Bouchon Bakery: TLC’s

December 14, 2012

Even though the cookie is named “The Laura Cunningham” for Chef Thomas Keller’s partner, for me it will be “Tender Loving Care” because that is how I feel about baking. Every recipe done with care. It’s the secret ingredient that makes things taste that much better. The TLC is a take on the oatmeal cookie but instead of raisins it has chopped pecans. So here we go, Week #2 of the Bouchon Bakery Book Project.

I’ll have to do a little research to see what scales can handle very small quantities of ingredients and can measure in decimals. As much as I love my new Oxo scale it couldn’t read the weights unfortunately. For 2.3 grams of baking soda it could only read do 2 or 3, no in between so I just did slightly more than 2 grams. Moving onto the cinnamon, I tared then proceeded with the 1 gram which didn’t register at all. I kept adding but it was not making sense because I had 2 tablespoons in at that point so I stopped and used spoons.

Whisking sugar was also a new technique. This recipe has both granulated and dark brown sugar. Mine was a bit too clumpy so a fork actually worked better to break up any lumps.

And lastly, the straining of the eggs to remove the chalaze. I first beat the eggs then poured it into a fine mesh sieve like the photo in the book. The only problem was the egg white would not go through. I made sure the eggs were at room temperature too. I pressed as much as I could through and discarded the rest.

On the left, 145 gram size and the right, 65 gram size.

The cookie scoop recommended is 2.5″ and a 145 gram piece of dough. I had a 2″ scoop, with the dough leveled off, yielded a 65 gram cookie. On another note, is there a tutorial on taking shots with your hands in them because it is not easy to make them look normal.

Hey looks just like the book!

My jumbo cookie came out to almost 5″ in diameter vs 3″ on the smaller size.

Overall this cookie has great texture. It has a crisp edge and chewy interior. I do miss the juicy raisins though. The pecans got a little lost, but I did chop them small.

Also, the book recommends to refrigerate the dough, form the balls and then let come to room temperature before baking. I baked a batch cold and another about 30 minutes after sitting out and didn’t notice too much difference. I could have let it sit longer to let it spread more.

In the future I’d like to do the version with the raisins.

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Week 2 of the Bouchon Bakery Book Project

Read the Project recap on the TLCs

Bake with us!

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