The versatility of cast iron

I like cookies generally, but I've got a particular affection for ludicrously large, whole-batch cookies. I think this is in a large part because of a time in the second year of my undergrad when my friend Valerie came over and we decided that we were going to bake cookies - but were too lazy to make individual cookies, so decided just to make one giant cookie the size of the baking tray instead and we decorated half each. I'm not 100% certain, but I'm reasonably confident that we used my regular cookie recipe, but without any chocolate or nuts - it was a spur-of-the-moment choice to bake, and this was in the days before I actually kept a decent stock of store-cupboard ingredients (I was a student, after all!).

In any case, I've been meaning to try this recipe for a while. I'm now sold on the general utility and greatness of my cast iron skillet, and this just looked like an excellent use for it. This particular recipe is the America's Test Kitchen one, but they've now put their recipe behind a paywall, so I'm actually referencing the Hummingbird High version, who handily also have weights for the ingredients - like them, I also have a 10" skillet rather than a 12" one.

Cast Iron Skillet Cookie

Ingredients

• 170g Butter
• 150g Dark brown sugar
• 100g Caster sugar
• 2tsp Vanilla extract
• 6g Salt
• 1 Whole egg
• 1 Egg yolk
• 250g Plain flour
• 1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
• 170g Chopped plain chocolate

Method

1. Brown 130g of the butter in the cast iron skillet, cooking it over a medium heat for ~5 mins until dark golden brown and nutty.
2. Pour melted butter into a mixing bowl and stir in the rest of the butter.
3. Whisk sugar, vanilla and salt into melted butter until smooth.
4. Whisk egg and yolk in for 30 seconds. Leave to stand for 3 minutes.
5. Repeat 30 seconds whisking and 3 minutes resting twice more.
6. Mix flour and bicarbonate of soda together. Stir into butter mixture until just combined.
7. Stir in chocolate chips.
8. Press into an even layer in the base of the skillet.
9. Bake at 190C for ~20-30 minutes.
10. Leave to cool in the skillet.

Here it is, ready for the oven.

And straight out of it. I was a little concerned about how well it would rise, given that it uses bicarb without anything obviously acidic, but clearly my concerns were misplaced!

It's pretty pleasing how cleanly it turned out of the skillet.

It's really pretty good overall. I think it has a teensy touch too much salt personally, and also came out slightly greasy, so I think perhaps it could do with a little less butter too. I think it could also have stood to bake for a little longer - but overall it's really quite good. Fairly fudgy, a bit cakey - perhaps partway between a cookie and a brownie. Definitely good though, and not much hassle to bake!

Actually baking!

Very excitingly, I'm getting to see my family this weekend for the first time since the very first lockdown last year. A lot has happened recently, but one of the many interesting things is that my brother has bought and moved into a new house - so although it's not the excuse for meeting up, it's still also sort of a housewarming. So I thought I'd do the whole bread-and-salt thing (I never knew about this until I bought a house and suddenly was inundated with more bread than I could eat in one go and more salt than I knew what to do with, but I still think it's a lovely tradition). Time for Aage to shine!

Housewarming Loaf

Ingredients

• 150g Strong wholemeal flour
• 100g Aage
• 400ml Water
• 450g Strong white flour
• 13g Salt

Method

1. Make a poolish: Mix the wholemeal flour, Aage and 150g of the water in a bowl and cover tightly with cling film. Leave in the refrigerator overnight.
2. Autolyse: Mix the white flour with the remaining 250g water to form a dough. Wrap the bowl in a bin bag and leave on the counter overnight.
3. 8:45am: Add the salt to the dough, and knead the poolish in until fully combined and homogenous. Wrap bowl in bin bag and leave to rise.
4. 9:30am: Perform first set of stretch-and-folds.
5. 10am: Perform second set of stretch-and-folds.
6. 10:30am: Perform third set of stretch-and-folds.
7. 1pm: Knead dough and shape, placing on a parchment square in a bowl. Leave to prove.
8. 8pm: Preheat oven on max setting with cast iron combo cooker inside.
9. 8:30pm: Transfer to preheated combo cooker. Turn oven down to 210C and bake for 20 minutes.*
10. 8:50pm: Remove top of combo cooker and continue to bake for a further 20 minutes.

*I was intending to score the top of the loaf before putting it in the oven - but naturally, I completely forgot. Oh well...

Here is the dough post-prove, about to go into the oven. As you can see, it's pretty much a liquid, so I decided to pop it into the deep side of the combo cooker rather than the shallow side, as I wasn't sure it would stay within the confines of the lid.

Isn't this a gorgeous loaf? I think this might be one of the best looking loaves I've ever baked actually - it's a real shame that I forgot to score the top. Such a pleasing colour to it. I don't think that I got the bake quite right - the crust seems incredibly thin, and I'm not actually certain that it's cooked all the way through, so I'm fairly certain I should have given it a bit longer in the oven. But never mind all that for now - look how pretty it is!

It definitely could have done with a little longer in the oven, but actually, it turned out pretty well! Not a bad crumb, though I suspect it was a little over-proved, but certainly not disastrously so.