Sam and Jack Shipper Lounge

[mad_gater]

I'm guessing that the vanilla essence likely doesn't have any sugar in it.....if I'm correct I'm guessing that what you guys call vanilla essence is probably vanilla extract (which is a very common baking ingredient around here in the States, among other extracts like orange, almond, banana, etc.)....so if you were substituting vanilla sugar that was probably too much sugar and that's probably why your cookies were too sweet

and this is why we in the States have volume measurements instead of weight measurements

cuz if you doubled the recipe for the dough but failed to double things like baking powder and salt (which is necessary for activating the baking powder, a leavening agent) it means you didn't have enough leavening agent in the dough and that would give you a flatter baked good than you would normally like

as for them being on the greasy side....that might be about right as I do remember Subway's cookies being kinda greasy

[fems]

Thanks, Amara! I'll get back to you on the suggestions you made but I'm gonna take a shower first (and maybe head straight to bed after, or reply first), but here's the American recipe with muffin mix (I used blue berry instead of raspberry since that's not available in my country). I will have to translate the other ones for comparison.

The butter being too warm is possible though, since I left it out of the fridge for a couple of hours and even went to do some groceries in the middle of making the wannabe Nutella cookies (hmm, I wonder if that had any influence on how they turned out?). Oh and the American and Nutella ones both had to go in the fridge for a bit, which turned out to be several hours before I got to finish them.

[mad_gater]

Not sure, but there is something going around. I'm sick of being sick...I spent most of last weekend in bed because of this. Unfortunately, this means my hubby is going to have to take my daughter where she needs to go this weekend and I'll probably have to skip my niece's 1st birthday party tomorrow.

and guilt him into making you a replacement batch of blue Jell-O

*passes you some ginger ale to help settle your stomach*

[Amara D'Angeli]

Just make 'em be in English for me, I'm cool with metric.

[fems]

Just make 'em be in English for me, I'm cool with metric.

Excellent!

Well, you've already got the American cookies I tried to make, so here are the recipes for the (other) Subway cookies and the wannabe Nutella cookies (spoilered for those not interested in my baking adventures).

Subway cookies (I used twice the amounts to get enough dough to make 3 cookie variations):

Spoiler:

Ingredients
• 112 gram unsalted softened butter
• 50 gram sugar (from sugar beet)
• 140 gram light (!) brown sugar
• 1 medium egg
• 1,25 teaspoon vanilla-essence (I used 2x8 grams of vanilla sugar here)
• 100 gram all-purpose flour
• 60 gram wheat flour (the cheap kind due to its gluten or proteins or something)
• 0,25 teaspoon salt
• 0,25 teaspoon baking soda
• 0,25 teaspoon baking powder (the Dutch kind)

Depending on the sort of cookies you want:
• half a bag of brown M&Ms or
• 90 gram white chocolate + ca 65 gram macadamias or
• 125 gram chocolate chips white/brown/dark or
• 75 gram oatmeal en 75 gram raisins

Preparation:
1. Preheat the oven at 175/350 degrees.
2. Cut the butter into pieces, add sugars, egg and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and mix (with dough hooks*) until smooth.
3. Use a different bowl to mix the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder with a whisk.
4. Prep your cookie-determining ingredient (i.e. chop chocolate and nuts) and place baking paper on your oven plate.
5. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ones until it's a sticky cookie dough.
6. Add the chosen cookie-determining ingredient(s) and mix it.
7. Make little balls of dough the size of a golf ball and place these with enough space on the plate (cookies will get a diameter of about 10 cm).
8. Put the plate in the middle (center?) of the oven and bake for about 10 minutes, until the cookies are golden brown. If the edges get too hard you can turn off the oven but keep the cookies inside with the door open until the cookies are done. They will still be very soft but they'll get firmed once they're cooled off.
9. Let the cookies cool down and harden on the plate (outside of the oven) and move them to cool off on a rack when they're ready. You can continue baking the rest of the dough or put it in the freezer (just make sure to let them thaw for at least 60 minutes before baking next time).

* I used my new&fabulous kitchen mixer, so I used its paddle instead of the dough hooks of a handmixer.

Wannabe Nutella cookies

Spoiler:

Ingredients:
• 112 g butter (I assumed it had to be unsalted)
• 100 g dark brown sugar
• 75 g light brown sugar
• 0,5 teaspoon vanilla extract (again, I used 8 grams of vanilla sugar)
• 1 egg
• 175 g cheap flour, no wheat or all-purpose (again, I used cheap wheat flour)
• ? teaspoon salt
• 0,5 teaspoon baking soda
• 0,5 teaspoon baking powder (I assumed it had to be the Dutch kind, since the recipe is from the same person as the one above)
• 125 g chocolate chips or chocolate bar
• 75 g hazelnuts, halved

Preparations:
1. Mix the butter and sugar
2. Optional: roast the hazelnuts if you prefer (I didn't; my hazelnuts refused to take off their coats in spite of my attempts, so I went to the store to buy coatless ones, and I was gone for 30-60 minutes after which I resumed the recipe).
3. Add vanilla and the egg to the butter/sugar mix.
4. Mix the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder in a second bowl
5. Chop the hazelnuts into pieces and weigh the chocolate chips.
6. Add the dry ingredients from the second bowl to the first and mix until all the flour has been absorbed (?).
7. Add the chocolate chips and hazelnuts.
8. Place the dough on some foil and wrap it up like a sausage with a diameter of about 5 cm. Place it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up (it was there for a few hours, since I made dinner etc first).
9. Preheat the oven at 180/350 degrees and add some baking paper to your plate.
10. Take the dough from the fridge and roll it into better shape if necessary, before cutting slices of about 1 cm thick for normal-sized cookies or 2.5 cm for kingsize cookies. You can put them (wrapped up) in the freezer to bake at a later date (after thawing them) if you want.
11. Put the slices of dough onto the plate and bake them in 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Make sure to let them cool off before transferring them to a cooling rack.

By the way, I made the American cookies first because I knew it would take the longest (2 hours in fridge), then the wannabe Nutella ones and lastly the fake Subway cookies - I used half a pack of butter for the first two which I then put back into the fridge and grabbed a new one (wasn't enough left of the other one) from the fridge for the Subway cookies and I did microwave it for 30 seconds because it wasn't soft(ened).

I guess I just always pick the (American) recipes that use baking soda+baking powder, then! Oh and in case it matters, I used a 'block'/pack of (Dutch) cream cheese for the American cookies rather than from a cup and took it out of the fridge for an hour or so before I started. I'd read elsewhere that the softer one in the cup could cause the cookies to spread too much.

The chocolate chips (dark and white) I used were Belgian chocolate of... well, it has the cacao percentage on them but they're downstairs in the kitchen and my two cats are (supposed to be) asleep there so I can't check right now. I did use a (Dutch) white chocolate bar for macadamia cookies and also added a (Dutch) milk bar to the chocolate chips cookies, but I have no idea how different they are compared to American chocolate bars other than that they taste differently. I don't know if there's a difference in M&Ms in our countries...

I know the cookies are often a bit greasy, both at the Subway and for other American chocolate chip cookies I've made (from one of those bags where you only have to add butter, I think, or maybe an egg too) but these were greasier than that. The other ones I made didn't leave traces of grease on my hands, although they did leave a light(er) mark on the baking paper. You're saying I could cut out a third of the butter and replace it with an egg white?

I don't have cream of tartar but if necessary, I believe I can get my hands on it after a little excursion around the shops. I managed to find everything else (except for raspberry muffin mix, but I've asked an American import website if they can stock it and they'll get back to me about whether their supplier can get it) and I know the Dutch word for it, so it shouldn't be too hard... *knocks on wood*


ETA:
Gee, that took way longer than I thought. Well, I'm really off to bed now! See you on Valenship!

[Amara D'Angeli]

Okay, for your subway cookies, firstly, knock your temp down to 170, that'll help them retain some body as they bake. The ratio of butter to flour looks okay, but add another 25 grams of flour (either AP or whole wheat - it won't matter) for good measure. If you're at elevation, at a teaspoon of water for every 1000 feet. Cut out the vanilla sugar. If you can't do vanilla extract then just skip it all together - that's what's making them extra sweet. If you need a little punch of flavor, you can replace the vanilla with any other liqueur or liquor and be fine. Dollars to doughnuts, those things will solve your flat cookie issue. But practice is fun, too.

For the Nutella cookies, that recipe looks pretty solid. Lower you cooking temp by 10 degrees and see what happens.

You can try the butter/egg white trick on either if they're too greasy. Also, if you're feeling froggy, you can replace half the butter with applesauce (or mashed banana) but your cookies won't get quite as crisp.

[IamDKScully]

The Valenship Thread is now OPEN!


By neverendingimagination

Stop on by and join the FUN!

[brendini]

My Valentine's/income tax present to myself is a laptop cart for my room. I've got it all put together, now I just need to continue working on unpacking my room lol

[fems]

Okay, for your subway cookies, firstly, knock your temp down to 170, that'll help them retain some body as they bake. The ratio of butter to flour looks okay, but add another 25 grams of flour (either AP or whole wheat - it won't matter) for good measure. If you're at elevation, at a teaspoon of water for every 1000 feet. Cut out the vanilla sugar. If you can't do vanilla extract then just skip it all together - that's what's making them extra sweet. If you need a little punch of flavor, you can replace the vanilla with any other liqueur or liquor and be fine. Dollars to doughnuts, those things will solve your flat cookie issue. But practice is fun, too.

For the Nutella cookies, that recipe looks pretty solid. Lower you cooking temp by 10 degrees and see what happens.

You can try the butter/egg white trick on either if they're too greasy. Also, if you're feeling froggy, you can replace half the butter with applesauce (or mashed banana) but your cookies won't get quite as crisp.

Thanks, Amara! I've added your notes to my recipe, but I'm afraid lowering the oven temperature is gonna be tricky since it goes in steps of 25 degrees. I've asked for an oven thermometer for my birthday to double-check the actual temperature (for all I know it's slightly higher/lower than what the oven claims) and because I sometimes feel like maybe I'm preheating too long/short, so perhaps that'll help - if I get it.

I'm not at elevation, just barely 2 meters above sea level!

The Nutella cookies are pretty good qua shape and thickness (although perhaps a tad too hard), so I shall see about lowering the oven temp or maybe baking the last two minutes or so with the door open as suggested by someone on the blog where I've got the recipe from.

I've used the replace an egg by half a banana for bread and quiche and it works quite well, in my experience but I've just bought a new box of eggs so I think I'll stick with eggs next time I bake them. But if they are still too greasy despite your other tips, then I might just try the butter/egg-white trick or indeed replace it with banana (I don't like applesauce).

Do you have a suggestion for the American cookie recipe I shared too? They had spread more than the one from the link and are flatter - they're also a bit sickeningly sweet if you eat more than one, so I figured maybe less sugar. They appeared better in the oven when I checked but I left them in for another minute and a half (they were with the Nutella cookies) because they weren't very golden brown yet but after they'd cooled down it seemed they were flatter than before. Perhaps less butter-flavor shortening? It said 2 tablespoons and according to a conversion-thingy I used that's 30 grams (our spoons are different sizes too), but perhaps that was too much? Perhaps I mixed it for too long too, since her dough seems firmer than mine. It didn't say how long to mix so I just had to guess.

Oh, and another thing I forgot to mention last night was that the American cookie mix was still very soft despite being in the fridge for >4 hours (it only needed 2) and I had to spoon it out of the alu foil I had used (the tip from the Nutella cookies which I figured might be useful here too) whereas the Nutella dough had to be cut with a knife after less time in the fridge.

I've put the rest of the dough from all the cookies in the freezer and will probably bake them on Monday, but this was all a test run for my birthday at the end of the month so I'm really pleased I decided to try out the recipes now instead of waiting until then and be disappointed! I really appreciate all your help, Amara. Thanks. I'd green you if I could. SJ_green.gif

Oh and I read this in the comments of the American recipe, so I might try those suggestions too:

Spoiler:

"After reading several of the post stating that their cookies were not working out, I took several of your suggestions and altered the recipe alittle. They turned out great! Instead of 1 stick of butter, I used 1/2 a stick of butter and a 1/4 cup regular shortening. I only used one egg instead of two. and I left out the 2 Tbs. of butter flavored shortening. You will need to mixing bowls. In the first bowl, I mixed the butter, shortening, brown sugar until fluffy. Then I added the cream cheese and mixed well. Next, I added the egg but I mixed it in by hand. In the 2nd bowl, I sifted both boxes of Jiffy mix. I added the Jiffy mix to the wet ingredients, half at a time and mixing by hand. Then I hand mixed in the chocolate chips. I refrigerated over night, then baked in the oven at 325 degrees. They turned out perfect and are not cakey but chewy. They were soft but not so soft that they fell apart. Good luck! I hope it works for you as well as it did for me."

[Amara D'Angeli]

Is your oven in C or F? (I'd assumed C which means a variance of 10 degrees but that's a 25 degree variance in F. We're looking for 170/325.) Also, I'd give the oven a good 20 minutes to come up to temp if it has some age on it. Some will still come up reliably in 5-10, but as they get older sometimes it'll take that full 20.

As far as the American recipe, those fixes from the commenter on the thread look great. I wouldn't go any heavier on the shortening to butter ratio as the shortening will make the cookies extra crispy without the help of the butter.

As far as the sweetness, between the muffin mix and the sugar, you're going to have that. Reducing the sugar could work but may impact the texture. I'd start by reducing to 1/3 of a cup of sugar and seeing what happens.

Also, FWIW, Jiffy mix is a dime a dozen around here. There's also a company called Martha White that makes those mixes. I don't recall the Raspberry off the top of my head (because I haven't used a Jiffy mix in years and even then I stuck to Corn Muffin), but if you like I can check the grocery store when I'm there Monday. I'll be happy to send some along.

[fems]

It's in Celsius, but I have one of those ovens whose settings just go per 25 degrees and normally that's not a big problem since most recipes use 175, 200, 225 or, less often, 250-300 degrees. It only seems to happen when I use American recipes and sometimes for bread, but those are from someone who adapts them from other recipes (often American ones) too and that's usually just 180 so I'll just go 175.

Thanks for the sugar suggestion and saying the commenter's idea sounds good. Before coming across this recipe I had no idea what shortening even was (and it took me 5 tokos/Asian supermarkets to find it - same for the Jiffy blueberry mix) so I'm not quite sure about how/when it should be used or what it even does exactly. I only bought the butter-flavor one since that was required and it's not like I'd use it for anything else (not to mention how expensive the stuff is), but do you think it matters whether I use the butter-flavor one instead of the regular shortening as the commenter suggested?

I've done a lot of googling (and asking around in those tokos and online import shops) for the raspberry variation, but it seems nearly impossible to get here. It's especially depressing to see the Jiffy website selling them (really cheaply too!) and having an online shop only for the US! There was one Amazon and/or Ebay thing I could have tried but it would have cost me over $25 just to get it delivered here (for one 7 pound box!)... I don't know if it would be any cheaper if you were to send it over? Because I would be eternally grateful if you could send me some.

It's a bit depressing to see how few muffin mixes we have here, even the regular brands only have normal and/or chocolate chip or caramel or something. I may have come across one or two strawberry ones but those just use flavoring, not pieces of dried fruit like the Jiffy mix. I saw that in some of the comments (of the recipe) people also used different berries and strawberry mixes etc which turned out great, but they don't seem to exist in my country. No wonder I used to bake my own muffins... I guess I could try that but it seems like a lot of work to make my own muffin mix to be able to make cookies! Besides, I think some of those mixes also required baking soda and some other things that I'm not sure would go well with the cookies if added to the dough... >.<

[Amara D'Angeli]

It would be very, very affordable to send you muffin mix. The stuff is insanely cheap here and we've got flat rate mailing boxes. So if you want 'em, let me know and PM me your mailing address. I can get them out as early as Monday if you'd like. (And if you find you need other American ingredients, let me know. If I'm going to send a box, I might as well send *everything* you need to make awesome cookies!)

The butter flavor shortening will be fine for your purposes. The flavor isn't super heavy, but it is a more chemical butter flavor due to being artificial. But for banking it'll do just fine.

[fems]

That's awesome, Amara! *does happy dance*

I'll take this weekend to brainstorm on anything else I might want. Do you happen to have a link to mailing rates so I can see what it would cost per weight and to have an estimate of how much it would cost me? I'd also have to check my bank to see if I have to do something special for the transfer due to the €/$ thing. Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you to send a giant box but I'd just like to have an idea of things!

I'll PM you tomorrow, if I don't forget.

[Amara D'Angeli]

It just really depends. I mean, Flat Rate is the best bang for you buck, but depending on the size of the box it can get upwards of $80 (which sort of defeats the purpose). It might be best to see what you want/need and then we can explore the shipping options. Here's the Postal Service. But I also have a commercial UPS account which is sometimes better, but impossible to price check without specific package and delivery info. So don't be intimidated. Make a list and we'll figure it out. Some things will be more economical to do this way (you know the little things that become crazy expensive if you want to try to order them due to minimum shipping costs). But the USPS for personal use won't even begin to compete with the commercial rates you can get when you order direct from companies.

Anyway, figure out what you want first then we'll figure out the best way to get it to you.

[fems]

Thanks!