Tag Archives: Cookies

Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

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Currently cooking out of Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Fact #1: Mint and chocolate are a classic Christmas combination.

Fact #2: Waiting until next December to make these cookies would be wrong, wrong, wrong.

Fact #3: It snowed last night and the snow STUCK! For heaven’s sakes, it is almost May. I want some sun. Until then, I’m going to keep making these cookies.

Fact #4: If I keep eating these cookies, I will not look good in a bathing suit.

Fact #5: It would be totally worth it.

These cookies are somewhere between a truffle (dense and chocolatey) and a slightly crunchy crumbly cookie. The mint is subtle, and despite not liking white chocolate, I loved the white chocolate ganache in the middle. It was just the right amount of sweetness since the cookies aren’t all that sweet. I also liked the texture that rolling the cookie dough in sugar gives.

This is a pretty simple recipe, and if you didn’t want to bother with the white chocolate ganache, you can easily leave it out. The cookies are good plain. The dough starts off by melting dark chocolate and mint chocolate (or Andes mint chocolate candies). As the chocolate mixture cools, you cream butter, sugar and brown sugar, add a couple of egg yolks and vanilla, then the cooled melted chocolate. Finally, flour, cocoa powder and salt are mixed in to form a rough, slightly dry dough. After a rest in the fridge, the dough is portioned out into tablespoon-sized balls, rolled in sugar and baked. If you are going to fill the cookies with the ganache, an indentation is made both before baking and halfway through the baking time in the dough balls.

The white chocolate ganache is simply white chocolate, hot cream and mint extract. You chop up the white chocolate, pour the hot cream over it and stir until everything is melted and smooth. Stir in the extract, and once the cookies are cooled, fill each indentation with the white chocolate ganache.

My only quibble is the fact that the authors want you to buy mint chocolate or Andes mint chocolate candies to melt and add to the dough. Why can’t you just add some mint extract to the cookie dough and use plain chocolate?

Malted Milk Sandwich Cookies

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Currently cooking out of Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

No, that isn’t a typo in the post heading. These are supposed to be sandwich cookies (sandwiched with a vanilla, Oreo-like filling), but I liked them sans filling so much, I decided not to bother.

Besides, in my world, I can eat at least twice as many cookies if they aren’t sandwiched together. Or something like that. I need a calculator . . .

But seriously, these cookies don’t need a filling. They are just lovely by themselves. The cookie dough gets started by creaming butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. A couple of eggs, sour cream and a hefty dose of vanilla round out the wet ingredients. On the dry side are flour, malt powder, leavening and salt. Once the dough has come together, you refrigerate it for a few hours, roll the dough out and cut out your cookies for baking.

According to the instructions, these cookies can be either soft and chewy or crispy. depending on how long you bake them. I decided to play with the baking times and made some of the cookies softer and some of them crispier. I tried to choose a favorite, but I liked them both. The malt flavor is subtle; if you didn’t know it was in there, you’d be hard pressed to identify it. Rather, the malt and the brown sugar combine to give these cookies a caramelly flavor, with a strong kick of vanilla. Even though these cookies are a little plain looking, they are dangerously addictive.

The No-Bake Peanut Butter Cookie

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Currently cooking out of Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

Grade school, for me, is murky. I don’t remember a whole lot, but a couple of things stand out. In sixth grade, my boyfriend, Justin, used to leave dingdongs in my desk at lunch. In kindergarten, Mrs. Tucker twisted my ear because I wouldn’t stop talking. And once or twice a month, these cookies showed up for lunch.

Funny note: I had no idea there was peanut butter in them until I saw this recipe. I always just thought they were chocolate and oatmeal.

Over the past weekend, I was looking for something quick and easy to make out of this cookbook. I’ve been in a bit of a cooking/baking lull because of some recent dental surgery. My thinking went along the lines of this: If I can’t eat solid food, I ain’t cooking/baking anything. So Bryan has been eating a lot of prepared meals while I drink protein drinks (chocolate protein drinks, please). This recipe fit the easy/quick criteria.

You bring milk, sugar, cocoa power and butter to a boil. Stir in some chunky peanut butter and rolled oats, scoop the goop onto parchment-lined baking sheets and let ‘em cool.

One bite (I’m back to solid foods, thankyouverymuch) and I was right back in grade school. These cookies are sweet, so small is better, but they go quite nicely with a glass of cold milk. They have a bit of chew thanks to the oats (I used old-fashioned rolled oats), and I added about a half of a teaspoon of kosher salt. I think that hint of salt really cuts the sweetness and makes these just a little more sophisticated.

Note: I know these cookies look like balls of dog poop, but they don’t taste like it, at all.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Currently cooking from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce

Well, I thought I was done with this book, but then I was asked to make some chocolate chip cookies. And I didn’t want to make regular chocolate chip cookies. And this person didn’t mind if I tried out a new chocolate chip cookie recipe on her. And I’ve been wanting to try this particular chocolate chip cookie recipe ever since I picked up this book. And why didn’t I just make these darn chocolate chip cookies before? Well, because they are chocolate chip cookies! By now, everybody has a million and one recipes for chocolate chip cookies and who needs one more? So I skipped this particular recipe. Until now.

See, these aren’t like all those other chocolate chip cookies. They are special. They are made entirely with whole wheat flour. Not a speck of all-purpose flour is added. And these cookies don’t taste like a hippy, tie-dyed version of chocolate chip cookies. They taste . . . normal.

The recipe is pretty normal, except for the afore mentioned whole wheat flour. Two sticks of butter, sugar and dark brown sugar are mixed briefly, then two eggs and some vanilla are added. The whole wheat flour is stirred in, followed by the chocolate chips. That’s it. Scoop the dough, bake it and you are enjoying warm cookies that are kind of good for you. Except, you know, for the butter and sugar and chocolate chips.

Oh well.

My only beef with these cookies is that they baked up very flat. If you want thicker, less spready cookies, refrigerate the dough. Also, watch these like a hawk while they are baking. They go from done to very brown and crispy in the blink of an eye.

Sand Cookies

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Currently cooking from Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce

Four ingredients. One bowl. No mixer. You can’t really find a simpler recipe than that.

These are the whole-grain equivalent to shortbread. Kamut flour, powdered sugar and salt are mixed with butter to form a sandy dough. The dough is scooped out and rolled into balls, then flattened before baking. The finished cookies are crisp, crumbly and buttery.

As I was making the dough, I tasted a bit of it and found it to be somewhat boring and flat, so I added a teaspoon of vanilla. I was having a hard time getting the dough to come together, so I also added a teaspoon of water. This was just enough to get the dough to hold together as I rolled it into balls. After a short rest in the fridge, the cookies were baked for about 20 minutes, until they were golden brown with darker brown edges.

With only four ingredients (well, five if you count the vanilla I added), the flavor of the kamut flour really comes through. I really liked the vanilla with the kamut flour, and I’m glad I added it. Without the vanilla, I think these cookies would be boring. The texture of them is crisp and crumbly, just like shortbread. The cookies kept really well in a ziploc bag for almost a week. I found them to be perfect with a cup of tea.

Rugelach

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Currently baking out of Great Cookies by Carole Walter

Rugelach, where have you been all my life? How could I have missed your crunchy flaky layers? Your walnut and chocolatey filling?

Urgh. I might have eaten too many of you all at once.

This is the last recipe out of Great Cookies, and what a way to go. These were just about perfect, not too sweet, full of crunchy goodness and just the perfect two-bite size. They were a bit of a pain to make, but worth every minute.

These cookies start off with a butter/cream cheese dough; rolled out and covered with cinnamon sugar, chopped walnuts and chocolate chips, and baked until golden brown. The hardest part is letting the dough rest, once after making it and once after rolling out the cookies.

There are lots of fillings for rugelach, preserves and raisins seeming to be among the most popular. Walter gives other suggestions for fillings, such as poppy seed, cherry raisin or prune. I prefer chocolate.

There were a lot of promising recipes I didn’t get to in Great Cookies. I could spend six months baking out of this cookbook and still not be finished. Most of the recipes I did try were solid recipes, ones that I’d make again. This is good, basic cookie cookbook to keep on your shelf.

Janhagels

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Currently baking out of Great Cookies by Carole Walter

Jan… what?

Yeah, that’s what I said. Apparently Janhagel is Dutch for really good cookies made with butter, almonds and cinnamon.

These are deceptively simple. Just a few ingredients produce a cookie that is both crisp and chewy, sort of like a cross between shortbread and sugar cookies. The base of the cookie is a shortbread-like mixture of flour, butter, sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract. One single, lonely egg yolk is the liquid that binds these cookies together.

The dough is pressed into the bottom of a cookie sheet and brushed with an egg white. Sliced almonds are sprinkled over the dough, followed by a cinnamon-sugar mixture. The cookies are then baked until the top is golden brown. The cookies are sliced into bars, rectangles, diamonds, etc., while still warm, then left to cool completely.

With so few, plain ingredients, I wasn’t sure what to expect with these. Boy was I surprised. They are very buttery with a pronounced almond flavor. The edges got quite crispy, but towards the middle of the pan, the cookies became more chewy. And the cinnamon! I hadn’t realized how well almond and cinnamon flavors went together. Before I knew it, I had eaten three or four squares, for testing purposes, of course.

Chocolate Shortbread Nuggets

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Currently baking out of Great Cookies by Carole Walter

The thing about shortbread is that when it’s done well, it can be a thing of beauty. Done badly, though, one ends up with a mouthful of sand. Fortunately, these chocolate shortbread cookies are firmly in the good category, and they got better as they aged. They are the perfect little finger cookie.

Made primarily out of flour, butter, sugar and cocoa powder, these cookies are quick and easy to make. They deliver a deep chocolate punch, and a little piece goes a long way. The recipe recommends dipping the ends of the shortbread in melted chocolate. I was feeling lazy the day I made these and decided to skip that step. I’m glad I did. I don’t think these cookies needed any more chocolate. The only change I would make next time is to add some instant espresso powder to the dough to give the cookies a little more depth of flavor.

Apricot Melt-O-Ways

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Currently baking out of Great Cookies by Carole Walter

It’s become a bit of a chore to bake, lately. It seems that as the temperature rises, I get sluggish and tired, and all I want to eat is cantaloupe. And milkshakes. Why couldn’t I have picked an ice cream book to work out of?

And as for picking a cookie recipe? Forget it. Nothing sounds good. However, I did manage to produce these cookies, mostly because I was intrigued by the recipe. They’ve got yeast in them, like bread! But unlike bread, no rising. Also, I had some apricot preserves that I needed to use.

This is a pretty simple recipe. Yeast is dissolved in milk, butter is cut into flour (using a food processor), then the yeasty milk, an egg and vanilla are stirred into the flour, and the dough is kneaded briefly, then set aside to chill. Once chilled, the dough is rolled out and cut into squares. A dollop of apricot preserves is placed in the middle of the dough square and two opposite corners are folded over the middle. The cookies are baked right away, then sprinkled with powdered sugar before serving.

My cookies puffed up in the oven, and most of the corners refused to stay folded over. Those three cookies up there are the only ones that really looked like Walter’s, and even then, they look puffier than the picture in the book. I can only assume that I didn’t roll my dough out thin enough. Walter never says how thin the dough should be.

Looks aside, the cookies tasted pretty good. They had a definite yeasty flavor to them, along with a slightly bready texture. These aren’t sweet cookies, and without the apricot filling, they’d be quite bland.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

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This might seem a little strange. Although I’m baking out of a cookie cookbook that has roughly seven chocolate chip cookie variations in it, I chose to make a recipe from the internet. I can’t help myself. When somebody calls this the “perfect” chocolate chip cookie, I can’t resist.

She may be right. This is certainly one of the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever made. The cookies baked up crunchy on the edges and chewy in the center. The dough itself has flavor (so many chocolate chip cookie doughs are tasteless, relying on the chocolate chips for flavor) due to three kinds of sugar. They baked up fat and round without much spread. And a sprinkle of salt on the tops contrasts nicely with the sweet cookie.

Skeptical? Click on that link up there for the recipe and try it yourself.