I've taken a trip down memory lane for kitchen items that I blogged
about in mid-2015. I still use a goodly number of them. "Ancient" ones
include a Tupperware measuring pitcher, a Wearever air popcorn popper,
and an Osterizer blender, I've replaced some items that broke or have
improved capabilities or both reasons. I've accumulated a few newer
gadgets since the 2015 articles.
Several kitchen items have shown up in various articles and YouTube
videos I've produced over the years, mostly WRT to baking cookies or
cakes. The star of my YouTube videos is my Osterizer blender, which is
approaching 45,000 after being up since mid-2016. ("Stuck Blender Blade?" shows diagnosing and unsticking my blender blade assy, then reassembling and testing it.)
Back in 2015, I used a still-images Kodak camera (1760 x 1168
resolution shrinkable to 640 x 425). In contrast, my more compact Canon
takes varieties of stills and videos that surpass the Kodak, which broke
after over 10 years of use. My video shows hands-on handling of the
kitchen items, something of a show-and-tell session. Some viewers might
actually recognize or have some of the same objects. Interestingly, some
show up on the web with "vintage" in descriptions.
From "Vintage vs. Antique vs. Collectible | What’s the difference?"
Antiques have to be at least 100 years in age. That is what
makes a true antique according to respectable dealers. Vintage can be
anything from 20-99 years old and generally capture a sense of nostalgia
that’s relevant to the culture in some way.
I've identified the items in the video. In case you don't recognize
any or had anything similar, ask someone who's older if they owned such
an object. Maybe they still have theirs!
Ingredients, equipment, and mixing, dispensing, and baking info for
this cheery cherry almond cooky are in the the video. This recipe
go-around is my second attempt at making a version of HEB's Mon Cheri Cookie. The cookies I made in August came out pretty well, but dough dispensing had been challenging. August's Closer Looks video shows the dough stickiness hampering my dispensing.
This batch of dough was less-sticky and dispensed neater and faster.
Two variables could have made the difference(s) in dolloping ease.
Using more effort in removing maraschino cherry fluid—yield of 4.59 ounces cherries then and 2.65 ounces this time.
To compensate for less cherry flavor, I added one envelope of Cherry Kool-Aid.
Dough Dispensing Emphasis
The four dough dispensing methods I used this time are as follows:
Cooky press with DIY funnel (cut-off top of shampoo bottle) and spoon
Cooky scoop (1 1/3 T)
Spoon and rubber spatula
Tablespoon measuring spoon and rubber spatula
The cooky press method saves on travel effort between bowl and pan.
Downside is that the tube doesn't hold enough dough to dispense all in
one session. The other three methods are one-dollop-at-a-time, rather
tedious for the repetitive bowl/pan back and forth.
Calories and Sodium
The yield was 50 cookies, varying somewhat for size. I did have some awkwardness in using the four dispensing methods.
Post-recipe Thoughts
The cookies came out tasty with cherryish flavor. They were soft, almost cake-like.
The Cherry Kool-Aid might have made the color a bit deeper than I'd
intended. And I missed seeing cherry bits that were more evident in the
August cookies. Possibly I overpulsed the cherries in the blender. Next
time, I might try dehydrated ones and halve the amount of Kool-Aid.
Cherryness
Maybe the main reason for improved dispensing could be less
moisture—getting rid of more cherry fluid than August's batch. This
time, after pulsing the cherries, I drained AND blotted the remains. The
yield was 2.65 ounces instead of 4.59 ounces. Pretty expensive item,
considering they were 10-ounce jars of cherries! Thinking of trying
chopped dehydrated cherries, but chopping and adding only half the pack.
I've been blogging since September 2009. I'd started out with text
content, later adding images. Over the last few years, I've accompanied
articles with slide shows and videos that I've posted to YouTube.
Sweets seem to have piqued me, particularly from early to mid 2010s.
This year has re-piqued me. In inventorying my recipe blogs, i came up
with 28 cooky recipes and 19 cake and cake-ish recipes. In the
cooky-centric video, I list my blog catalog number with the article
title and finished-item image (newest at top).
In musing about sweets, I'd noticed similarities and differences in
topic choice and execution over the years. (For cookies, I varied baking
cake mix cookies but also baked scratch cookies.)
Dough Mixing
In the beginning, I used pastry blenders for mixing. More recently,
I've used a tilt-head mixer for mixing to save on elbow grease. Never
going back to pastry blender. BTW, oatmeal cooky dough is the hardest to
manually mix, imho.
Dough Dolloping
In the distant past, I used a cooky press or measuring spoon and
spatula. More recently, I used a 1 1/3 T cooky scoop, which is a bit
more convenient than spoon/spatula. Downside of either method is
one-at-a-time dispensing, which also requires travel time and effort
between dough bowl and pan.
Even more recently, I've tried making some disks and funnel shapes to
use my cooky press. I still have more experiments. Using a cooky press
saves on dough travel between dough bowl and pan.
In one of my recipes, I shaped the dough into a rough rectangle, then
used a metal spatula to cut it into squarish shapes. It was easier than
one-at-a-time dolloping.
Problem Dough
I've wrestled with dough that's stiff, sticky, or both. Dolloping
wasn't much fun. My mind's been percolating with thoughts of spray oil
and my "slice solutions brownie pan".
The pan and compartments remind me of an ice tray. I considered buying one, but they seem pricey.
OK, Not Baked Cookies
I included some fudge recipes. Although not oven-baked goods, they're
sweet items anyway. I felt they were more cooky than cake because of
handling handiness. Yum!
What kind of "cherry flavored pieces" would be in the cake mix?
Cherry flavor without cherries? The list of ingredients didn't assure me
of treasure. Wanting to increase cherry visibility, I added drained,
pitless, stemless maraschino cherries that I chop-pulsed in my blender.
The cake mix cooky dough was unexpectedly sticky and difficult to
handle. And the baked ones from the first batch didn't lift off the pan
as easily as most other cake mix cookies in the past. Furthermore, they
came out soft, rather than crunchy like the Mon Cheri cookies. But what
yummy taste and sweetness!
Seeing the "cherry flavor pieces" that are in Betty Crocker Super
Moist Cherry Chip Cake Mix, which I used for making the cake mix cookies
Using a blender to chop maraschino cherries, then draining and weighing them before they go in the cooky dough.
Using four ways to dispense the cooky dough. Two of the ways include
using a cooky press to push out such add-in-ingredients dough. (View
guidance on DIY nozzle and disk modification.)
My video
walks the viewer through the cooky recipe, from ingredients, equipment,
mixing, dispensing, and baking. The dispensing is notable for showing
four ways, two using a cooky press, one using a cooky scoop, and one
using a spatula and measuring spoon.
Cherry Flavored Pieces
An text item on the cake mix caught my eye "with cherry flavored
pieces". Thus, I wondered what they could be. I sifted the cake mix. The
remains (a smidge more than 1/3 ounce) resembled pink nonpareils and
maybe soy bits. The list of ingredients didn't mention soy. Thus, I
Wondered if BC was fudging terminology, such as "corn cereal". Something
seemed clearly non water-soluble.
Very Sticky Dough
Weirdly, the dough behaved differently than numerous past cake mix
cooky doughs. It came out very sticky and difficult to handle. I needed
help using fingers, butter knife edge, and spoon to drop dollops. I
noticed the dough weirdness even before adding the cherries and almonds.
Baked Cookies Hugging Pan
Another oddity about the dough was its tendency to stick to the pan
for the first batch. Past cake mix cooky dough, besides dispensing
easily, seemed to have enough fat for the baked cookies to easily lift
off the pan. For the second batch, I spray-oiled the pan before
dolloping. Easier cookies liftoff!
Cooky Results and Looking to Make 2.0 Version
The home cookies were softer, chewier, sweeter, and stickier to the touch. Yield was 44. (Mon Cheri cookies come 18 to the box.)
Future attempts will include adding one two two tablespoons of flour
after mixing in the cake mix powder. I might or might not adjust the
fat. Maybe add more fat to see if the
dough is easier to dispense, and the cookies easier to lift off the pan.
Plan B is to spray oil the pan anyway. Plan C is to try making cherry
almond cookies using a different cake mix.
To address the sticky-to-touch baked cookies, lowering the
temperature to 325 and adding more baking time should tend to make them
dryer and crunchier. Hoping for perfection the next time.
Calories and Sodium
The calories and sodium amounts are similar to those numerous cake
mix cookies I've made. Because of the difficulty in dispensing,
individual cooky sizes and stats might vary.
Closer Looks
Visit "Pt 2 Cherry Almond Cake Mix Cooky, Closer Looks" (article, video) for following details:
Seeing the "cherry flavor pieces" that are in Betty Crocker Super
Moist Cherry Chip Cake Mix, which I used for making the cake mix cookies
Using a blender to chop maraschino cherries, then draining and weighing them before they go in the cooky dough
Using four ways to dispense the cooky dough. Two of the ways include
using a cooky press to push out such add-in-ingredients dough.
I looked on the web for a means to push out chocolate chip dough. I
spotted some presses that included piping nozzles in addition to dough
disks. Amazon displayed a few such devices, the magic find word being "biscuit", which British commonly refer to stateside "cookies" Another site is Ebay. Weirdly, seems many US companies sell cooky presses and icing decorator guns separately.
I actually own Wilton Dessert Decorator Pro Stainless Steel Cake Decorating Tool
So far, I tried it once, thinking I could pipe nice angel food
cakelets. Big fail, as the oven temperature totally collapsed the edges.
Interesting discovery: the screw-on collar fits my Wilton cooky press.
Some day I'll try the decorator collar with my press and see about
squeeze-triggering chocolate chip cooky dough.
In the cooky dough dispensing stage (squeeze trigger, pinch dollop,
deposit), I decided to skip on trying the soda bottle funnel. I favored
the other two because the diameters were bigger, and the distances from
dough tube to spout were shorter.
Mini and Regular Chocolate Chips
For thIs recipe, I've used most of the same type dough. I varied on
using mini chocolate chips for one batch, and regular chocolate chips
for the other. Notice side-by-side contrast for size and quantity
between them.
"How Many Chocolate Chips in a Cup? (standard, mini, jumbo, & chunks)"
contrasts quantities of chocolate chips per cup portions depending on
the size of the chips. Minis are much smaller than regulars—"About 6½
mini semi-sweet chocolate chips equal 1 morsel-sized chocolate chip."
"How to Measure Chocolate Chips Correctly (2022)"
further states: "Chocolate chips are measured by weight, volume, or
count. The most accurate way to measure chocolate chips is to weigh them
on a kitchen scale."
A related link is "How Many Chocolate Chips in a Tablespoon? (Depends on chip size)"
provides details about factors that affect counts, including molds,
ingredient variations and chocolate type. The table lists "1 Tablespoon
(14 grams)". My mini chips bag (Nestle) lists one serving as 1 T (14 g),
70 calories. My regular chip bag (Hill Country Fare) lists one serving
as 1 T (15 g), 70 calories.
The article shows a table for chips per tablespoon (14 grams). The
minis count is 135, and the regular chips (standard) count is 28. Thus, a
mini weighs a smidge more than .1 gram, and a standard weighs .5 gram.
More Chocolate Chip Nibbles
"0.1-3g Chocolate Chips Making Machine Fully Automatic"
looks to be a marketing site that describes a chip-making machine's
capabilities, with spec overviews. I'm thinking the machine is likely
able to make chips as small as minis. FWIW, I never see fractions or
tolerances for grams in nutrition tables.
"How are Chocolate Chips Made in a Factory? 4 Steps"
summarizes the chip-making process that starts with melting the
ingredients together and ending with creating the morsels. Both sites
have the same embedded YT video of the machine in action.
"COOKIES PLANT"
starts showing dispensing (extruding) pieces onto trays starting about
1:25 (6 rows). Note some nozzles rotate to form some cooky types. About
3:10, the shows wire-cut drop cookies.
The calorie counts were problematic for this recipe primarily because of
stats for chocolate chips. Nutrition tables for my bags of mini
chocolate chips and regular chocolate chips stated calories per
tablespoon. One brand stated a tablespoon as 15 grams, and another brand
stated a tablespoon as 14 grams. Formulation can affect stats. Imho,
gram weights and small serving sizes for items as teeny as chocolate
chips can leave lots of room for inaccuracies.
The stats in the Calories and Sodium section in "Pt 1 Cooky Pressing
Choco Chip Cooky Dough, Not One-at-a-Time Dolloping" is theoretical. I
don't really know how much tolerance is in gram weights per tablespoon.
Another big factor in stats "slop" is the size of my cookies. They're
not factory-made exact; some are undersized, some oversized. All were
yummy!
Cooky press users, use your press to pump out chocolate chip dough by
using a DIY funnel made from the top of a food bottle. Dough scoopers
and other one-at-a-time dollopers, you can reduce the tedium and
repetitive travel between dough bowl and pan. Squeeze the press trigger,
pinch/deposit dollop, move to another spot on pan, repeat.
Rec: Use cake mix cooky dough for ease and doability. View the video for the recipe start to finish and guidance for making and using your own funnels.
At the end of April, I published "Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies",
my go-to cooky dough recipe using cake mix, oil, eggs, and chocolate
chips. The actual base dough is without chips, and suitable for using a
cooky press.
For thIs recipe, I've replicated most of the dough. I varied on using
mini chocolate chips for one batch, and regular chocolate chips for the
other. Notice side-by-side contrast for size and quantity between them.
The main process difference from my previous cake mix cooky dough
recipe is dispensing, using a cooky press and funnels made from tops of
food bottles. Each DIY funnel shape has a larger end that fits between a
cooky press dough tube and screw-on collar, with the narrow end aimed
toward the pan.
Cooky Press, in Case You Don't Have One But Might Consider One
Typical cooky presses come with stenciled disks (often seasonal
themes) for fast, consistent-size dough dispensing. Chocolate chips are
no-gos because they're oversized for the stencil openings. BTW, cooky
press mechanisms tend not to be strong enough for oatmeal cooky doughs
or similarly thick doughs.
Seems many cooky presses resemble each other for looks and functions. I myself have "wilton preferred press cookie press", but don't remember when I got it. Some disks look different than ones I have.
Two articles with images/videos that show my use of cooky press:
This recipe's numbers are very similar to the ones in "Low-effort Choco Chip Cake Mix Cookies". The yield for that recipe was 40 (from using a scoop and icing spatula for dolloping).
This recipe using DIY funnels for dispensing yielded 55 cookies, 28
in the first half batch, and 27 in the second half batch. The caloric
totals deviated from the previous recipe because, this time, I adopted
nutrition table info from the chocolate chip package.
Actually, another wrinkle is having obtained 28 cookies in the mini
chips batch and 27 in the regular chips batch. If I'd been smarter about
the eventual dolloping, I would have eked out one more dollop for the
latter batch.
Dividing the dough for 2 batches:
Calories = 2715/2 = 1357 C for each half batch
Sodium = 3020/2 = 1510 mg for each half batch
Mini chocolate chip cookie yield: 28
Calories: 1357 + 567 = 1924 divided by 28 cookies = 69C/cooky
Sodium: 1510mg/28 cookies = 54mg/cooky
For the regular chocolate chip cookies, if I had squeezed out 28
instead of 27, calculations would have been easier. In any case, the
numbers would have been 67C and 54mg sodium.
My profession had been technical writer/editor. Through TheWriteJob clublet (blog at http://thewritejob.blogspot.com), I have been exploring my inner creative writing, which includes mostly language enlightenment, entertainment, and a-muse-meant. Over time, I have become more active with images and my YouTube channel.
