It has been a while since my last Will it press?! experiment. Today I attempted to make choc-chip cookies using my go-to recipe, the Serious Eats choc-chip cookie recipe, which I prepared last night.
I took 10 balls of dough to the office, and I was going to bake them in the morning before everyone arrived, but I wanted to chill them a bit in the fridge first, and then got caught up with other stuff at work.
My first attempt involved putting two balls of dough on some baking paper (again, to avoid making a mess on the sandwich press), and pressed down.
As you can see above, in today's photo, the balls got pushed to the end of the press and started to squeeze out.
I shuffled the paper a bit to move the dough back into the centre, and kept cooking for a total of 2 minutes.
I stopped because I started to smell a burning smell...
That was scrapped as a disaster. I think it burnt because it was too flat, and the part of the sandwich press that stops it from going completely flat is broken.
My next attempt involved using a knife to hold the press open. I also wrapped the dough a bit better to stop it spilling out the sides.
Cooked for 3 minutes.
Less of a disaster. It didn't look like cookie, and it was more on the crunchy side, but the taste was good. Jal said they tasted like Pods.
I also discovered at this point that the smell of cookies really gets around the office, and I had people walking into the kitchen just to see where the smell was coming from. I had my boss, his boss and his boss all looking at my experiment. Yeah.... so much for trying to hide my weirdness from my new team...
My last sandwich press experiment had me holding the lid up manually.
This resulted in much thicker cookies, which had a softer, cake-like texture. I cooked them for 4 minutes, as they weren't really cooked before then, but they were really soft.
They smelled amazing though. A couple of people tried them, and wanted more!
Because MrBrioche mentioned started a YouTube channel called Cooking at Work with Fodder, where we'd cook things using the sandwich press and the microwave, I thought I'd give that a shot.
1 minute and 18 seconds later, I smelled that burnt smell again, opened the microwave door, and immediately closed it again, to prevent the fire alarm from going off.
It looks nice, but is actually burnt in the middle, because I forgot that chocolate doesn't like being in the microwave for more than a minute, and I guess choc-chips would be able to handle even less time than that.
This time, rather than having people wander in asking about the lovely smell, I had people wandering in asking whether it was time to evacuate the building. Fortunately, I managed to contain the smell of smoke in the microwave, and slowly aired it out over a period of time, so the fire alarm didn't go off.
I tried again at home, this time doing the dough for 30 seconds,
then letting it cook for 30 seconds, then microwaving for another 30.
There was still a bit of a burnt smell, but a lot less. It wasn't bad, but there was a burnt patch on one side, and one side was barely cooked.
I really wouldn't recommend microwaving cookie dough.
And that was today's experiment! Will choc-chip cookie dough press? Yes - but only if you have something to keep the lid from closing completely, because otherwise you get flat, crunchy cookie bark. I guess if you prefer that kind of cookie, then it works well. Just watch out for it getting burnt!
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