Problems Over Browning

Have you ever made cookies with brown sugar, honey, molasses or corn syrup brown and found after baking the bottoms were very, very brown or even burned?  Bummer!!  Read on and solve this problem with double panning.

When I wrote my first book, “The New Pastry Cook“, I had a chapter on croissant.  Instead of the usual 36 to 48 hours, I reduced the time with new techniques to 4 to 5 hours, start to finish including waiting and rising time for the very same quality of croissant.  The only disappointment was upon baking, the bottoms were near burned because of all the butter in them.  Talk about frustration!!  So back to the drawing board while I came up with a plan to stop the over browning.  The solution was simple – just double pan each baking sheet.  Unfortunately, this simple solution took me a bit to figure out.  Here it is –  simply put one cookie sheet on top of another and bake according to the directions.  The double panning slows the heat to the bottom and they will be perfect when finished.  This works with rolls or any items where the bottoms will brown before the rest is baked.

Double panning will slow down the baking slightly so increased baking time, usually a few more minutes is needed.  It doesn’t make any difference on which shelf the pan is placed.  Simply bake at the same temperature called for in the recipe.

So the next time you find yourself with endangered cookies, rolls or any other baked goods, simply double pan.

Just so you know, this post will be moved to Baking information when the next post goes up on Thursday.