Cookie Party at BakeLAB + Secret Tips for a Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie
When a former Clementine and Providence/La Mill pastry chef opens a bakery ... Well, you can be sure she'll make some good stuff. But Kristin Feuer, a Le Cordon Bleu graduate, goes beyond. With painstaking experimentation, Kristin at BakeLAB has perfected cookies.
Timed perfectly on National Chocolate Chip Cookie day, BakeLAB held a cookie party for some media and bloggers. All girls. It's a dessert party, mister.
I meant to just eat a little bit of cookies, I really did. But then ... they were unexpectedly good. I mean, ridiculously good.
From the iced oatmeal cookies that are like an upscale Mother's cookie...
... to the best ginger molasses cookies I've ever had.
Of course, it won't be a proper Nat'l Chocolate Chip Cookie Day without chocolate chip cookies.
Ultimately, it was the Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie that everyone raved about. Peanut Butter Sandwich? Yes, she makes it with a dollop of cookie dough, topped with peanut butter, and topped that again with cookie dough. Sandwich, see?
Bakelab also sells cupcakes, cakes, etc, all decorated with Kristin's cool artistic sensibilities -- their awesome science-themed shirts and aprons can attest to this.
After we stuffed ourselves with these little morsels, Kristin and Jill took us to their kitchen/"lab" and gave us a little demo to make the perfect cookies.
- Don't cream the butter & sugar any longer than 1 1/2 minutes. Too much air from overcreaming=a flat cookie.
- Beat the dough for a quick "one, two" count just beyond the point when the flour is incorporated. You'll make a little more gluten for plumper cookies.
- Chilling the dough overnight allows subtle nutty and toffee flavors to develop.
- Bake cookies from frozen dough; cookies will be much rounder.
- Pull cookies from the oven when there is still a pale circle in the middle of the cookie.
You can order BakeLAB's treats online at www.bakelab.com or www.foordoro.com or call (310) 330-9055. Cookies are $2 each with a minimum order of a dozen.
You can also find them at Yummy.com (in Playa Vista, Santa Monica, West Hollywood), Oaks Gourmet in Franklin Village, and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.
Oh, they're also holding a series of classes in the summer from cookie baking to decorating to S'mores! http://tinyurl.com/gotclass