seen a book so exacting in it's instructions of how whatever must be done "just so".