A Half Baked Idea: Sous Vide Cookie Dough | Endless Simmer

You crazy ESers asked for it, and you got it. Afterplaying around with my SousVide Supremeand being rather underwhelmed cooking just meat and veggies, I asked you for some crazier ideas. My partner in crime gansie had a stroke of genius:

What about cookie dough? But don’t cook it long enough where it actually turns into a cookie, just so it heats through and kills any harmful crap. so it could be one gooey, warm, doughy, chocolaty, gushy thing. (Confession – i used to heat up purchased cookie dough in the microwave).

Hmmm…whatabout cookie dough? Honestly, I can never resist the temptation to lick the bowl, salmonella or not, but it does always scare me a little bit, and I know I really shouldn’t be doing it. So could we use the SousVide to cook the dough to just high enough temperatures where it would be safe to eat but still gooey and delicious? Well, we could certainly try…

For the record, let me clearly state that I have no idea if this is really a safe way to cook cookie dough, and Endless Simmer takes no responsibility if someone else tries this and gets sick. Seriously. That said, here’s what I did.

I mixed the chocolate chip cookie batter as instructed by Nestle, then vacuum packed four invidivual packages of it. I set the SousVide Supreme to 160 degrees, because I read online that it’s the temperature you must cook eggs to in order to kill any bacteria. I submerged them all in the water bath and let‘em soak. My idea was to cook them for four different amounts of time, to see what the difference would be, but after a half-hour, additional time didn’t seem to change the consistency of the dough.

The first serving was not a success. I made the mistake of emptying the hot dough from the bag straight into a bowl and giving it a little stir. The melted chocolate chips mixed in with everything and gave it a rather unappetizing color, and the texture was just all kinds of off. I quickly declared disaster on this batch and threw the dough into the oven.

This batch ended up turning into some tasty (although definitely not chocolate chip) cookies. But back to the dough…

Because the 160-degree water made the dough just too-too melty, I decided to take the next packages out and throw them in the freezer before eating. After about an hour, they had taken on a consistency much more like regular cookie dough, and we enjoyed it chopped up with some vanilla ice cream and brandy.

Now I’ve got two packs of cookie dough left in my freezer, vacuum packed so that I can eat them whenever I want. So….what do you think, science-y ESers? Is this really a safe way to get rid of potential salmonella? Would you eat sous vide cookie dough? Am I completely insane? Is anyone listening?

Source