Our most FAQ
We love to hear from our friends, fans, and those just learning about our cookies. We try to be helpful and provide answers to the most Frequently Asked Questions here. But the one question we get asked the most is, “How do you make your cookies so big?!” We get it. This question comes from the same mind-boggling, inconceivable place where we wonder, “How does the Tooth Fairy get under our pillows while we sleep?” and “What type of Spanx does Santa put on to shimmy down the chimney.” They are the universal questions that keep us up at night.
But you’re in luck! Tonight you can sleep easy and save the worries of the world for another day. Creating our cookies should be a snap after reading this.
To make our cookies so big, we start with using just the right amount of fats to form correct cohesion and adhesion of ingredients. This allows our cookies to be dense, yet cooked through, chewy, yet melt in your mouth. The molecules must be solidly brought together to form the base. Without it, we would be left with neat little piles of eggs, flour, and Ghirardelli Chocolate.
Speaking of eggs, you want to add your eggs whole, one at a time. But that makes the mixing a little more difficult. Egg whites are largely water and they don’t mix well with cohesion agents. But we warn you, too much mixing and you’re in danger of over-mixing. Over-mixing results in a holey mess that falls apart as soon as it’s lifted off the cookie sheet. And if you’re not using the right flour, well that totally throws off the protein structure and gluten levels and the ingredients won’t be able to bind.
You’ll need acidity and carbon dioxide to create a strong protein bond with the correct flour. If your bond isn’t strong, all the good stuff is evaporated away. A strong bond keeps our dough stiff, and the right level of acidity firms our cooking dough faster, which results in our thick cookies (not spread thin like you so often find). But that all goes to waste if you don’t mix enough. The importance of the mixing time of the dough is everything. Mix too little and you won’t get enough air pockets to be filled with CO2, mix too much and your cookie looks like meal worms invaded.
The last step to consider in making Carol’s-Cookie-sized cookies is temperature. You want the kinetic energy of the particles to be just right. You want to be right where the energy within the plasma collisions is high enough to overcome the Coulomb barrier and the cookie particles fuse together into one massive cookie without cracking.
And of course, the perfection of dough you just created is nothing unless you’re dropping 1/2lb softball-sized scoops of it on your cookie tray.
Now you should be set to go ahead and recreate your own version of Carol’s Cookies in your fridge.
What? You’re confused? Well, you didn’t really think we were going to divulge our most sacred secrets, did you?