Pantry Raid: Cookie Edition

Hey Alton Brown here in the now almostcompletely desertedgood eats Test Kitchen Hey they closedall the schools so all those kids arehome so you’re gonna need some cookiesright just to keep them quiet you knowcome on so this is kind of a goodnews/bad news cookie the good news isincredibly simple made with very fewingredients that you probably havesitting in your pantry right now alsogood news gluten free all right there’sno flour in this I’m not I don’t reallycare about that but I know that a lot ofpeople do the bad news is if you’reallergic to peanuts and I know a lot ofkids like my daughter are well you can’thave these but I’m not allergic topeanut butter or peanuts so that means Ican eat more of these and there’s thegood news although that’s just gonnamake me fat so that’s bad okay let’sjust make cookies so I have a peanutbutter 268 gramssmooth peanut butter it’s just Jeff okaynothing special it’s just somebody willpick that out I also have two differentsugars light brown sugar and regulargranulated sugar 120 grams of each thatwould basically be half a cup of eachbut of course the brown sugar would bepacked and I really don’t like measuringthat way because one person’s fact isanother person’s semi unpacked so let’sjust go 120 grams I have one egg we’realso going to use one teaspoon of bakingsoda one teaspoon of vanilla extract anda quarter teaspoon of kosher salt Iarrange things very often from thehigher amount to the lower amountbecause it helps me to memorize therecipes which I like to do so 268 1211-1 1/4 great all right now the oven Ihave set to 350 degrees Fahrenheit yeswe could do that in metric but I’m notthinking that way yet so let’s just say350 rack is in the middle the only toolsthat we’re going to need bowl for mixingand some mixing utensilswe’re gonna go old-school with just thethe wooden spoon and I’m also going touse a Disher to distribute these I wantone ounce portions I’m going tothem and see if I hit one ounce buthaving a Disher is gonna make that a loteasier and I’ve got a little spatulabecause this stuff is sticky and youneed a spatula when stuff is sticky sothe first thing that we’re going to dopeanut butter goes in first please don’tmake any jokes about how that looksthere we gothe sugar both sugars go in and thenjust kind of work this around I suggestyou make children that’s my suggestionis you make children do this and I wouldsay that you know it’s all aboutteaching them to value things and thatif you want the cookie you I don’t haveto make the cookie but really it’s justabout making them do work so that youcan go off and do something else likethe good old days when we made childrento do work around the farm same thingnow that they’re home and in your faceall day long all day long they shouldhave to do something all right now hereI’m gonna scrape off my spoon see youalways need a spatula always need alittle rubber spatula and I’m gonna workthis now we’re just kind of at the backof the spoon and this is almost likeimitating the creaming method whereyou’re kind of punching holes and thepeanut butter they’re gonna make a holefor the egg now is a good time to alsoadd the baking soda this is not bakingpowderthis is baking soda one teaspoon go I’malso gonna add a teaspoon of vanillaextract don’t do that over the bowl justin case you spill it there we golast thing is the salt we’re only gonnago with a quarter teaspoon of koshersalt and stir to combine and we wantthis really smooth let’s justfast-forward through this part and thatis what your dough should look like atthis point this could be refrigeratedfor you know what who cares we wouldmake cookies right away wouldn’t wait todo so we’re gonna need two cookie pantsor two sheet pans these are half sheetpans we use a lot of these here and inthe good eats Test Kitchenbecause we like them and they’re cheapand they’re aluminum so we’re gonna putonly eight cookies on each of thesebecause there is a fair amount of spreadand as I said I have a one ounce byvolume Disher which is wrongthat’s one ounce by volume this isheavier I’m just now remembering when Iwrote this recipe so I’m gonna switchthat out yeah this will be better thisis a one and a half tablespoon whichshould be about an ounce by weight let’ssee if that works out so all I’m gonnado is dose these out try to get thespacing right one two I know it doesn’tlook like a lot but these things dospread and I want to give them room todo so see if I’ve got this dosedproperly let’s just fast-forward throughthis part Wow well that pretty muchworked out I’ll lick this out whenyou’re not watching okay now time togive these cookies their distinctivelook and for that we need a fork let’ssee I’ve got a few choices here the tinemarks are gonna matter so you know whatI think I’m gonna go I’m gonna go withthis one because it has narrower tineswith a little more space make a nicertexture on the the cookie so I’m justgonna start over here and mash down andthen kind of swipe like that I’m gonnado them all in one direction and thenI’ll come back and do them in the otherdirection now I don’t mind them being alittle on the rustic side if you wantyours to be perfectly smooth then youcould take the balls and make them allperfect and pretty before you mash thecookies I don’t really care about thatkind of thing so I’m not going to I likemine to look a little sloppy now noticeI’m not just picking up the fork thatwould make a mess I’m kind of sliding itall rightyou shouldn’t need to use any flour oranything like this like thatif you do this properly I know somefolks like to bake on those siliconemats are so Pat’s as we call them Idon’t like this for these cookies Ithink they spread to much so go withparchment paper which it’s not the sameas wax paperdon’t use the wax paper that’ll be likemaking crayons that’s very differentokay now I’m going the other way withthe fork to make the famous crosshatchpeanut butter cookie pattern that hasbeen famous for pretty much everultimately you’re looking for a diameterof uh I’d say that one’s just aboutperfect so it’s about just at two and ahalf inches across metal ruler in thekitchen very very valuable becauseespecially if like somebody reaches fora cookie when it’s not ready yetagain not picking up sliding all rightinto the 350 degree oven I want to shootfor the middle of the box these will notfit – to Iraqso I’m gonna put one on the top middleand one on the lower middle if thatmakes any sensethe middle as quickly as possible so wedon’t let any heat out any more than weneed to and I’m going to set my timerfor a mere 10 minutes that’s all it’sgonna takeokay sliding them off the pan that earlymight be a mistake I think I’ll letthese cool for a second on the rackbefore I slide them off those are thoseare gonna go to the bad children simplyallow the cookies to cool on theparchment on top of cooling racks forefficiency for about 10 minutes beforedevouring Wow that’s a darn fine cookieand it doesn’t have any gluten in it andit’s got almost no ingredients in it andyou’ve probably already got this stuffalready in the pantry I’ll just savethis for later as for all of these let’sjust say now I can control all thechildren not coughing[Music]