How to bake with YOROZU Cookie Mix

If you like my vanilla cookies, you can try making your own with my cookie mix, I have measured the ingredients for you, so all you need to do is add melted butter and one egg, make it into a dough ball, chill, roll, bake. I can point you to some substitutions for eggs and butter in case you cannot use them for one reason or another. Please check out the latter part of this post.

Please keep in mind that while the ingredients are the same the process I use is slightly different, so they may not be EXACTLY what I make in terms of texture.

Decorate or not? How?

My cookies are often decorated with royal icing (RI). You could make your own, purchase a RI mix or ready-made RI from the grocery store or my RI Mix (which...is still in progress. Will update soon), dip in or drizzle with chocolate, smear buttercream, whatever you want to do. The way I make my base cookies, you may enjoy them more with a little added something. Details below.

Allllright Here We GO

Ingredients and Equipment

You would need:

• YOROZU Cookie Mix

• 1 egg for single jar, 2 eggs for double jar

• 1 stick of unsalted butter for single jar, 2 sticks for double jar

Equipment needed:

• Bowl

• Whisk (optional) or fork

• Spatula

• Rolling pin or wine bottle or whatever you may need to roll out the dough

• Cookie cutters or knife to cut out the shapes, mason jar lids works also
  

Detailed Direction

While normally for cookie baking you'd cream the butter and sugar first, with this mix we're going the express way.

First, dump the mix into a bowl. No need to be gentle. Then mix them up a bit so they're uniform with a whisk or fork (even hand if you feel like playing). Over-mixing doesn't count here yet so go nuts. I use part brown sugar, so if you see a clump, smoosh it. You can pass the whole thing through a strainer to be sure. For this version of mix I made the sugar and flour mix separate to make the jar look interesting, but maybe I should just get this process done for you THEN put it in the jar so y'all don't need to worry about clumps.

In a separate bowl, melt the butter. You can place the butter in a microwavable bowl and zap it for a minute or so until it is melted, or put it on a heatproof bowl over a pot of boiling water. Whatever method is ok if you end up with a bowl of melted butter. Straight out of the fridge, one minute should do, more if from freezer. Crack the egg(s) in the melted butter and whisk them up together. If you overheated the butter a bit and it is steaming, you may want to wait until it cools a bit to avoid cooking the egg in it.

Add the butter-egg mixture into the dry mix bowl and mix well.  This is where you don't want to over-mix because that's where gluten gets stronger and the cookie gets tougher when they get too strong. Great for bread structure, not for cookies. This is a trickier part using butter in non-liquid form, but since we're using liquid butter here, the dough should come together rather effortlessly without the worry of over-mixing. You want to make sure the dough is uniformly moist, but you don't want to end up kneading the dough. Aim for "ah, OK it doesn't look floury anymore" and should clump together when you squeeze a handful.

Get that dough into one ball and flatten it.  For double batch you could divide this ball in half to keep them manageable. Wrap the dough up so they don't get dry. NOTE: Plastic wrap works best but I hate plastic so I usually use parchment paper. I can use this for a relatively mess-free rolling too, which I will show later.

This dough needs to chill. 4 hours to overnight in the fridge would be great. If you are in a rush you could start rolling once the dough stiffens up and no longer squishy, but this may spread the cookie a lot when baked, and texture may not be as good. Some people stick it in the freezer for an hour.

Now comes the fun! Roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch. It doesn't have to be exact, but if it is too thin the same time in the oven may burn the cookie, too thick the cookie may not bake through. If the dough got too hard, leave it out in the room temperature until it softens a little but don't wait until it gets too soft or you'll waste the time you waited for it to firm! Only wait until the dough still has resistance when trying to roll. If you're getting a major workout trying to make a dent in the dough, you probably should warm it up. You may even want to zap the dough ball in the microwave for 10 seconds. I know its weird...chill then warm....but the 4+ hour chill I believe is more for hydrating the dough, and you can't keep the raw dough in room temperature for that long.

By the way here is something I do often: use the parchment paper that I wrapped the dough for mess-free rolling. You may need to cut the dough 'slab' so it fits, but you put a chunk of dough on one side of the parchment paper, fold the other side over, and roll over that. Less sticking and cleaner counter!

Then cut the dough into whatever shape you like! Transfer the shapes onto a baking sheet lined with a parchment paper or silicone mat. See, if the dough gets too warm, this picking up process will distort the shape like crazy.

This is an extra step that would help with the cookie spreading. Without this step, more intricate shape would lose their shape, simple one may turn into a blob. Put that sheet pan with the cut dough in the fridge for 15 minutes. Again, optional, but you'll thank yourself later.

Meanwhile, heat the oven to 350F convection or 375F conventional. Many recipe says start to heat the oven at the beginning and I get that if you set it on temperature for a long time the oven will be evenly heated but...I don't know...unless you want to be very specific I feel like its a waste of gas/electricity.

When the 15 mins or so is up, pop the sheet(s) in the oven! For a medium size (like 3.5" or so) cookie, total of 10-12 minutes on the middle rack. Smaller cookies will bake faster, bigger cookies will need a few more minutes. Keep an eye out for the edges starting to brown a little. The backside doesn't have to be completely brown to be cooked. Some cookie makers hate brown backside, but that is preference. Pro tip: If you want to bake more than one tray at once, use the two racks closest to the middle, and half way through the bake, switch them. If you turn each pan 180 degrees when you do that, even better. That way you can get them as even as you can.

Cool them on a rack if possible, until completely cool so the cookies don't make themselves soggy. Then decorate however you wish!

Enjoy them! For yourself, or for your loved one!  

Decorating

You can put some chocolate chips in a microwaveable bowl and zap about 30 seconds then in 10s spurts from thereon to melt (or heat resistant bowl over boiling water) , put the goo in a piping bag or food safe zipper bag, cut a small opening and drizzle---or skip the bag altogether and use a spoon---just don't overheat the chocolate or they won't flow. Royal icing is my go-to as you may know, and buttercream is also an option.

Substitution

Butter ; I have used plant-based butter instead of butter in the past and they have worked fine, though in my experience they soften faster so if your kitchen is warm, you may want to divide the dough in half and keep one in the fridge while you work on the other. Coconut oil would work too, but Coconut oil dough seems to be "rock hard or too soft" so keeping the shape when transferring may get tough very fast. The cookies will have a slight coconut taste and if you like that, it is awesome. Vegetable oil could be another option and you get to omit the trouble of melting, but the end product may turn out a lot more oily, and if you try to use royal icing it may have "butter bleed", which is when the icing gets splotchy and discolored.

Egg : when Muffin was allergic to eggs, I often used the Egg Replacer from Bob's Red Mill. There are other similar products like Ener-G which may be good for other food, but personally for baking the former gave better results for me. The other option I often used was "flax egg" "chia egg" which is 1 tbsp of either of them ground up with 3 tbsp of water. If you mix them well and let it sit for a few minutes, it turns into a gelatinous glob you can use instead of one egg (2 eggs = 2tbsp ground flax/chia to 6 tbsp water). You will get noticeable speckles in the cookie and slightly nutty flavor which I kind of like. Feels healthy and not obtrusive.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions, via email, text or SNS messengers. I would be happy to answer!