For all my talk about cooking, and supposed experience baking things, you’d think I would understand the basic principles by now. But I am still in the dark about the chemistry of baking, which is absolutely my own fault. I know I could—and should—learn how and why everything works like it does, but I keep putting it off for another day.

I used to work at a catering company, and I still remember one of the cooks talking with me one day about cooking and baking. She told me she likes to cook, but she really loves to bake, because anyone can cook—you just throw stuff together and it can turn out fine. But baking is a science, and it takes measurements. If you’re not careful, you can really mess stuff up. She said not just anyone can bake.

Now, I realize there are some crazy-complicated recipes out there that one would bring in to argue against her “anyone can cook” statement. But I think she meant that if you knew absolutely nothing about anything, cooking something blindly would probably turn out better than baking something blindly. After all, it’s not that complicated to fry a piece of chicken. But without a recipe, how many people would just luckily choose the right ingredients and amounts to bake up some pancakes? What she said made a lot of sense, and is honestly probably part of why I love the idea of baking so much.

But back to me not knowing the basics. What she was talking about is exactly what I don’t know. What exactly does the egg do in a batch of brownies? Or cookies? How about the butter or oil? What’s the difference between baking powder and baking soda? I mean, I know pancakes take the powder, and I think it helps them rise and get fluffy, but what about the soda? I do plan on figuring out all these things at some point, especially because understanding the purpose of each ingredient can help a baker make good decisions about what can be substituted for something else, or what can possibly be left out if you happen to not have a full pantry.

I especially need to figure out this whole baking soda thing, because let me tell you, cookies are just not the same without it. I was craving some chocolate chip cookies the other night, and I had a half a bag of chocolate chips left from something I made over Christmas, I think. So I figured I could whip up a little half-batch without spending any more money, and be satisfied. But I couldn’t find a single recipe that did not call for baking soda, and I distinctly remember throwing my baking soda out while packing up because it just wouldn’t fit in the box I used to transport my food goods.

Well, what’s the big deal? It’s one little teaspoon of baking soda. It can’t possibly make that big of a difference. I was a little wrong, and a little right. Obviously, the soda has something to do with the consistency of your dough when baking. The mixed cookie dough seemed pretty normal to me—maybe just a little stickier than usual. I plopped it on my cookie sheet, expecting it to just ooze down into a nice, gooey cookie once baked, but after 6 minutes in the oven, it looked exactly the same. Didn’t ooze down one little iota. I guess that baking soda does have a purpose.

The cookies weren’t exactly bad; I mean, they were still sugar and chocolate, so I ate every last one (with a little help, and not all in one night!). But they were pretty weird. The little peaks of dough that stood up from being thrown off the spoon remained exactly as they were and cooked to be a little sharp. No one expects a chocolate chip cookie to be sharp. And in general, the cookies just tasted dense. So don’t leave out the baking soda (I have replenished my pantry’s supply). Here’s what you get:

Still edible, but not ideal

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Tags: baking, baking soda, cookies

This entry was posted on Monday, January 25th, 2010 at 7:46 am and is filed under Mediocre Mondays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.