How Steam Speeds Up Cooking (Chocolate Chip Cookies)

Think steam won’t really affect your cook time? Think again. Or just take a look at these chocolate chip cookies. Save for the final cookie, which cooked so quickly at 100% steam we had to pull it four minutes early, all of these cookies were baked in the Anova Precision Oven at 325ºF/162.8ºC for 12 minutes. Steam transmits thermal energy, and when used at high temperatures in a sealed oven (much like in a pressure cooker) that thermal energy has nowhere to go but into whatever it is you’re cooking. Just as water boils at 212ºF/100ºC, steam gets agitated at high temperatures and literally penetrates your food with heat. Does this mean you shouldn’t bake with steam? Absolutely not! While chocolate chip cookies are a great way to illustrate how adding steam speeds up the cooking process, scooping out one-ounce portions of store-bought dough doesn’t exactly count as baking. In fact, the ability to cook with variable steam settings is a game changer for a number of baked goods, especially when used at low temperatures for proofing. Just don’t make the mistake of thinking steam’s only function is moisture. While adding steam can replace some of the moisture a traditional oven would completely remove, above the boiling point of 212ºF/100ºC steam will force additional heat into your food and therefore cook it more quickly. And as our cookies taught us, you can even burn food at high temperatures using 100% steam. The settings here work best for once-ounce scoops of your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough, and yield crispy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside cookies. For crispier cookies, simply increase the steam.