Cookies Baking Temperature, Variables, Cheesecake

Cookies

Baking Temperature

One of the most common items baked in your Cadco Convection Oven will be cookies. There are dozens of cookie manufacturers, and their products all have different baking characteristics. Most of the cookie recipes suggest a baking temperature of 325º - 350ºF. I have found that “Lower is better”. Over the years we have found that cookies bake best in a preheated oven at about 285º - 300ºF, assuming a 1.5 ounce cookie from refrigerated/frozen dough. By baking at a lower temperature, they tend to remain higher after cooling and produce a more eye appealing finished product. Bake for about 12-18 minutes, depending on what you think is the perfect cookie.

Variables

♦Lower the temperature for larger cookies.

♦Cookies bake from the outside in...so to make picture perfect cookies we have to consider two variables before we begin baking, in any oven, or we may not be happy with our results. These two factors come into play mostly when we make cookies from "scratch", (but they apply to all cookies):

1.The temperature of the dough

Room temperature dough will spread out more than frozen or refrigerated dough.

The colder the dough, the less the cookie will spread / flatten out during baking.

Dough baked from frozen produces a thicker, better-looking cookie than ones that are baked from refrigerated, or room temperature, which will spread out and therefore, have less height.

2.The fat content of the dough.

A higher ratio of fat to flour will make the cookie spread out more during baking.

•Cheesecake

People generally love cheesecake and it’s not hard to make. Let’s start with a basic cheesecake batter:

♦#3 cream cheese

♦1 ½ cups sugar

♦5 eggs

♦lemon to taste

♦2 cups Half and Half (approx.)

This will make enough batter for a 10” springform pan.

There are so many fun options for making cheesecake, such as:

♦Substitute chocolate milk for Half and Half in a triple chocolate cheesecake.

♦Orange juice for an orange cheesecake.

♦Baileys Irish Cream.

♦Cookie dough.

♦Turtle cheesecake.

♦Lemon poppy seed.

♦Pumpkin…peanut butter…pistachio…what else?

For my crust, I usually spray the inside of the springform pan with vegetable oil and dust it with graham cracker crumbs. There are endless options for crusts such as shortbread, brownie, or Ladyfingers, or my simple dusting of graham crumbs. It’s your choice.

Bake in a 200ºF oven for 4 hours, then cool, cut and serve. Have fun with some imaginative sauces also:

♦Walnut, caramel and chocolate chip sauce.

♦Lemon sauce.

♦Pear sauce

♦Pistachio sauce.

♦Cinnamon Squared² Sauce (cinnamon stick and candies).