Perfecting chocolate chip cookies, featuring Zoë François

Episode Transcript

Jessica: First of all, I'm shocked that you would order chocolate chip cookies at a restaurant.

David: Every time.

Jessica: Really?

David: If it's on the menu, I order it. I love the cookie plate.

Jessica: Wow.

David: But now that you say that, I will say it is often disappointing, but sometimes.

Jessica: From King Arthur Baking Company, this is Things Bakers Know. I'm Jessica Battilana, Staff Editor King Arthur Baking.

David: And I'm David Tamarkin, King Arthur's Editorial Director. Jessica, what are we doing here?

Jessica: Well, you know, here at King Arthur, we're committed to helping people become the best bakers they can be. We're a 200 year old baking company. You've probably seen our flour at the grocery store, but we've also published cookbooks ...

David: Number one bestseller cookbooks. We also have a baking school. We have a website with recipes and tons of information about baking, and now we're bringing King Arthur to your ears, in this podcast, where we'll be talking to experts, answering your baking questions, laughing at our own jokes, and offering a lot of opinions.

Jessica: A lot of opinions.

And today, for the very first episode of our very first season, we're talking about one of the greatest foods of all time, the iconic chocolate chip cookie.

David: I already had one and a half today, Jessica.

Jessica: Well done. We gotta keep up our quota.

David: It’s only, what three o'clock? Two thirty. So I’m on my way.

Jessica: I mean, I have not eaten any today, but I think I've eaten more chocolate chip cookies in my lifetime than any other cookie and maybe even any other sweet thing, honestly. For me, they're basically the greatest of all time when it comes to cookies. Chocolate chip cookies are America's favorite cookie. They're my favorite cookie. And frankly, I'm just glad I was born in the same century as the chocolate chip cookie. They were first popularized by Ruth Wakefield of the Toll House restaurant in Massachusetts in the early 1930s. Nestle and Pillsbury started selling refrigerated chocolate chip cookie dough in the 1950s. Nabisco launched Chips Ahoy in the 1960s and that started a packaged cookie revolution. Shout out to Famous Amos, if you know, you know. And now it's hard to find a bakery that doesn't sell a chocolate chip cookie.

David: Yeah, I mean it is actually wild to think about the fact that there are people alive today, pretty advanced in their years, but who are alive today, who, when they were born, the chocolate chip cookie did not exist. So thank you for that history lesson. You are blowing my mind, Jessica. You know, in many ways I think the chocolate chip cookie is every American baker's holy grail. It's the GOAT. And the thing about it that I've been thinking about is that people never stop tinkering with it.

Jessica: No.

David: And here in New York where I am, you know, recording from and everywhere, actually right now we see lines. Lines forming around the planet, all the way around the planet. You can see it from space. The lines for chocolate chip cookies. They don't stop. And they're only getting longer. They don't stop.

Jessica: You better start lining up now, if you want that cookie.

David: Go now. Oh yeah. Um, hopefully you're listening to this in line. But yeah, like it is remarkable. It's been around for almost a hundred years and yet we still have cookie fever.

Jessica: I know you've been on your own journey, David, trying to find the ultimate chocolate chip cookie, and I'm curious about what you might've found out there and what you've learned.

David: Totally. This is what I've seen. Cookies are in their extra era. Every cookie I see now, it's like extra, extra, extra. And it can be extra big. And some of them are extra small. So right now in New York, there are so many places where you go and you get a cookie and it's so big, you need six people to eat it.

And sometimes it's the other direction. Some of these cookies are super small. Like one, I had at a pizza restaurant recently. I ordered dessert. They had chocolate chip cookies for dessert. I ordered them. There was no indication that they were gonna come in a bowl, like a bowl of cereal, and each cookie was about the size of a nickel, and you just kind of went in there and grabbed them with your hands and stuffed them in your face. They were so crispy. They were so good. Yeah, it was one of the best cookie experiences I've had in a while, actually. I think every chocolate chip cookie right now, every chocolate chip cookie in 2025, is leaning into some sort of identity, whether that's super big, super small, super soft, super crispy, lots of seeds. Cocoa nibs, espresso beans, whatever. Jelly beans. I dunno. People put everything in these things. In 2024, our Recipe of the Year was a cookie that did this. It was a super big, super soft chocolate chip cookie. And you know, it was divisive because it leaned into one direction. It wasn't sort of an everyman's chocolate chip cookie.

So that classic cookie that you kicked off the show talking about that Ruth Wakefield made, that's still an amazing cookie, but I feel like no one is trying to do that anymore. That's old news. And all these extra cookies are what's hot now.

Jessica: Well, you know, first of all, I'm shocked that you would order chocolate chip cookies at a restaurant.

David: Every time.

Jessica: Really?

David: If it's on the menu, I order it. I love the cookie plate.

Jessica: Wow.

David: But now that you say that, I will say it is often disappointing, but sometimes.

Jessica: But you're totally right that cookies have become very extra. Like they are frosted. They have tahini in them. The butter is brown. They're giant. They have like huge pools of chocolate. Like they have more chocolate than they do batter. Lots of innovation happening. Some good. Some less good, but there's also been this like absolutely like explosive growth of these cookie chains in the last few years. Um, and I think those cookie chains of which there are now numerous ones, they're sort of resetting chocolate chip cookie expectations. Uh, because these chains are now everywhere. They're beloved, and they're creating a new standard. And that standard I think is big, super sweet cookies.

David: Very big, very sweet. Yeah.

Jessica: And these chains have been so hugely successful. Crumbl started with one store in Utah back in 2017, and now there are over 1000 franchise owned Crumbl stores in the US, 18 in Canada, 96% of which have opened since 2020. So it's not our imagination that in the last four years like it's been, it's been crazy cookie time. And those chains have generated more than a billion dollars in sales and sold 300 million cookies. And you know, sorry, not sorry, that's a lot of dough, David. That's a lot of cookie dough.

David: Oh god, okay. Well-

Jessica: The point is chocolate chip cookies never go outta fashion. People never get bored with 'em, and they're here to stay.

Jessica: Every episode we'll be chatting with the best bakers around. And recently I was reading bestselling cookbook author and TV host Zoe Francois' latest book, Zoe Bakes Cookies. As you might expect, it's an exhaustive and extensively researched guide to cookie baking. And part of what makes it so amazing is the deep dive that Zoe takes in every element of chocolate chip cookies. With photos and charts, you can really sort of drill down into what a simple tweak or a seemingly simple tweak to a recipe does to the end result.

So we decided to call up Zoe to talk more about chocolate chip cookies and get some of her secrets. Zoe, thank you so much for joining us.

Zoe: Hi. So nice to be with you.

David: As Jessica said, we love your new book and I really found it to be your most personal book so far. And there were two chapters that I just wanted to just shout out. One is called Granny Neal's Christmas Cookie Tin, and the other is called Bubbe Berkowitz's Cookies. And I love those two chapters because I also grew up in an interfaith household. And I also had a Christmas grandma and a Hanukkah grandma. And you know, I didn't really know it, but until I read your book, I didn't really realize how, like, how rich it is to have that experience.

Zoe: Yeah. I kind of thought everybody grew up like this. I mean, when you're a kid and you're having this experience, you don't realize how unique it is. So I feel so lucky. And those two chapters changed the book. I thought that I had, you know, a clear idea of what this book was, and it was sort of my love letter to all the cookies that I'd baked in my career. And it really became about the stories, it became about what I learned about myself, and in particular, those two chapters, the sort of DNA that is me, that absolutely came from baking and these women who shared these recipes with me. So, it's deeply personal and I've sort of been evangelizing since I wrote it about getting these recipes from your family. Because in certain cases, if I hadn't asked for these recipes, they'd be gone.

Jessica: Zoe, did you already have those family recipes before you started writing your book?

Zoe: So in the case of my Bubbe Berkowitz, when I was doing this book, I called my mom and asked her if she had any stories or memories of these particular cookies. And out came stories of my great-great grandmother who was in Kiev baking in her apartment to basically support her family during the Russian Revolution. Her daughter, in the meantime was stealing the ingredients and selling them to the Russian soldiers to make enough money to move to America.

David: Oh my god.

Zoe: So literally I would not be standing here if it weren't for cookies.

Jessica: That's incredible. That's amazing.

Zoe: Who knew? Who knew cookies would have that impact?

Jessica: In the book, you talk a lot about what happens if you alter one ingredient in your chocolate chip cookie dough. Like if you use brown sugar instead of granulated sugar, or you swap shortening for some of the butter, or use less flour or more baking powder. I'm just sort of curious what it must have been like when you were testing all those variations. Because I imagine it was kind of an intense process.

Zoe: It was so many cookie balls. Um, I have a freezer in my basement, and it was basically filled to the brim with, you know, scooped-out cookie balls and test after test after test.

I think when you show people the experiments that you're doing, I feel like it gives them freedom to do it as well. And so I really wanted to show people. If you add a little bit more sugar, this is what's gonna happen. Because people substitute in a recipe all the time and we're, you know, as recipe developers, we're often asking them not to.

David: Begging them not to.

Zoe: Yeah. We're begging them. We're begging them. So that they will end up with the results that we had worked really hard to land on. And in this case I wanted people to substitute, but I wanted to give them some stepping stones to getting to where they actually were trying to go.

And so like, do they want it a little bit crispier? And this is what will happen if you have a little less or a little more of one of the ingredients, so that when they start their experiments they'll land closer to where they wanna be faster. And then they have to come back to me and share what they've changed so that I can try it.

Jessica: Behind some paywall, is there the true Zoe Francois perfect cookie? Or is like, you know, is that idea sort of absurd to you? Because all of these cookies are great cookies and you might want one or the other at a different time.

Zoe: The current favorite, I think, is the cover recipe, which is the smash cookie. Levain, the cookie company in New York City, was far and away the most recommended chocolate chip cookie that I got back from my very scientific ask on social media. And the smash cookie was sort of my first attempt at recreating that cookie, and I wasn't loving it.

Jessica: Well, I mean, I think for anyone who hasn't had the Levain cookie, they're large. They're like just set around the edges, but the inside is basically like a ball of raw cookie dough.

Zoe: Yes. And people are mad for this. It's just not necessarily my taste. But they are outrageously popular. So I may be alone in this. So anyway, I bake them. And then because I wasn't loving them, I just took a spatula and smashed them down and the way that they set up after I did that was very exciting to me. Like all of a sudden, they had just the right amount of that ooey gooeyness in the center. It wasn't like this big old block of it. So I take this giant ball, I actually bake them so you get this sort of crispy outside and then I smash them once they come out and let them set just like that. That way you get that sort of ooey gooey center. If you put them back in the oven, they're gonna set up a little bit more. Again, whatever your preference is, try it both ways and see which one you love.

Jessica: I know our Test Kitchen Director, Sarah, was very inspired by the technique, so she applied it to her recipe for Oatmeal and Date Smash Cookies, which you can find on the King Arthur website, as well as linked in the show notes, and which is one of my very favorite new recipes of ours.

David: Zoe Francois, thank you so much for being our guest here on Things Baker's Know. I want to give you the last word. If there's anything else you wanna say about chocolate chip cookies.

Zoe: A big, tall glass of milk. That's it.

David: Perfect. We'll put a link to Zoe's habit-forming chocolate chip smash cookies in the show notes, as well as a link to your phenomenal book, Zoe Bakes Cookies.

Zoe, where else can our bakers find you?

Zoe: Basically Zoe Bakes anywhere, on Instagram, Substack, my website, Facebook, it's all Zoe Bakes.

Jessica: Amazing. Great.

Zoe: Thank you. This has been such a treat. I love chatting cookies with you.

David: Today's episode is brought to you by all the things you need to make your best chocolate chip cookies, all of which you'll find on kingarthurbaking.com. Jessica, I know this is gonna shock you and everyone else, but we've got more than flour on there. We've got the vanilla, we've got the cookie sheets, the parchment. The oven mitts.

Jessica: Wait. We sell oven mitts? I need new oven mitts.

David: We do sell oven mitts. We sell oven gloves. We sell heavy duty oven mitts, and we've got the cookie scoops, and we've got a lot of chocolate. We've got dark, milk, chips, wafers, Valrhona, the other one I can't pronounce.

Jessica: Callebaut. I mean, I go through so many of those Callebaut wafers. It's crazy.

David: I know it is, like a handful is like a perfect snack. Also a very good breakfast. Anyway, it's all there at kingarthurbaking.com. Go there, get everything you need for your chocolate chip cookie. Start baking.

David: I know our listeners have a lot of questions about chocolate chip cookies, so let's get into it. It's time for Ask the Bakers. Maybe you have a baking question that's stumping you. If so, head to kingarthurbaking.com/podcast to record a voice message and we may end up using it on the show. That's kingarthurbaking.com/podcast.

Jessica: And of course, if you have a baking question that simply cannot wait, you can always reach out to our Bakers Hotline via phone, email, or online chat. Just go to kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline. That's kingarthurbaking.com/bakers-hotline or call us (855) 371-2253. That's 2-2-5-3, as in BAKE. I can't wait to hear what people ask us. We are ready. We're ready for your questions. Operators are standing by.

David: Actually, all we're doing is waiting by the phone all day, all night. I don't eat until we get a question. I don't sleep until we get a question, so please, send a question, I’m hungry.

Caller: I'd like to know why my chocolate chip cookies are either very, very flat or very, very puffy, and I don't use any different recipes. I don't use any different ingredients. What am I doing that changes them? I like them with a little bit of puff to 'em, but I either seem to go to one extreme or the other. What am I doing wrong?

Jessica: Oh, this is a good question. Well, here's my theory.

David: I think I know what's going on too. Wait, can I tell you my theory first?

Jessica: I have an idea. At the count of three, let's name the piece of equipment that we hope they're using in the kitchen when they're making their cookies. Okay.

David: Okay. Or can this be the piece of equipment that we think is messing them up?

Jessica: Yes.

David: Okay. On the count of three, 1, 2, 3 ...

Jessica: Scale

David: Children. I think your children are pulling tricks on you. Sorry you had the right answer, I think.

Jessica: So at King Arthur, we always encourage bakers to bake using weight rather than volume, which is like cups and tablespoons. That's because no two people scoop the same weight of flour when they scoop up a cup of flour. So I might scoop a cup of flour that's 120 grams. David might scoop up a cup of flour that's 130 grams. You know it's true for cookies. It's true for all baked goods that getting a scale will ensure that your baked good comes out the same every time, or at least eliminate one of the huge variables.

David: I love my scale. I use it every single day, multiple times a day.

Jessica: I do too. I use my scale every, every single day. Greatest baking tool you can own for sure. But I think, I mean there's, there's other potential things that could be going on and I think, David, you might have a thought about if it's not, you know, say she is measuring with a scale ...

David: I think that's probably the culprit right there. I think let's just say that she's using a scale. I think the other culprit could be just a wonky oven. And one of the most mind-bending things I learned about chocolate chip cookies from our Test Kitchen is that a too hot oven doesn't make your cookie spread. It makes them like seize up too quickly. That it's a too-low oven that makes them spread because the hot oven sets the outside crust immediately and the low oven doesn't set it soon enough so it spreads. I always thought it was the other way around, but it doesn't really matter what the problem is. Just like your oven might be running high sometimes and low sometimes. This country is full of a wonky ovens, and so an oven thermometer is also a really handy thing to have

Jessica: Solid advice.

David: Let's move on.

Caller: I have two questions for you guys. One is, does the shape of the chocolate chip matter, like chocolate chips versus chocolate chunks versus buying a bar of chocolate and cutting it up yourself? Would love to hear your thoughts on that. And then the second question is, do you have recommendations or advice for the type of chocolate to use, like bittersweet versus specifically baking chocolate or dark chocolate? Do you have a percentage? Um, or white chocolate? Yeah. So I'd love to hear what you guys think. Thanks.

David: Where do I begin? I mean, I have so many thoughts about this. I think we can, we can check off the easy answers first. So first of all, yes. The type of chocolate, the form of chocolate you use does matter. If you are using chocolate chips, those are designed specifically to not melt, and that has an impact on the final texture of your cookie. A chocolate chip cookie that uses chocolate chips will not spread as much. Neither good nor bad. It's a stylistic thing, but yes, it absolutely matters. If you're chopping your chocolate, you're going to get pools of chocolate throughout your cookie, your cookie's going to kind of lay a little flatter and you're gonna have less consistency between, you know, chocolate bite to chocolate bite. You're gonna have these bites that are full of chocolate and then parts of the cookie that aren't. Personally, that's my preference.

Now as to her next question about like, what type of chocolate to use?

Jessica: I mean, find your bliss, right? You know, I think there are plenty of good quality brands of chocolate chips out there. Semisweet chocolate is going to be sweeter than bittersweet chocolate. The specific percentage of cacao in bittersweet versus semisweet chocolate varies from brand to brand, but you can assume that semisweet chocolate is always gonna be a bit sweeter than bittersweet. It really comes down to, you know, personal preference.

David: And yours is ... ?

Jessica: Well, it's a good question. I like bittersweet chocolate in my cookies, but my children like semisweet chocolate. You know, and honestly, often what I'm doing is like dredging up whatever bits and bobs of chocolate I have in my pantry and —

David: It's good too. I love a mix.

Jessica: So it'll be like some chocolate chips, some chopped chocolate. You know, everybody in the pool and you know what, it always turns out pretty good.

David: I like you prefer a bittersweet chocolate in my cookie. For me, the chocolate is there to offset the sweetness of the cookie. I have a theory, Jessica, that's related to this question.

Jessica: Okay. I'm on the edge of my seat.

David: So you are aware, I don't know if all of our listeners are, but you and I have talked about this recent phenomenon of the chocolate-less chocolate chip cookie.

Jessica: Oh yeah. We have.

David: Which, yep. Wonder how you feel about it. And we talked privately about like trying to wrap our heads around this. Is it a chocolate chip cookie? Is it not? Is it, you know, uh, what is the purpose and what is the reason for it? And my theory is that people who want a chocolate-less chocolate chip cookie perhaps have not had a chocolate chip cookie with the right chocolate in it.

Perhaps they have had, they've really had a lot of semisweet or milk chocolate or white chocolate in the cookies and they're getting the chocolate out because they want a cookie that's less sweet. And, but if they tried a cookie with, you know, a 70% and if they want to go really dark, you know, like an 80%, that they might find a better, shall I say, harmony of flavors? A symphony of flavors? But it's a better balance, you know, that might, uh, that might endear you to the chocolate chip cookie more.

Jessica: Interesting. I actually have never met anyone who ... Have I ever met anyone who doesn't like a chocolate chip cookie? I mean, I think the chipless chocolate chip cookie is, well, I think it's marketing, right? Like if you want a cookie without chocolate chips, just make a different cookie. Don't make a chocolate chip cookie without chocolate chips. Like, that's just sad. But that wasn't, that wasn't the question. We gotta go to the next question.

David: And as you said, find your bliss.

Jessica: Find your bliss.

David: Last caller. I think we have one more.

Jessica: Last caller. All right, great.

Caller: Hi, I'm Flora. I'm almost nine years old. I love to eat raw cookie dough, but my parents say it'll make me sick. Can you tell me why it's a bad idea? And is there any way to make cookie dough safe for eating?

Jessica: Oh, Flora.

David: Oh my god, I'm so scared.

Jessica: Oh, I feel for you, Flora. I mean, who amongst us has not filched a little bit of — David, you're rolling your eyes like you've never eaten raw cookie dough.

David: No, I'm just, I'm trying to collect myself. I feel so, I just, I don't know why that was really emotional for me because I, because I, because I understand, I understand where Flora's coming from and I hear the longing in her voice to eat that cookie dough.

Jessica: I mean, it is hard to resist. In fact, my kids, whenever I make cookie dough, they would just like to eat, you know, I'll say, do you want me to bake you a cookie tonight? And they're like, I'll just have a ball of dough. Uh, but you really shouldn't eat raw cookie dough, and there's a couple of reasons for it.

David: Wait before you go into that, I just gotta say for those listeners who can't see Jessica, it is paining her to say, I have to say this. She does not wanna say this, but it's true.

Jessica: I don't wanna say it, but it's true because you can get quite ill from eating raw cookie dough and not just like a bellyache, 'cause you've eaten too much raw cookie dough, but because flour is an agricultural product, you know, it's a raw product.

King Arthur flour never gets heat treated. So therefore it's possible that there could be contaminants on it that would be killed in cooking. So the flour is a risk. The eggs are a risk for the same reason, they're a raw product. So unfortunately, we have to say no to raw dough. What a bummer. I mean, I know that there are companies now that are making edible chocolate chip cookie dough, and those are safe to eat because that flour has been heat treated. But there's no reliable way to make edible cookie dough at home. I'm sorry to say Flora. I wish it weren't so, none that we can recommend anyway. None that we can recommend in good conscience for the children of America.

David: See, this is why I don't have kids. I mean, like, I just, I will never be able to be a parent because I hear, I heard that and I was like: I want to give her cookie dough right now. Just give it to her right now.

Jessica: I mean, the good news Flora is that you know what is safe to eat: chocolate chips. You can eat those by the handful outta the bag, by the handful. Tell your parents, Flora, it's a hack and a snack.

David: You know, the more we're talking about chocolate chip cookies and answering these questions —

Jessica: The more you want a chocolate chip cookie?

David: Every episode, we like to check in with Jessica to see what wildly surprising and full-throated ideas are in her head around the office. Here at King Arthur, we have a name for these ideas. We call them Jess-opinions. And now, for the first time ever, we're making that a segment of our podcast. Welcome to Jess-opinions.

Jessica, what is your Jess-opinion this week?

Jessica: Well, you know, I'm not trying to be like, I'm not intentionally trying to poke the bear here. But I do not like, and in fact, I would go so far as to say I think are bad, warm chocolate chip cookies. I know, I know. What's wrong with me?

David: Oy vey, I cannot believe ... Okay. Please explain.

Jessica: Well, so you and I had gone to a cookie establishment together that shall not be named. And we had tried a bunch of the cookies and by design the cookies are served warm. You know, they, they're baked frequently and then they're, they're put on like heated mats so they stay warm.

David: Yeah, that was a little weird.

Jessica: But I don't, you know, when people are like showing the chocolate chip cookie that they're like breaking in half and like they're real melty and soft, like fresh outta the oven. Ugh. No thank you.

David: Wait, so when you make chocolate chip cookies, you don't like burn your tongue eating one straight out of the pan.

Jessica: Oh, certainly not, never. I would never.

David: Oh my god, by the time my cookies are cool, like I've eaten half of them. I feel disgusting. But it's not because they're warm, it's because I ate too many.

Jessica: No, I mean, I like, I still want my chocolate to be like, not hard, right? Like I want there to still be some like chocolate pooling. But I think the overall textural experience for me is better when cookies have had say like, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes to cool. So they're like, you know, they're solidly room temperature, on the warm side of room temperature, but they're not like a molten cookie experience.

I think what I don't like about a warm chocolate chip cookie is that there is no sort of textural contrast, right? Like it's just sort of like raw dough, you know? There's not like a, a distinction between the edge and the middle. It just feels underdone to me in a way that I don't find appealing.

David: That's a good point. The edges have not had time to set up and get crispy. So it's all, it's sort of like all middle. Oh gosh. I never thought about that before. Now I'm getting a little grossed out.

Jessica: Now you're getting a Jess-opinion.

David: Don’t change me, because I like the way I am.

Jessica: So I don't know. I mean, are we gonna get hate mail? I don't know what's gonna happen.

David: Definitely gonna get hate mail. Uh, but you know what? I will defend you until the day I die. You have a right to like cookies at whatever temperature you want, and that temperature seems to be not too cold, definitely not warm, but just right. And that's fine.

Jessica: David, before we go, I wanna tell you about something I learned while working on this episode. There is a chocolate chip cookie that is so special it's in a museum.

David: Hmm. Okay. That sounds odd. Sounds like an old cookie.

Jessica: It may not be the freshest cookie you've ever eaten, but the cookie is at the Udvar- Hazy Center at the National Air and Space Museum in Virginia, and that's the museum that also houses the space shuttle Discovery, and lots of other notable air and space artifacts.

And the reason that there's a cookie there is because this chocolate chip cookie does not fly, but it was the first thing ever baked in space.

David: Wow. Okay.

Jessica: Yeah, it's a space cookie.

David: That's a, that's a notable achievement.

Jessica: It is a notable achievement. Because as you can imagine, there's a lot of challenges when it comes to baking in space in a zero-gravity environment. So I called up Ian and Jordana Fichtenbaum, who are the co-founders and co-chefs of this space technology company called Zero G Kitchen. And they were curious to see if it was possible to design a zero-gravity oven that would work on the International Space Station. And when I asked them about, why chocolate chip cookies? Although the answer to me is quite obvious. You know, they thought like if you were going to be away from home for a year, like what food item, what baked food item would bring more comfort and joy than a chocolate chip cookie, which I think is true.

David: Totally.

Jessica: But until now, the technology hasn't existed to actually freshly bake something. So in 2019, the oven, along with frozen discs of chocolate chip cookie dough were sent to space. And the astronauts who are working on the International Space Station then take the frozen pucks of chocolate chip cookie dough. They put them in like a silicone pouch, and the silicone pouch prevents flyaway crumbs, but also is vented to release steam.

David: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And they put them in the center of the oven and nobody knew what was gonna happen. So they baked five cookies in all, and they tried to figure out how long really the experiment was, like, how long does it take to bake a cookie in space in the special oven? And, and what happens? So. David, guess how long it took for the cookie to bake?

David: Oh, I just assumed like normal time, like 10 minutes.

Jessica: No, guess again.

David: Okay. Well, gosh, I mean, well based on my experience in space, um, uh, gosh, I guess gravity would, maybe, gravity sped things up and it was like 30 seconds?

Jessica: Oh, that would be amazing. 130 minutes. It took more than two hours to bake a single chocolate chip cookie.

David: I am so confused. Also worth it, probably. I mean, if you're in space and you want a chocolate chip cookie, worth it.

Jessica: You've got time on your side, where else are you gonna go? You know?

David: Why did it take so long?

Jessica: I mean, that's a great question. The oven that Ian and Jordana created, it's not very large. It's sort of a, you know, maybe the size of like a, a laptop, you know, 14 or 16 inches. It's a cylinder and it is designed to hold and bake food in the microgravity environment. Uh, and it heats using electric heating elements, so it pulls wattage from the space station and Jordana described it to me sort of like a toaster oven or like an easy bake oven. I don't know if you ever had an easy bake oven, I did. Where like the light bulb is cooking things over a very long period of time. So that sort of helped me understand more or less what, what is happening. I think the first cookie that they baked, they baked for 25 minutes. That was not successful. It was like grossly under baked. You know, the second cookie, it was like 75 minutes and they said at the 75-minute mark they could smell a chocolate chip cookie. Finally at 130 minutes with a 10-minute rest, and they, they determined that that was the cookie that baked and seemed most like a cookie baked on planet Earth. And I say, seemed, because here's the worst part. They never got to taste the cookies. The astronauts didn't get to eat the cookies.

David: That's why they're in the museum.

Jessica: You can't just have an astronaut eat anything or do anything in outer space because you know, what if they get sick? What if something bad happens? What if they have an adverse reaction?

David: Gosh, this is torture. They smell a cookie for two hours and then they don't get to eat it?

Jessica: I know.

David: Oh my god. Ugh. These people have a lot of willpower.

Jessica: I know. And they said they were really just interested in, could you do it? Not so much in, is it delicious? Which is a real mind bender to me.

David: Look, I applaud their willpower. I applaud their curiosity.

Jessica: So they tell me that they know where one cookie is, which is on display at the Udvar-Hazy Center, but the whereabouts of the other space-baked chocolate chip cookies is unknown.

David: I think we know. I think we know.

Jessica: I'm imagining them like in a break room fridge or freezer somewhere, you know, that somebody has tucked them away. And to hear Ian describe it, they quote lost track of the cookies. We'll never know if a space cookie was delicious. But we do know that this experiment has sort of paved the way for future space baking, which is really pretty exciting, and it may become more and more relevant as space tourism picks up because I think there will be a demand for freshly baked cookies and beyond.

And so I asked Ian and Jordana like what they were working on next, what they're currently thinking of as their next space baking experiment. And Jordana told me that they're considering experimenting with sourdough starter in space. I told them that we were very excited to hear about how space starter plays out. You know, what happens with fermentation in space and that, of course, you know, they have to use King Arthur flour when they mix up that first batch of space starter.

David: I support it.

Jessica: The things you know. We are just about out of time for today, but before we go, I wanna ask you one question. David, what are you baking this week? What's on your baking agenda?

David: Uh, on my agenda, it's more bread. I am in a bread zone right now. I'm in a bread, I'm in a good place with my starter. It's, it's lively. I will say, shout out to my husband who is feeding the starter. 'Cause if were on me, that starter would be dead. Uh, but it's not. And so I'm going for more Sesame Wheat. It's, it's on our site and it's also in the Big Book of Bread, which is of course our number one New York Times bestselling cookbook. It's just an incredible loaf to have around during the week.

Jessica: Yeah, I love that bread. It's so hardy and delicious. Breakfast, lunch ... And you know what I also like to do with that Sesame Wheat. This is an idea that I got from Lucinda Scala Quinn, the food author.

David: I just call her Scala Quinn. 'Cause I think that’s a badass last name ...

Jessica: It’s a great, it's a great last name. She puts like thick planks of bread underneath her roasting chicken.

David: Oh yeah.

Jessica: You know? So then you take the chicken off and you have this like schmaltz-soaked toast and the Sesame Wheat is like particularly good for that.

David: Wow. Maybe I'll do that. What are you baking this week, Jessica?

Jessica: So this week I'm planning to bake a new to me recipe that's on our site for Roti Canai, which is a South Asian flatbread that's like stretchy and flaky and crispy and greasy in a good way.

And it's, you know, they're not the fastest thing to make. So I feel like they're a nice thing to do like when you have some time on the weekend and you want a little bit of a project, you know, you roll them out, they get folded, they get coiled, they get rolled, but then you have this magnificent, flaky, crispy flatbread.

David: One of the best foods ever created.

Jessica: One of the best foods ever made. And that recipe comes from Thomas Pisha-Duffly, who has a couple restaurants out in Portland, Oregon, and he serves the roti there. I've eaten the roti there. It's so good. So if I can come close at home, that'll be exciting. And I'll just make a curry or something to serve with it.

So that's my plan.

David: I have faith in you, I think you're gonna get real close.

Jessica: I think it's gonna be fun. Thank you for tuning in and joining us here on Things Bakers Know. We'll be back with another episode all about pizza.

David: Remember to like us, remember to like us. Please, please like us. Remember to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen.

Jessica: Review the podcast while you're there. Or, uh, share this episode with a friend 'cause baking is more fun together,

David: We'll see you back here next week. In the meantime, please people follow the recipe. Just follow the recipe.

Jessica: Things Bakers Know is hosted and executive produced by me, Jessica Battilana.

David: And me, David Tamarkin.

Jessica: Rossi Anastopoulo is our senior producer. Chad Chenail is our producer and engineer. Original music by Megan and Marcus Bagala. This episode featured Zoe Francois. You can learn more about her book Zoe Bakes Cookies by going to zoebakes.com, and it's also linked in the show notes. You'll find some of our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes, as well as other recipes for what we're baking this week.

Things Bakers Know is a King Arthur Baking Company podcast.