How to Nail the Perfect Cookie with NYT Cooking’s Vaughn Vreeland
VAUGHN: What’s nice about baking is that, at the end of the day, you still have a cookie. Not being afraid of making a mistake is going to free you up so much mentally in the kitchen.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin, and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show.
ROSIE: Guys, today, we’re talking about cookies.
CAIRA: Oh, my God.
ROSIE: Not just cookies, but the book, Cookies, which is the new book from Vaughn Vreeland, who is part of the New York Times Cooking team.
CHRISTINE: I’m really excited to talk to Vaughn. He is charming, he is skilled, and he has a ton of great recommendations for holiday baking.
ROSIE: He is the host of Bake Time, which is a video series for New York Times Cooking. It’s also the name of a newsletter that he started.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, they just came out with that in October. I subscribed. It’s great. And he’s got practical, but also aspirational advice on how to make cookies.
CAIRA: And he wrapped it all up in his new book, which came out in October, and I’m so excited because it’s all ramping up for Cookie Week at the New York Times Cooking.
ROSIE: It’s a big part of the year. One of the things that we did that’s fun in this episode is we asked to hear from our listeners, so we’re going to see if you can answer some questions about cookies.
CHRISTINE: Yep. So we’re going to take a quick break, and then when we’re back, we’ll be with Vaughn Vreeland and, hopefully, we’ll get everything you need to know about baking great cookies. Stick around.
ROSIE: Welcome back. Our guest today is the Cookie Man, Vaughn Vreeland. Vaughn is the host of the New York Times Cooking YouTube series and newsletter called Bake Time, and he has a new book out, appropriately called Cookies. The book is a love letter to cookie baking. It is full of recipes for every occasion, many of which Vaughn developed plus with many contributions from his colleagues at Times Cooking, including Eric Kim’s gochujang caramel cookies, Yewande Komolafe’s spiced chocolate marble shortbread, and Sohla El-Waylly’s white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Vaughn, so happy to have you here. Welcome.
VAUGHN: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited.
CHRISTINE: Ok Vaughn, so we are catching you mid-Cookie Week! For those who are not familiar with Cookie Week, this is a New York Times Cooking annual tradition where they publish a bunch of really awesome holiday cookie recipes. And there’s supporting videos and all this awesome stuff. Vaughn, can you tell us a little about Cookie Week and what we can expect this year?
VAUGHN: Oh, it’s good. It’s really good. So we convene in May and we’re like, “Okay, how do we… Not necessarily one-up ourselves, but how do we keep pushing the form a little bit?”
CHRISTINE: I just imagine you guys trying to reinvent the cookie wheel-
CAIRA: I really want to see a TV show about this.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
VAUGHN: No, it’s like we convene and we get pitches from all the developers, and then we put them literally up onto a board, and then we mix and match from the different pitches to see like, “Okay, so she pitched a fruity one, he pitched a nutty one, they pitched a chocolatey one. How did these all look together in a cookie box?”
CAIRA: Oh, that’s awesome. I like that-
VAUGHN: It’s fun. There’s a lot of mixing and matching. So this year, I’m really excited because the theme is, but make it a cookie. And so my first recipe I ever worked on for New York Times Cooking was an eggnog snickerdoodle, and it is based off of the beverage. And then I took that and ran with it the other Cookie Week. So I did a Mexican hot chocolate cookie, a gingerbread latte cookie, and they were popular because I think people resonate with those flavor profiles, and then they’re like, “How does that translate into a cookie?” Right?
CAIRA: And it’s super festive.
ROSIE: Yeah.
VAUGHN: It’s festive.
ROSIE: Yes.
VAUGHN: So this year, everybody’s like, “Well, why don’t we just do a riff on that and have everybody pitch but make it a cookie?” So people were thinking about their favorite cocktails as cookies. There’s a Mortadella cookie, which-
CHRISTINE: Oh, my gosh.
VAUGHN: … is actually probably one of my favorite ones-
CAIRA: What’s that?
CHRISTINE: It’s a sausage.
VAUGHN: Yeah.
CAIRA: Is that [inaudible 00:04:17] pistachio?
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
VAUGHN: Yeah. It’s got pistachio. It’s really creative and fun. It’s a almond cookie, a slice and bake that gets its pink hue, like the Mortadella, soft pink, from freeze-dried strawberries. And then there’s pistachios and macadamia nuts for those little specks of fat that you would see. It looks just like it.
CHRISTINE: Oh, that’s clever. That is really funny.
VAUGHN: It’s a little trippy. Yeah, it’s fun.
CHRISTINE: We put out a call to our listeners to send us their toughest questions around cookie baking, and so we want you to help diagnose their various baking issues. So are you game to answer some questions?
VAUGHN: Oh, yeah. Totally.
CHRISTINE: All right, let’s go.
Poppy: Hi, Wirecutter. My name is Poppy and I’m from New York City, but I’m currently living in the DMV. My cookie question is, when baking cookies, does it make a difference if you use a silicone pad or parchment paper on a baking sheet? Does one add more of a crispy texture? Thanks. Bye.
CHRISTINE: Oh, this is a good question. I feel like I’ve had this question-
CAIRA: Shout out to the DMV.
CHRISTINE: Very cute.
VAUGHN: Poppy. I’m like, “Oh, my God, Poppy, I love you.” That is a really good question. I still test recipes on both silicone baking mats and parchment paper to make sure that it bakes the same. Sometimes it will baked differently. Silicone, it will absorb more of the heat on a metal baking tray. So parchment, there’s going to be a little bit less hindrance. It’s more like you’ll have more metal conduction underneath it.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. So does it make it crisper with the parchment and browner?
VAUGHN: In my oven, yes, it does. In my oven, things tend to cook a little bit faster on parchment paper. Now the people like baking on silicone because all you got to do is wash it off. It also will create, for me at least, more consistent results, but parchment I think is more of the route that we go with for a lot of our cookie recipes because it’s more readily available at the grocery store and it’s usually going to be a little bit easier to lift the cookie off of the parchment quicker. But, yeah, I mean, still, that’s a question that I still test recipes to make sure that it works the same on both. If there is a discrepancy in them, it’s worth noting, but usually it’s about the same.
CHRISTINE: Okay, that’s great. So Poppy’s question is a really good segue into talking a little bit more about gear. What are your essential cookie baking tools in the kitchen? What do you think, if people are really wanting to bake this holiday season, what do they really, really need to have?
VAUGHN: You have to have a good strong spatula.
CHRISTINE: What shape?
VAUGHN: I like the spoonulas because they-
CAIRA: A what?
VAUGHN: They call it a spoonula because it’s got a little bit of a divot like a spoon, but it’s also silicone spatula. For me, that’s the easiest of getting into… If you’re with a stand mixer or even with a hand mixer and a bowl, scraping down the sides is very key, especially after creaming the butter and the sugar. To me, that’s also something that goes back to Poppy’s question of consistency. I experience much more consistent bakes if I take the time to actually go through the steps as intended-
ROSIE: You wrote about that in the book.
VAUGHN: Yeah.
ROSIE: Read the recipe-
VAUGHN: Read the recipe.
CAIRA: … from top to bottom.
VAUGHN: Absolutely. Read the recipe from top to bottom and you run less of a risk, less of a margin for error. Yeah, I would say a silicone spatula, a spoonula. I would say I like OXO cookie scoops. I think that OXO cookie scoops are… They’re the ones that a lot of our developers test with, but the thing that’s really frustrating about cookie scoops is from brand to brand, they’re all different sizes. OXO makes a two-ounce cookie scoop, for example, and that doesn’t necessarily always correspond with the same size as the restaurant supply store ones, so definitely make sure that when you’re using a cookie scoop, I like to fill it with water and put it in a shot glass to see how many ounces it actually is.
CHRISTINE: That’s brilliant.
CAIRA: And two ounces is what you would recommend?
VAUGHN: Well, it depends on… For my chocolate chip cookies, I use a two-ounce scoop, which is going to be four tablespoons. And then a one-ounce scoop is two tablespoons. So for a smaller drop cookie… My cookie for Cookie Week this year is the one-ounce scoop.
CHRISTINE: And just to be clear, a cookie scoop is… It looks like an ice cream scoop, but it has a little thing that you push with your thumb to eject the cookie dough, right?
VAUGHN: Exactly, yeah. It’s got a release mechanism.
CHRISTINE: Yes. Right. We’re Mission Impossible cooking.
VAUGHN: Yes. I mean, and depending on the dough, I have worked with dough before that was too cold and sometimes the cookie scoop snaps, so I think that the OXO ones are traditionally the most durable. The OXO ones, I’ve had for eight years. Also, be set up for success, whether you’re baking on parchment or your silicone baking mats, I like to have everything laid out for me before I start baking. Because there’s nothing worse than having dough all over your hands and everything’s greasy and you got to go into the drawer and find the plastic wrap. Everything gets all buttery.
When you have a nice mise en place that is very comforting when you go into the baking process and also makes you a little bit more confident. Another thing, I think that everybody should own a kitchen scale. Even if you’re a casual baker, even if you’re baking curious, I think that you should own a kitchen scale, go into your kitchen and measure out a cup of flour in your cup. First of all, I have four different brands of cup measures and they all are different for some reason. And when I scoop, even if I’m delicately scooping the flour out of my container, I will scoop probably 145 gram for one cup of flour. Our cup is 126 grams for our recipes. Definitely a kitchen scale and they just make such quick work of everything.
CHRISTINE: We recommended the Escali-
VAUGHN: Mine is Escali.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I think that’s a really common one that a lot of people recommend. It’s cheap. It’s under $30.
VAUGHN: It’s under $30, and my friend, Sue, used to work at 11 Madison Park and that was the one that she had when she worked there.
ROSIE: What about a baking sheet?
VAUGHN: Oh, yeah, rimmed baking sheet for sure.
ROSIE: Why rimmed?
VAUGHN: Because that’s what we test all of our recipes on. My mom has this… I guess it would be considered what they maybe call a cookie sheet, which is the ones without the rim.
CAIRA: Oh, yeah. My grandma has those and she swears by them.
VAUGHN: To me, they’re flimsier, they don’t conduct to the heat as well and I always burn stuff on them. I think just any rimmed baking sheet that, if you knock on it, it should sound denser-
CHRISTINE: Right. And it shouldn’t sound like it’s wobbling.
VAUGHN: Yeah. Those sheets of thunder within the movies. Yeah, it shouldn’t sound like that. No, it should sound like you’re knocking on something a little bit heftier.
CHRISTINE: What are some of the nice-to-have pieces of gear that you think will just make cookie baking easier and more pleasurable?
VAUGHN: I love an offset spatula. I use it for basically everything.
CAIRA: What’s that?
VAUGHN: If you think about a spatula, it’s like the handle, and then the metal part goes straight out from it, this one has a little bit of a dip before the spatula part.
CHRISTINE: Got it. Yeah.
VAUGHN: So it is on two planes. You’ve got the handle on one plane and the actual spatula part on another.
CAIRA: Right, it’s the SpongeBob spatula.
VAUGHN: Yes, it is like that. And they’re long and skinny. And so that’s nice. People use it for baking cakes and things like that for smoothing stuff out. I like to use them actually, the small offset, for peeking under the cookie when I’m taking it out of the oven to make sure that the bottom… It’s a very delicate way of doing it without using a big fish spatula or something like that and running the risk of breaking your cookie before it sets.
CHRISTINE: What about a cooling rack?
VAUGHN: I was going to say a cooling rack that fits in the sheet tray.
CAIRA: I’m so sorry. You guys can tell that I don’t bake. What’s a cooling rack?
VAUGHN: It’s a wire rack that’s a grid.
CAIRA: Oh, yeah. Okay.
VAUGHN: And so, usually, you want your cookies to set up for a couple minutes before you transfer them because the residual heat that’s still on the baking sheet-
CAIRA: Will still cook them?
VAUGHN: … will still cook them. Yeah. So putting a cooling rack, I like to have ones that fit in my sheet tray because they won’t wobble around as much. I have knocked cooling racks of cookies off of the counter and it is not very fun. I like that. And you know what is my favorite thing that is such an extra thing to have, but it makes your cookies very beautiful? And you can do this with a lowball glass too, but ring molds. So ring molds are actually really fun for getting that Instagram perfect circular cookie. When a cookie comes out and it’s shaped like an amoeba, and you’re like, “Okay, wait, this isn’t very circular.” Well, talking about, it’s still warm and still malleable when it’s on the sheet tray, so you take the ring mold or a lowball glass and you put it over it, the circumference has to be wider than the actual cookie, and then you just do concentric circles really fast and it makes a very perfect circular cookie. That’s what all of our food stylists do.
CHRISTINE: That is such a hack.
ROSIE: That is a hack.
CHRISTINE: I am doing that. I’m going to impress my family and bake.
VAUGHN: Yep. You can buy the ring molds on Amazon. The nice thing about those too is they come in a bunch of different sizes, so they start at probably a one-inch diameter and go out to probably a six-inch diameter. And then another cookie tip, if we’re talking cookie tips in making them really picture perfect, is, especially a chocolate chip cookie, reserve some chunks of chocolate, and then press those into the top before you bake them, and then that will create those really beautiful puddles of chocolate on top.
CHRISTINE: While it’s still dough.
VAUGHN: While it’s still dough, and then it bakes into it perfectly.
ROSIE: I always wondered how they get those.
VAUGHN: Yeah. Because, a lot of times, when you scoop it, you’ll get dough on the mounded side and you won’t see the chocolate on the inside. Still going to taste great, but it’s not going to have those… We call them puddles of chocolate.
CHRISTINE: I love that. I am loving that. That’s great. So are there any pieces of gear that you think people think they need to have to make great cookies, but you’re like, “You don’t need that”?
VAUGHN: I didn’t have a stand mixer for a long time when I moved up to New York and I was still able to very adequately make cookies, so that’s why I don’t think you need it. I will say a hand mixer makes really nice work of stuff though. What are some things that people-
CAIRA: Extra special butter.
VAUGHN: If butter is in the title of something, like browned butter, you probably do want to splurge, if you’re able to of course. Because browned butter gets its flavor from the milk solids browning, the higher quality or the higher fat butter is going to have more milk solids to brown so it will taste more nutty, typically.
ROSIE: We have a listener question, actually, that’s specifically about butter that I love to talk to and get your thoughts on.
Jacqueline: Hi, this is Jacqueline from Salt Lake City, Utah. My question is about browned butter. My sister has a chocolate chip cookie recipe with browned butter and it’s phenomenal, and now I want to try browned butter in all of my cookies. Is this a good approach? Is it advised for some types of cookies but not others? Any tips on browned butter and cookies would be great. Thank you.
VAUGHN: I love this question. I love this question because when I was first making browned butter cookies, I also wanted to put browned butter in everything. I literally was like, “Oh, my God, this is so good.” But you can’t just simply swap browned butter for butter in a recipe. You have to think about what is happening to butter when you’re browning it and think about what you’re losing. You’re losing water, you’re losing a big portion of the moisture content that’s actually in that butter because that’s what’s being driven off before it can then brown.
And so if you think about it, melt butter, pour it into a Pyrex, and you’ll see that if you’re doing two sticks of butter, that’s a cup of butter, so it’ll go to the cup line. But if you brown two sticks of butter, you’re going to probably lose close to a quarter cup of moisture that’s in there. So I always, if I’m browning butter, like to make sure that the volume measurement lines up and I’ll pour it into a glass measuring cup, and then I’ll usually add an ice cube because that also just stops the cooking. You could add bourbon to it, which would make it-
CHRISTINE: Yeah, why not?
VAUGHN: Anything that’s going to add that moisture back in there. I actually did a test with our very popular Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookie, and I browned the butter without putting an ice cube in it and just continued with the recipe as written and it was just very dry. You need that extra bit of moisture back in there, and I think in terms of flavor, you do you. And again, also, if you’re thinking about browned butter, it’s liquid when it’s hot, look at the recipe, and if the recipe is calling for softened butter, you’re going to want to take the time to re-solidify that brown butter before you actually continue what the recipe has written.
CHRISTINE: Vaughn, what I’m hearing so far is you really don’t have to get too complicated to make great cookies. You can keep it very simple. You just need a few tools. You need to have your spatula, maybe a spoonula, a good baking sheet, parchment or silicone mat. And then the nice-to-haves are a cooling rack, a hand mixer or a stand mixer and those ring molds, which I’m very intrigued by those. I want to try those. And then do not go off script with the browned butter. If the recipe doesn’t call for browned butter, just don’t assume that you can do browned butter instead. You’re going to have to factor in the loss of liquid in that.
VAUGHN: Absolutely. And I think what’s nice about baking is that, at the end of the day, you still have a cookie. It might not be the most perfect thing, not being afraid of making a mistake is going to free you up so much mentally in the kitchen.
CHRISTINE: Well, we’re going to take a quick break, and then when we’re back, we’re going to dive deeper into the cookie baking process to get the results that you really want.
CAIRA: And we’re also going to talk with Vaughn about the most common mistakes people make when baking and how to troubleshoot when you’ve messed something up.
CHRISTINE: And more listener questions.
CAIRA: Yay.
CHRISTINE: So stick around. We’ll be right back.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back. Our guest today is Vaughn Vreeland from New York Times Cooking. We’re talking about his new book, Cookies. Before the break, we talked about the gear you need to bake and Vaughn fielded a couple of questions from our listeners.
ROSIE: That’s right. So we’ve got a great listener question to get us started. So let’s hear from Jennifer.
Jeniffer Molina: Hi, Wirecutter, this is Jennifer Molina and I am calling right now from Bilbao, Spain, although, normally, I live in California. This is a burning cookie question I always have. I like thick, dense cookies. And sometimes when I’m baking, they actually come out a bit flatter than I would like. I want topography dense, amazing cookies. What am I doing incorrectly? Thanks so much.
ROSIE: Let’s help Jennifer. She needs a topographical cookie and I love it so much.
VAUGHN: Jennifer is a person after my own heart. I mean, I am a chewy, dense cookie person. So a lot of times when cookies spread a little bit too much, there could be a few things going on. You could overcrowd your pan and that will create more of this radiation of heat as the cookies around it absorb more heat. Another thing is chilling the dough. If you’re not properly chilling the dough or if you have a cookie recipe that you really like the flavor of, you might want to chill the dough before you actually bake it, which will help mitigate that spread.
CHRISTINE: And you would recommend scooping them onto the sheet pan, and then putting them in the refrigerator?
VAUGHN: Yeah, I always scoop, and then chill. Some people would probably say like, “No, you need to chill the whole mass of dough because drying out,” and whatnot. If you wrap it well, it should be fine, but it’s so much easier to scoop the dough at room temperature than to scoop it when it’s cold. And that is how I’ve broken cookie scoops before. So, yeah, chilling. And then also your ratios. I was testing my cookie for cookie week this year and it was spreading a little bit more than I wanted. So then I swapped the quantities of granulated sugar and brown sugar and it made this topographically beautiful mounded cookie.
CHRISTINE: And you put in more brown sugar?
VAUGHN: Put in more of a ratio of brown sugar. So brown sugar is going to give cookies a lot of that chew because of its moisture and it’s got all that molasses-y notes in it, so it also gives it beautiful flavor. White sugar helps with the crisp around the edges and also typically creates a spread in cookies. Also, just make sure that you’re leavening, your baking soda and your baking powder is up-to-date. Go to the store, maybe buy a new one if you don’t think that you’ve gotten a new one in the last couple of years. Get a new baking soda, get a new baking powder.
ROSIE: That’s interesting. I did not think that that would be a thing that would have a big impact if they were past an expiration date. I wouldn’t think about baking soda in that way.
VAUGHN: Totally. Yeah, leavening can really react differently with certain things.
CAIRA: Well, we actually have another listener question along these lines. Let’s hear it.
Caitlin: Hey, Wirecutter. My name’s Caitlin and I live in Strasbourg, France, where I am an American expat. So my cookie dilemma is that most French people in my life love when I make cookies because they associate cookies just with chocolate chip. So learning how much versatility there is in cookie making is really fun, but most of the French people in my life have a way lower tolerance for sugar than most of the Americans in my life do, so I find myself reducing the amount of sugar, but then it messes with the texture. So what advice do you have on reducing the sugar in cookies? And also, do you have a great recommendation for a not too overly sweet holiday cookie that I can make to impress my friends? Thanks.
VAUGHN: That’s a great question. Also, that’s so funny. Because I studied abroad in France and there’s definitely a difference between a bisque, which is the English would say bisqui to say cookie. There’s definitely a difference between that and a cookie… Cookie as a chocolate chip cookie as exactly what she said. So you’re thinking about the different forms of sweetener out there. There’s obviously brown sugar, white sugar, different types of sugars. There’s maple syrup, there’s honey. I wouldn’t necessarily go with swapping a maple syrup or a honey because they actually are a little bit sweeter by volume than actual sugar sugar.
Brown sugar does have a little bit of a deeper flavor, so if you have access to brown sugar, I think that that would honestly create a little bit of a richer nuance to the cookie itself rather than just a granulated sugar cookie. In terms of reducing the amount of sugar, you’re right, the sugar is also there to add structure to the cookie, and so I would say tinker with the amount of fat that you’re using in the recipe because that’s also going to create more of an issue when you’re blending the butter and the sugar together in the beginning phases of mixing before you add the dry ingredients.
CAIRA: See, this is why baking intimidates me because if you want to mess with one thing, you have to mess with everything else.
VAUGHN: Yeah. And then I was thinking about it, it’s like if you go down on the sugar, then you go down on the fat, but then is the cookie going to be too dry because of the… One really great secret ingredient for a lot of cookies is water. Water actually really does help with a lot of moisture loss or if a cookie is too dry. If she’s going down on the sugar, and then subsequently goes down the fat, maybe the cookie is going to be a little dry because the dry ingredients are overwhelming that fat that’s in there, add a little bit of water in there and see what happens.
CAIRA: So do you have a specific holiday cookie maybe she could bring to impress her people that’s not too sweet?
VAUGHN: Yes. I would say I’ve got this chewy brownie cookie recipe that’s topped with flaky salt. So if she’s a chocolate lover, I would say go with that because it’s not too sweet. The chocolate flavor is really chocolatey and also what offsets the sweetness also is a little bit of flaky salt on top.
ROSIE: You have some really interesting recipes and flavor combinations in the book. Some using really savory ingredients you don’t necessarily see in cookie recipes all of the time. So for example, the Filipino-inspired recipe for the adobo chocolate chip that uses a full tablespoon of pink peppercorns, which I thought was very cool. Are there other savory ingredients you think should be on people’s radar when it comes to elevating sweet baking?
VAUGHN: Oh, totally. Miso. My mind to immediately goes to miso.
ROSIE: Miso. Talk about miso.
VAUGHN: Miso is so good in cookies. It’s so good in cookies. It adds this level of savoriness that’s just really beautiful. Eric Kim has a gochujang-
CHRISTINE: I’ve made those. They’re so good.
VAUGHN: … caramel cookie. Very good. They’re so good. And gochujang has a natural sweetness to it a lot of brands do. It just pairs really well and it adds this level of spice to it, which I really love. Olive oil is another thing that people typically associate with savory, but in cookies… In any baked good, but especially a cookie with olive oil, delicious. It just gives it, again, this other level of flavor that you don’t know you wanted yet.
CHRISTINE: So I want to ask you some very quick lightning round questions around common problems that people have with their cookies so you quickly diagnose what to do.
VAUGHN: Okay. Okay.
CHRISTINE: Okay? Cookies are too hard.
VAUGHN: Overbaked.
CHRISTINE: Cookies are too cakey.
VAUGHN: Too much flour. Too much dry ingredient.
CHRISTINE: The cookies spread too much when baking.
VAUGHN: Improperly chilled or too much fat or they’re too close together.
CHRISTINE: Okay. Could be a number of things.
VAUGHN: Could be a number of things.
CHRISTINE: Cookies are burned on the bottom.
VAUGHN: Check your sheet tray. Check your oven temp.
CHRISTINE: Do you mean put a thermometer in there and actually check it?
VAUGHN: 1000%. You should buy-
CHRISTINE: Okay. So don’t rely on what your oven is telling you. Get a little thermometer that you can put inside your oven.
VAUGHN: Oh, yeah. I think everybody should have an oven thermometer. My oven runs 50 degrees hotter than-
CHRISTINE: 50 degrees? That’s wild.
VAUGHN: Yeah, I have to set it to 400 in order to bake something at 350.
CHRISTINE: I think I have the same problem and I always am subconsciously accounting for that when I’m cooking.
VAUGHN: Yeah. Even nice new ovens, we have great ones at the studio, one of them always runs… If you set it to 350, it will be 400. If they’re burning on the bottom, then there’s too much heat that’s coming in contact with the sheet tray before the rest of it can get baked through.
CAIRA: Be kind to yourself. It might not be a you problem.
VAUGHN: Yeah. No, totally.
CAIRA: Know your equipment too.
CHRISTINE: I wish there were more answers in life like that.
CAIRA: I know.
VAUGHN: Yeah, 1000%.
CAIRA: Okay, Vaughn. Well, before we wrap, we always ask our guests one final question. What’s the last thing you bought that you really loved?
VAUGHN: My Labubu. No-
ROSIE: I mean, we’ll take it.
CAIRA: [inaudible 00:32:24] today and I was like, “What is that?” I’ve never seen one in real life. And now I’ve seen my second one today.
ROSIE: Vaughn, thank you so much for joining us. This was really, really fun.
VAUGHN: Thank you. Oh, I had the best time. I could talk about cookies all day.
ROSIE: What a lovely conversation with Vaughn. Delight.
CHRISTINE: He is great. I would love to receive a box of cookies from him just in case he’s listening to this episode.
CAIRA: Yeah, I was hoping he’d bring one in today, actually.
ROSIE: What are you taking away from this conversation?
CHRISTINE: Well, I was reminded that I really should have a thermometer in my oven. I forgot that I should do that and I will be doing that because it’s not just an important thing for baking, but it’s also for cooking. So I don’t have to live in mystery anymore.
ROSIE: Who knew you couldn’t trust your own oven?
CAIRA: Mine, because I’m not much of a baker, and as I’ve discussed at length on this podcast, I don’t really eat sweets because I’m non-dairy and whatever, whatever, I think I would go for the scale that he recommended and a spoonula because those are things that you can use for both baking and cooking, and I love a good versatile kitchen tool.
ROSIE: I think this scale is another one of those things where you are mitigating variability. For me, I am going to grow up and get a cooling rack.
CAIRA: Yeah, grow up.
CHRISTINE: Come on.
ROSIE: I know.
CHRISTINE: Come on.
ROSIE: And I’m going to get one that fits in a half sheet pan. I think it just sounds like it’s worth it. Even if I use it twice a year.
CAIRA: It’s not just going to sit in your kitchen. You’ll use it.
ROSIE: Vaughn Vreeland’s book is called Cookies. He is also a host of The New York Times Cooking YouTube series and newsletter called Bake Time. Check those out. If you want to learn anything else about the products we recommended today from Wirecutter, check out our website. And thank you so, so much for listening. Thanks.
CAIRA: Bye.
CHRISTINE: Bye.
ROSIE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin, and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pittman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, Rowan Niemisto, Catherine Anderson, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and general manager. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter editor-in-chief.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. Thank you for listening.
VAUGHN: I’m not a too sweet person. Just ask my boyfriend… No.
