Gus asked Lauren:

Hi Lauren!

I caught the end of your guest appearance on Julia Childs’ show. I love to bake (especially breads)…wish I had more time for that. My question is this…I bake a really nice chocolate/chocolate raspberry cookie. However, Hershey has stopped production on their chocolate raspberry chips. So I bought some extract. I am not sure how much to use in a batch that would yield approximately 3-4 dozen cookies. Can you help? I really appreciate your assistance. Thanks in advance! By the way, watching you make the pumpernickel bread was amazing. You show a lot of love in what you do. Can you also share that recipe? Thanks so much. Regards, Skip Bowman

Lauren says:

Extracts are pretty strong (with the exception of vanilla, which can be used more freely). Without seeing the ingredients (the amount of flour, butter and sugar) it’s hard to give a truly definitive answer because I don’t know how big your cookies are meant to be (so your yield of three to four dozen could be two dozen of my cookies which are usually a bit oversized). I would say, though, that your best bet would be to start with 1 teaspoon (1 ½ tops) to see how pronounced the raspberry flavor is. The reason for this is because extracts, when overused, produce an artificial taste (even if the extract is labeled “natural”). So, my advice is to start slow since you can always add a bit more then next time around.

As far as the Pumpernickel Bread goes, here it is. Enjoy.

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