The way the cookie (sheets) crumbled

December 12, 2007

We made sugar cookies, chocolate chip cookies, Sherry Yard's oatmeal raisin cookies (recipe on E6), and Pillsbury "Golden Layers" refrigerated biscuits on each sheet in the writer's professional-grade Thermador gas oven. Performance in your oven may vary. Five stars is the top rating.

Calphalon Classic Nonstick Insulated Cookie Sheet$20, available at Bloomingdale's, 225 Boylston St., Chestnut Hill, 617-630-6000, bloomingdales.com.
Rating:
If C is for cookie, C-minus is for this Calphalon sheet, which turned in pale cookie after pale cookie - and took forever doing it. During the sugar-cookie round, we removed the batch from the oven after 19 minutes, a full 5 minutes longer than other sheets. (Even then, the interiors were a shade underdone and the cookies never spread to their full diameter.) The light gray surface coupled with the insulating layer of hot air simply slowed down baking too drastically. The basically flat sheet (no raised sides) made removal with a mitted hand a daunting endeavor.

Bottom line: Full of hot air.

Chicago Metallic Commercial Cookie Sheet$12.95, available at Sur la Table, The Mall at Chestnut Hill, 199 Boylston St., 617-244-0213, surlatable.com.
Rating:
This solid sheet handled every baking task we gave it like a dream. Oatmeal cookies spread into perfect circles, and the sugar cookies baked on it - pale yellow on top, with the subtlest hint of brown on the edges - could have been featured in some glossy magazine. Two raised sides made transferring the sheet easy but, by extension, provided two hot spots of aggressive browning. Although the light-gray surface isn't billed as nonstick, cookies came off beautifully even during parchment-free rounds.

Bottom line: Surface with a smile.

Chicago Metallic Professional Nonstick Jellyroll Pan$9.95, available at Sur la Table.
Rating:
Fashionistas clad in all black look hot. Cookie sheets clad in all black bake hot. This ultra-dark pan raced oatmeal cookies to the finish line almost 2 minutes quicker than the recipe's lower baking time and one cookie turned inedibly dark. What's more, this four-sided model suffered from the same hot spots near the sides as the lighter sheets. Biscuits finished baking a minute or two early, and the dark, heavy sheet retained so much residual heat that the bottoms went from dark brown to almost-burnt while briefly "cooling" on the pan.

Bottom line: A distinct burning sensation.