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Ratio

Monday, Oct. 26, 2009 3:51 AM

Vacation included diving into Michael Ruhlman's book Ratio, which posits that once you know the basic ratio behind certain recipes, you don't just know one recipe, you know a thousand.

For example, the basic cookie dough recipe is a 3:1:2 ratio (by weight) - flour to sugar to fat (butter). This produces a simple, shortbread-like cookie. Add a 1/4 teaspoon of almond extract and put some slivered almonds on top, and you have a nice little almond cookie.

Now, while I like to putter around in the kitchen, I've never really baked cookies, other than occasionally trying to satisfy a craving for fresh-baked cookies by using pre-packaged name-brand dough, which produces soft, chewy cookies that turn rock-hard (your milegae may vary).

But with the basic ratio/recipe above, my first batch of cookies from scratch turned out perfect.

Hopefully, I'll be able to recreate my grandmother's butter cookie recipe - which she didn't have written down anywhere - and surprise my nieces/nephew with a batch.



The Ministry has received 1 comment(s) on this topic.



Dave - 2009-10-26 18:37:52
"Come to the Ministry. We have cookies."