Sunday, April 17, 2011

Unknown unknowns

I don't get it. Every time I bake these browned butter chocolate chip cookies that I like (and that tend to get rave reviews from all concerned), they turn out slightly differently. They're always delicious--the taste is pretty consistent--but sometimes they're flat, sometimes they're domed, sometimes they brown, sometimes they remain pale, sometimes they're chewy, sometimes they're cakey... and I don't understand why. The recipe is by weight, not volume; I have my baking racks in the same position, and I only have one cookie sheet, so it's not that. I always buy flour and butter at Trader Joe's, and I usually get my sugar there too. It's a mystery. Unless this recipe is hilariously sensitive to the precise degree of butter browning or some such, I declare this a case of idiopathic cookie variability.

I'm torn between my intense desire to figure out what's going on and my delight in an unsolved mystery that always yields tasty, tasty cookies.

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