looking for crunchy cookies! help!
I am looking for recipes for gingersnaps, oatmeal, and chocolate chip cookies that are CRUNCHY (very crunchy throughout the whole cookie, not crunchy and chewy).
From what I've read you should use all shortening, not use brown sugar (because brown sugar causes baked goods to become more moist) and that supposedly you should bake at a lower temperature for longer (by 'low' I mean 300 or 325 degrees F)
Unfortunately all the cookie recipes I am finding for chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal cookies (these are three different kinds of cookies, three separate recipes, just clarifying) that say they're crunchy are calling for butter and brown sugar.
I still want to use a little butter, for the taste not the texture. But what is the ratio of shortening to butter I should use that will yield a very crunchy cookie?
Making peanut butter cookies that are extra crunchy in the middle might be more of a challenge than the others, because peanut butter itself is oily; anything that has a lot of peanut butter in it usually turns out kind of "squishy".
However...
I am nearly 100% sure that someone has done this before. I encourage you to search for their recipe, the one where they have already solved the crunchy problem, instead of taking a recipe for soft cookies and trying to "fix" it. Of course you could take the wrong recipe and "fix" it, but usually something unexpected happens to make it fail, even when you think you're doing the right "fixes". Skip all that nonsense - find the recipe that has already worked.
Edited to add: Here's a link to one for chocolate chip cookies that claims to be crunchy - I've never made it so I can't swear to it.
kitchenmagpie.com: crispy crunchy chocolate-chip cookies
once to bake the cookie. Then again when cooled, bake again at very low temp to dry the cookies. The thinner they are the faster they dry out.
Just a random note, that maybe one other reason for using shortening is how quickly butter turns brown and how much slower shortening is to burn. Some crispy cookies are rolled very thin so that they taste and feel like "brown crispy edge" all the way through.
Nana’s Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 ½ cup oatmeal
½ cup chopped pecans
They will look underbaked but let them cool and they will be fine. These stay crunchy in a cookie jar.
By the way, this is my mil’s recipe. It took us a long time to retrieve it from a family member. ?