Here's What Perfect Cookies Look Like To Duff Goldman
Though he got his start with cakes as the creative visionary behind the successful bakery Charm City Cakes, baker and television personality Duff Goldman has tips and tricks for virtually any kind of baked good you could ever want to whip up. After all, as per his Food Network bio, he serves as a judge on no fewer than three different baking competition shows on the network, "Holiday Baking Championship," "Spring Baking Championship," and "Kids Baking Championship." In order to offer constructive criticism to the competitors looking to snag the win on their show, he needs to have more than just cake mastered.
And luckily, Goldman isn't the type of culinary personality who keeps all his tips and tricks secret. Instead, he happily shares them with home bakers so that they too can whip up truly sensational creations in their own kitchens.
Now, cookies may seem like a relatively easy item to make, especially when compared with something like a towering and intricately decorated layered cake. However, in the pursuit of truly perfect cookies, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. Common mistakes include everything from failing to beat the butter and sugar long enough, forgetting to allow key ingredients, like eggs and butter to come to room temperature, or placing a second batch on a still-hot baking sheet.
It turns out, Goldman has a simple visual sign that will give you the confidence of knowing you've knocked it out of the park with your cookies.
Look for a perfectly wrinkled top
Now, Goldman's tip doesn't apply to all types of cookies, like rolled and cut-out shapes, or specific varieties, such as macarons. However, for standard drop cookies, like classic chocolate chip cookies, or even favorites, like oatmeal and soft sugar cookies, Goldman has a visual cue that lets him know the cookies are going to be outstanding — as he told Delish. He looks for wrinkles along the exterior of the cookie. Though you may also keep an eye on your cookies for other visual cues, such as golden brown edges, Goldman's visual hint works for a reason.
As he explained, a cookie with wrinkles around the edges signals that the leaveners in the dough have done their work in the oven — the rising cookies deflate as you take them out of the hot oven, creating those tell-tale wrinkles. Eating Expired warns that wrinkles typically form when the edges of the cookie are baked but the inside isn't quite set. But from Goldman's perspective, that's exactly the balance of textures you want — a bit of golden crispness around the edges and an ooey, gooey center to bite into (via Delish). If that sounds like cookie heaven to you, now you know that those wrinkles are a handy visual cue that you've done everything right.
If you want a little help with the process, Food52 recommends banging the cookie sheet partway through the bake, leading to plenty of wrinkles on the surface of the finished cookies.