Baking Lesson #1: Knowing When To Stop Mixing

In my experience, the single most frequent mistake people make in baking is stirring too much. So that's why I made it the first lesson in "Baking Like Me". Remember, this is only my way of doing things. There are many ways to a good cookie.

There are many different terms used that mean "mix it together" in one way or another. Mix, fold, cream, beat, whip, combine- to many people, these all mean the same thing: take a spoon or a beater to it. But each of these terms mean totally different things.

Fold and Combine require the least amount of stirring. The only difference between the two is the technique. To fold measns to reach to the bottom with your spoon and bring the bottom ingredients to the top. It is a very gentle and loose method. Combine is similar but it isn't as specific on how you combine the ingredients. The most important thing to remember is in both folding and combining, you have to STOP STIRRING as soon as possible. This means in most cases that there will still be flour or clumps of dry ingredients in the dough/batter. It'll be ok. I promise. Over mixing causes the dough to become tough. And who wants tough cookies?

Mixing is a general purpose term which basically means you want everything to be consistent but don't go crazy.

Beating, whipping, and creaming are at the upper end of the scale. Generally you beat eggs and batter to create a smooth, airy consistency. The quick strokes force lots of little air bubbles into the batter/eggs and make it fluffy. Whipping is generally for cream or creamy type things. Once again, you are adding air to the substance to make it fluffy. In the case of cream, you are also changing the texture to make it more firm- hence Whipped Cream.

Creaming is the mixing method that I didn't understand for the longest time. It usually applies to a sugar and a fat being mixed together. I used to think once they were combined, that was it. But when I learned to REALLY cream, that's when my cookies really improved. I learned to cream from Alton Brown. He's got some great things to say about all the mixing techniques in his second book, I'm Just Here For More Food. Basically, you want the sugar to cut holes in the butter. On a tiny scale, sugar is very sharp and butter is kind of globular. The sugar smushes and pokes holes in the butter globs and for some reason, it's a good thing. How do you tell when you've creamed? Well! I took pictures. As you cream, the mixture will become lighter in color and in appearance. It'll look, well, creamy. Basically, if I were the type to use a mixer, which I'm not, I would use a mixer for this because it really wears out my stirring arm. The fat and sugar will combine and then as you stir, you'll see the change in texture and color. It's almost impossible to over cream something so when in doubt, cream some more.


Here's what the batter looks like after stirring in the eggs and vanilla.


Here comes the really hard part. The part where you have to have the self control to STOP stirring. Before you add flour to a mixture, you can pretty much stir until the end of time and it won't hurt anything. But after you add the flour it's all different. Flour contains stuff called gluten. As far as baking is concerned, gluten holds the world together. That's why gluten free products are so difficult. If you want a yeast bread, you want the gluten to form a dense, elastic network. but for quick breads and cookies, that's bad. Tender baked goods do not have elastic gluten strands in them. Most people add the flour while their mixers are whirring away and don't stop the mixer until they can't see any more flour. By that time, you're halfway to a yeast dough. Here's what my chocolate chip cookie dough looks like before I add the chocolate chips. Keep in mind I'm going to have to stir more to integrate the chips. I try to get the flour about halfway integrated into the dough at this point. I have folded the flour in, by the way, being very gentle.



Then I fold in the chips, again, being very gentle. There's still flour showing when I'm done. I'm ok with that. You should be too. You'll see that the flour goes away during baking.



This post has already taken two days to write. So I'm going to stop here and put the actual recipe in another post. I also just realized I was planning to make a list of tools before I started recipes. Oops. Well, maybe I'll do that after the chocolate chip cookie lesson.