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..-. ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ .:4.·t:::::::~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~.~ ~ Chocolate-chip cookies What will it be? Crunchy or chewy? Out of the package or fresh from a fancy shop? We tested all types. """""1 .."'))= » ~{ :::::::::::: 0' a good many yea". th, packaged chocolate-chip :::::::: cookie served as a sort of confectionary poker chip that enlivened the lunchbox or provided a mildly calorific fix after school. Those were cookies for the masses, not particularly expensive and not particularly voluptuous. As a youngster's belly-buster or as decor for a brown-bag lunch, however, they sold nicely. People who wanted a softer, sweeter, more chocolaty treat baked their own, most likely following the recipe immortalized on the Nestle chocolate-chip package. That cookie was first devised by a woman named Ruth Wakefield in 1931, when she chopped a Nestle candy bar into some cookie dough. That original cookie perhaps also qua1ifies as the first "gourmet" chocolate-chip cookie. Today, the gourmet cookie-whether homemade, served up at a specialized cookie boutique, or fresh-baked at the supermarket-commands most of the attention and much of the money to be made in cookies. Wally Amos, literally now a Famous Amos, may have been the first to spot the possibilities of designer baked goods. His cookies, initially brought to market about 10 years ago, are certainly among the most conspicuous of the rich new wares. These days, they're sold both in Famous Amos specialty shops and in supermarkets. But competitors have come crowding in. There's Unknown Jerome. There are ~{{( r> Mrs. Fields and David's, whose specialty cookies are retailed directly from minibakery boutiques. There are cookie bakeries being built into supermarkets. And there's a rapidly filling roster of other specialty cookie companies: The Original Great American Cookie Co., It all began at the Toll House in J93J. Cooky Wooky, Le Dernier Chip, and so on. Even individual bake shops are joining the trendy parade, often with twists of their own. New York's Sweet Victory, for instance, is marketing chocolate-chip cookies touted as lower than most in calories, cholesterol, and fat. Curiously, the rise of the specialized cookie boutique and its rich fare (indeed, a trend toward all sorts of premiumpriced sweets) coincides with a heightened concern for fitness and nutrition. Food Do-it-yourself Duncan Hines mix topped the Ratings, with specialty-chain Mrs. Fiilds dose behind. Darid's and Famous AmOS didn't fare quite as w""-- magazines report that desserts and nutrition are their readers' two favorite topics. People are eating fewer desserts than before-but when they do indulge, they apparently go whole-hog. Some deep thinkers see a lesson in all this. They trace the popularity of gustatory splurges to an era of high prices and diminishing expectations. The rich dessert, then, is the Yuppie's consolation in a world of contracting opportunities. Fifty cents or so may be a fancy price for a single cookie, but it's still a pretty smallcaliber extravagance. And you can afford to indulge your waistline if you don't do it too often. Still, at those prices it's evident that the fancy cookie is a grown-up's morsel, not a kid's ·snack. Such currents have not escaped the attention of mass cookie marketers. Nor has the success of many pricey haute cuisine cookie brands. The dominance of the leading mass bakers-Nabisco, Keebler, and Sunshine-has come under attack by two come-latelies in the cookie business, Procter & Gamble and FritoLay. Both newcomers sell supermarket versions of the boutique chocolate-chip cookie: packaged, but as rich and chewy as skill and economics allow. Frito-Lay entered the cookie market when it purchased Grandma's, a regional food outfit. Of the 24 items in Grandma's line, seven are chocolate-chip cookies in one form or another. Procter & Gamble's entries in the cookie wars are readymade and bake-'em-yourself cookies sold ;; ! g' 8 }; ., i ;; ~ under the Duncan Hines label. Nabisco-, for its part, has retaliated with its own moist and chewy entries-Almost Home - and Chewy Chips Ahoy. As the bakers jockey for position, shoppers face a lot of choices. Should it be a whole package of cookies for 69 cents, or Plain, the cookies enl. the lunchbox. a single cookie for 50 cents? Do the mass bakers' new "chewy" entries provide anything like boutique-cookie quality? And just how good are the products of those specialty cookie shops? CU decided to find out. Of the 140-odd varieties of chocolate-chip cookies we found on supermarket shelves, we selected more than two dozen popular brands for testing and tasting. We also bought several cookie mixes. And we evaluated four boutique or fresh-baked varieties: Mrs. Fields, Grand Union, David's, and Famous Amos. But first, we had to find a recipe to test them all against. A movable feast A slog through a stack of cookbooks turned up no outstanding recipes, as we discovered when we tried them out. Not even the classic recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate-chip package produced outstanding results: We had two bakers try it repeatedly and got different, not quite satisfactory, results each time. bought cookies, some still oven-warm, were scored on the spot. We then modified the Nestle recipe. We tinkered and tasted, feeding the results to staffers ar1d sensory consultants and soliciting their reactions. Mter much trial and error, we found a satisfactory combination of baking times, temperatures, and mixing procedures. At that point, our taste consultants agreed that the cookie merited an excellent rating across the board. We dubbed our test standard The Practically Perfect Cookie; the recipe is on page 72. Our Practically Perfect Cookie provides an intense jolt of chocolate aroma and flavor, with just a hint of vanilla and the tastes and smells of milk and butter. The chips have the moderate "cocoa bitterness" typical of true chocolate, combined with come-hither tenderness. They melt with silky smoothness. The cookie smacks moderately of sweetness and caramel, with traces of salt, vanilla, and dairy flavors. It provides a double texture-a crisp edge, with a moderately firm, chewy, center-and leaves a faint residual mouthcoating after each bite. In a series of tastings, our sensory consultants compared the commercial products with our standard cookie. Typically, the taste experts worked in a lab. But testing the boutique cookies required a special effort. Those cookies are usually the product of on-the-spot baking, the spot being a specialty shop or a special corner of a supermarket. Several of the companies are fiercely protective of their product's freshness and assure customers that they will sell no cookie after its time. Since that time is reportedly as short as two hoUrs, we faced a special problem: how to sample the cookies as close to their time of baking as possible while maintaining our anonymity. We ended up loading a station wagon with scoresheets, pencils, clipboards, water containers, cups, napkins, and our freshly baked cookies-and setting off on a tasting safari to shopping malls near CU. Newly The agony and the ecstasy Three brands were judged standouts in 'our quest for excellence: the bake-ityourself Duncan Hines mix, the Mrs. Fields boutique cookies, and the storebaked Grand Union cookies. While even those didn't match CU's own cookie in every attribute, they did come very close. And they excelled in the most important Qualities: total chocolate impact and chip texture. Two other boutique brands, David's and Famous Amos, shared the excellent chip textures of the top-rated three-and their excellent baked flavor as well. They even offered something extra in dairy flavor and aroma. But those two fell down in the impact of their chocolate. That's perhaps of particular interest with the David's cookies, with their highly touted cargo of bittersweet chocolate chunks. About two-thirds of the other brands were downrated for a lack of caramel and baked flavors. The Grandma's, for Fancy, the, are a grown-up's indulgence. instance, advertises that "old-fashioned baked-at-home taste" but ours had almost no baked flavor. They were also very slightly bitter and artificial-tasting. Several others styled "homemade" also lacked a baked flavor. Fanq meets plain: Nabisco caters to the taste for chewy, moist cooIries with Almost Home line. But our tasters pre the company's plainer Chips AllOy a slight" higher rating. ~..J 70 FEBRUARY 1985 o o e Q "'I(~------)o~ 8,tt" • Worse Chocolate-chip cookies Listed in order of estimated overall sensory quality, based primarily on strength of chocolate flavor and aroma, cookie and chip texture, and freedom from sensory defects. Prices are averages paid for the sizes noted. Product Product Duncan Hines (mix} ItJrs.FieIfIs (boutiquel Grand Union (boutique} Darifl's (boutique} $1 .52/18 8¢ '/2 3:1 'f8/to 0 0 0 F,O,U 9 .00/~ 22 2 0 0 0 0 F,O,W 5.95/16 37 l'/to 1.74/12 15 8f,o e e e e e 'e e e e e e e e e e e oe oe 0 a 1.67/12 14 '/2 0 0 1.59/13 12 1/2 0 0 3.00/7 Befty Crocker Bil Batcb (mix} 2.89/28 43 3/tO ., 10.; '12 Duncan Hines Pefllleridle Farm 1.06/5 21 '/to '/to Famous Amos 2.14/7 31 3/tO £1It.....n,,'s Nabisco Chips Ahoy Grand....'s RidJ '. CItewy Nabisco Chewy Chips Ahoy Keebler Chips DelII"e Nabisco Almost Home 1.75/12 15 '/10 1.62/12 N~ e F,O,U 4.95/16 Famous Amos (boutique} Cllips '" Ifore 0 0 0 0 14 1.69/13 13 '1.97/14 14 '/to 1.69/12 14 '/to '/to mPrices for mixes include cost of added ingredients. III Price is for 20 cookies. 0 "'0 0 0 e e e 0 0 0 0 0 oe oe 0 0 Sunshine Chiparoos Keebler Sott Batch Pillsbury (slice & bake} 13 8f,o 0 0 1.79/16 12 '/to 0 Archway Ice Box . 1.28/10 13 , 8/tO 0 Archway 1.59/16 10 '/to ~ lIotheI"s 1.96/18 11 '1'0 ~ ~ 0 F;a,U Keebler Rich 'n Chips 1.69/13 13 8/tO P,U Busy Baker Country Oren Chip Ifates 1.09/11'1.1 10 . '1.1 Kjeldsens 5.12/178/e 29 .• A,F,O,W A,F,O,X M,P,X L,M,N, P,X M,N,R,W M,N,a,V J,M,N, P,W ' Most samples had the fOlioWinR suitable attributes: • Slight dairy notes, vani la flavor and/or aroma, saltiness, mouthcoating . • Slight or moderate caramel flavor. • Moderate sweetness cocoa bitterness. • Moderately strong chocolate navor and/or aroma. Key to Comments A - More dairy aroma and flavor than most. B - Vanilla aroma too strong, a defect. C - Vanilla flavor too strong in chips, a defect. CONSUMER REPORTS 1.19/13 9 Lady Lee (Lucky} 0.79/12 7 Country Oren Ifrs. Wright's 1.69/18 9 (Safeway} 1.45/16 9 0 0 M,N,S,W Grand Unioll 0.99/18 6 oe oe oe A,M,N, a,v A&P 0.69/10 7 M,N,Q,W ~: ~fAcme, 0.97/18 5 M,N,a,V Daintee (Acme} 0.69/11 6 Ifurray 0.79/14 6 lID Contained no apparent chocolate chips. Sensory Characteristics o·e . M:N,R,W o e ~ F,S,U A,M,N , Q e e • a,u L,M,N, ~ o e R,V 1.51/12 D - Almost no chocolate aroma, a defect. E - Less chocolate flavor in chips than most. F-Excellent baked flavor. G - Sweetest cookie tested. H - Barely sweet enou~h for a cookie. 1- Noticeable vanillin avor, a defect. J - Slight artificial flavor, a defect. K - Slight ranCidity, a defect. L - Slight stale cookie navar, Ii defect. M -Almost no caramel flavor, a defect. N-Almost no baked flavor, a defect. O-Silky, syrup~ chip texture. P - Silky, soft c ip texture. '/to ~ ~ 0 0 M,N,S,X ~ M,S,X ~ ~ ~ ~ M,N,S,Y ~ ~ 0 0 '/'0 ~ ~ ~ O •• •• •• •• •• "'0 • • •• • •• B,C,I,M, N,S,X K,P,Y ~ 8f,o 0 0 0 A,E,M,N, S,Y D,E,J,M, N,S,x '1'0 0 0 E,G,M,N, S,X '/to 0 0 0 ~ E.L.M,N, S,V E,L,M,N, S,X OQ E,L,M,N, S,X 2/tO 0 '/'0 ~ lID E,L,M,N, T,X D,H,I,M, N,Y '/2 2f,o a - Smooth, soft chip texture. R - Smooth, firm chip texture. S - Noticeably rou!\lh, firm, or hard Chip texture . T -Gritty, waxy ChiPS, a defect. U - Crisp and chewy cookie. V - Soft and tender cookie. W-Soft and chewy cookie. X - Hard and crisp cookie. Y - Hard and brittle cookie. 71 Here and there, our tasters detected a very slight excessive bitterness or a mildly artificial taste. Two brands smacked of vanillin, a chemical extract of the vanilla bean. Six tasted slightly stale-including samples of the Famous Amos cookies bought in supermarkets. The Kjeldsens cookies tasted slightly rancid. A few others were a bit too assertive in vanilla flavor or aroma, or had gritty, waxy chips. The bottom-rated Murray seemed to contain no chips; instead, the cookies sported meager chocolate smears almost totally lacking in chocolate character. Nabisco recommends that you warm the Almost Home cookies in an oven for five minutes, or microwave them in paper for 35 to 45 seconds. Oven-heating did improve the Almost Homes--and cookies of several other brands, too. A zap in a microwave - oven, however, produced a tough, somewhat bitter cq.okie. Freshness is one of the selling points of the boutique cookies. The owner of David's, for instance, reportedly won't sell cookies that have aged as much as one day. The founder of Mrs. Fields, Debbi Fields, is said to insist that her cookies be still warm when sold. Packaged commercial cookies, of course, can't hope to guarantee that sort of consistent freshness. But a few do make a stab by putting an expiration date on the package. We took care to taste all cookies well within their labeled lifetime, if any. That's how if crumbles You'd better have fun eating that cookie, for its nutritional benefits are close to nil. The main yield of a cookie, of course, is calories: All (CU's, too) averaged close to 140 per ounce. Cookies are mainly carbohydrate, with slight to moderate amounts of fat and very little protein. The Practically Perfect Cookie Procedure 0 We wanted a cookie with a chewy interior, crunchy edges, and wellblended flavor. Above all, we wanted a cookie with a high overall chocolate impact to give a sensuous rush to the chocoholic. Mer much experimentation and perhaps a few cumulative inches added to staffers' waistlines, we created a cookie with all those assets. Our recipe makes 40 medium-sized cookies. Ingredients 21/4 cups flour 1 level teaspoon baking soda 1 level teaspoon salt 3/4 cup white sugar 3/4 cup dark-brown sugar, packed 2 sticks (1/2 lb.) sweet butter, at room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 large eggs 1 12-oz. package Nestle semisweet chocolate chips 72 True, there are minor differences between packaged supermarket cookies and boutique or homemade ones. The packaged sweets tend to use relatively inexpensive vegetable oils. Homemade or boutique cookies apparently use butter Preheat the oven to 375 F. 1. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. 2. Use a stand-type electric mixer to mix the two sugars briefly at low speed. Add the butter in small gobbets, mixing first at low speed and then at high. Beat the mix until it's pale, light, and very fluffy. 3. Add the vanilla at the mixer's lowest speed, then beat at high speed for a few seconds. Add the eggs, again at the lowest speed, switching to high speed for the final second or so. The eggs should be well beaten in, and the mix should look creamed, not curdled. 4. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, one-half cup at a time, mixing at low speed for about one minute, then at high speed for a few seconds. 5. Scrape down the bowl's sides with a spatula, add the chocolate chips, and mix at low speed for about 10 seconds. If need be, scrape the bowl's sides again and mix for a few more seconds. 6. Put tablespoonfuls of the mix on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until the cookies are pale golden brown (nine minutes in an electric oven, 10 to 11 minutes in a gas one). Remove and let them coolon a rack. Enjoy. There are now more fha" J40 rarieties. and have a lot more chips, making them slightly higher in saturated fats; they're also a bit higher in protein. All these cookies contain sodium, but the amounts are of interest mainly to people on a severely sodium-restricted diet. At 55 to 125 milligrams per ounce, most brands would yield quite a bit of sodium to someone who ate three or four cookies. The David's and the Famous Amos bought in supermarkets were low-. est in sodium. CU's own had 95 milligrams per ounce. Recommendations Quality cookies needn't cost-if you're prepared to bake your own. The ingredients for 40 of CU's excellent cookies will run you only $4 or so, or about 10 cents an ounce. With the Duncan Hines mix, excellence ran about 8 cents an ounce. If you don't feel like baking, you can munch Grand Union's fresh-baked cookies (for 22 cents an ounce) or Mrs. Fields' (31 cents). And there ends our roster of excellence. Despite their reputation (or promotion), the boutique-brand David's cookies were rated only very good. And they cost us 37 cents an ounce. Next was Famous Amos, near-fresh from the factory at 43 cents an ounce. If economy is your aim, consider the premade Duncan Hines, at 14 cents an ounce; those were also judged very good. The cookies at the low end of the Ratings are, in most cases, cheaper than the others. They may save a bit of money, but they had almost no chocolaty, baked, or caramel flavors, and often tasted a bit stale. The kids, of course, may not care. But those cookies aren't the stuff of grownup indulgence. FEBRUARY 1985