Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290024
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALMENA HUGHES FOOD EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
So when I heard about Doubletree Hotels Corporation's signature cookies, which will be given to Hotel Roanoke guests on the first night of their stay, I thought, I'll bet this newspaper's readers would love to make these cookies at home.
"Sorry," I was told by everyone I asked for the cookie's recipe. "Its confidential." "It's classified." "It's a secret."
To a food editor, this refusal was like having a nerdy sibling taunt, "Nyah, nyah, nyah!"
Phoenix-based Doubletree originally gave only VIPs the ultimate "welcome home" gift of milk and cookies. In 1986, the hotel extended the cookies to all guests.
The decadent delicacies, whose 1995 distribution is expected to top 10 million, star in a $31-million marketing campaign where they are played as "our version of the sleeping pill."
I must admit, this isn't just any old cookie. Developed from a recipe supposedly discovered in a little shop in Atlanta, this baby weighs nearly half a pound. Its buttery body is almost deformed by an abundance of sweet, rich, dark chocolate chips and nubby chunks of walnut. It lives up to promotional ads that tout it as a "mission statement."
So, fine, I thought. Be stingy with your old recipe. It is, after all, just a chocolate chip/oatmeal cookie. By law, its ingredients are listed. All I'd have to figure out is how much of what to use and how long to cook it. How hard could that be?
I managed to beg up a couple of Doubletree cookies - no easy task, since the hotel's kitchen was not yet running and the few cookies available were being baked off-premises. I visually examined and then ate one, taking notes on its appearance, texture and taste. I bought the ingredients listed on the cookies' container, made a tentative appointment to have the recipe chemically analyzed if it turned out that I couldn't crack it on my own, declared my kitchen an official test zone and got ready for the great Doubletree duplication.
As fate would have it, the cookies' "secret" recipe literally fell into my hands. It was printed in a Doubletree employee newsletter that a friend passed along. There was one small catch, however. The recipe listed the ingredients in quantities to make 10 million cookies. An accountant crunched the numbers down to a doable dozen for me, and I embarked upon the first batch.
While Doubletree's cookies gently dome to about one-half inch high at their centers, my dough splayed out on the baking sheets in chunky puddles. The Doubletree cookies' texture is firm, yet soft without being cakelike. My cookies were crisp.
My cookies' flavor, at least, was fairly close to the originals'. Perhaps, I thought, I should chill the dough or maybe adjust the quantity of the dry ingredients. I made a note that this first batch looked funny, but tasted fine. My self-appointed taste testers - friends, family, co-workers - scarfed them down.
Since one of the ingredients in Doubletree's recipe is rolled oats, for my next batch I decided to call a contact at Quaker Oats. He was more than happy to fax me a recipe for that company's Choc-Oat-Chip cookies.
He then sent me 16 more recipes, not all containing chocolate chips, and invited me to publish as many of them as I wished. See how this is supposed to work, Doubletree?
I adjusted Quaker Oats' recipe so that it contained Doubletree's ingredients in Quaker Oats quantities. The resultant cookies maintained height and had better texture than the first batch. But they were still crispier than Doubletree's, and their flavor was not as similar to the originals' as the first batch's had been.
Still, my testers pronounced them very tasty and scarfed them down again.
For my final batch, I followed the advice of a friend, who is an avid and accomplished baker, to try a standard cowboy cookies recipe. I omitted the coconut and again incorporated Doubletree's ingredients. This time, to get a finer texture, I preground half of the oats. I also increased the quantity of chips by half and stirred in the nuts by hand instead of by mixer.
The final product was still too crispy and didn't dome in the center. But it stood fairly high and looked the most like Doubletree's cookies. Since by now my remaining sample Doubletrees were a little old, it was unfair to compare tastes. Ever willing to sacrifice, however, my taste testers scarfed the new batch down.
My story deadline forced me to give up my attempts after three tries. I'm pleased that I came close to duplicating the Doubletrees, but as one tester - whose sample supply is hereby cut off - told me, "This just ain't quite it."
For any bakers out there who wish to take up the duplication quest, here are the three recipes I used. Doubletree's cookies will be given to guests on the first night of their stays at the Hotel Roanoke. They also will be sold at the hotel in special commemorative tins for $10 the half dozen.
Taste testers are easily found and free.
DOUBLETREE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES*
3,744,000 ounces of butter, softened
2,700,000 ounces of granulated sugar
1,800,000 ounces of light brown sugar
1,100,000 large eggs
700,000 tsp. of vanilla
300,000 tsp. of lemon juice concentrate
200,000 tsp. of baking soda
100,000 Tbsp. of salt
62,500 tsp. of cinnamon
600,000 cups of rolled oats
250,000 cups of all-purpose flour
7,200,000 ounces of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips
4,800,000 ounces of chopped walnuts
Place softened butter in extremely large mixing bowl and cream lightly. Mix brown sugar and granulated sugar together; add to batter and cream together at medium speed for 2-3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, blending slightly at low speed after each.
In separate bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and rolled oats. Add flour mixture to butter and sugars.
Mix lemon juice and vanilla and add to batter. Mix together on low speed to blend well (approximately 2 minutes). Add chocolate chips and chopped walnuts and blend for another 2 minutes on low speed. Use 2-ounce scoop to shape cookies. Place on paper-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350,F (convection) or 375,F (conventional) for 13-14 minutes.
*Divide ingredients by 833,333.33 to make one dozen.
- DOUBLETREE HOTELS CORP. Also, recipes for:
CHOC-OAT-CHIP COOKIES
COWBOY COOKIES
by CNB