Adventures in brown butter... Chocolate Chip and Double Chocolate Fudge

Is it just me or has brown butter been popping up all over the place lately? A few weeks ago I bought a brown butter and caramel apple cupcake at Susie Cakes, and then last week one of the baking blogs I follow, Lovin' From the Oven, published a recipe for double fudge chocolate chip cookie dough cookies. Just the name is a serious mouthful, but the real thing that intrigued me was the use of brown butter.

I've never really worked with brown butter, so I looked it up in the Professional Pastry Chef, a book I received last Christmas. In it, Bo Friberg describes brown butter, also known as buerre noisette, or "hazelnut butter", thusly: "As the butter is cooked over low heat, the milk solids caramelize, turning the butter light brown and giving it a nutter flavor and aroma -- hence the name."

I don't even know where to begin. How is it that I've never heard of this or used it a recipe? Sorry, Waistline, but it looks like you'll be seeing a lot more brown butter in the very near future.

But I digress... I went ahead and took a crack at these double fudge chocolate chip cookie dough cookies, and I am thoroughly pleased with the result.

These cookies were tender and buttery, and retained that texture for a surprisingly long time. They were definitely best the night I baked them, but I've been slowing chipping away at my stash over the past few days, and they're still quite tasty.

I also thought the construction of these double-decker cookies was fun and interesting. The recipe instructed me to split the dough in two and make one half into traditional chocolate chip, while turning the other half into a double-chocolate fudge dough. Then you roll the dough into balls, split the balls in two, and smush together two halves of different doughs to create one cookie. 

But honestly, what really matters is the final product, and who can argue with this?

Here's the recipe, courtesy of Lovin from the Oven, via How Sweet it Is. As usual, I subbed out chocolate chips in favor of a hand chopped chocolate bar (the last of my 62% cacao Sharfenberger baking bar, to be precise). 

Double Fudge Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cookies

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) of unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. 

Cream together butter and both sugars. Mix in the eggs and vanilla. 

Divide the sugar mixture in half and separate the doughs into two different bowls. Use a scale to measure them exactly (This is the part I failed at).

In one bowl, add 1 cup of flour, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and a pinch of salt, then mix until a dough forms. Fold in 3/4 cup of the chocolate chips. Set aside. 

In the second bowl, add remaining flour and baking soda, cocoa powder and a pinch of salt, mixing until a dough forms. Fold in remaining chocolate chips. 

Roll each dough into 24 balls (about an inch thick). Take one chocolate chip half and one double fudge half and merge them together by one end. Place on baking sheet at least 1 1/2 inch apart.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until just golden.

Chocolate Chip & Orange Peel Cookies

Greetings from Los Angeles! My summer internship ended a few weeks ago, so I'm back in the City of Angels gearing up for my second year of business school. There's no place like home, but it's also nice to be back in LA. Plus, classes start on Monday! #nerdalert

It might sound strange, but one of things I'm going to miss most about home is the farmer's market. My last weekend at home, I made these chocolate chip and orange peel cookies for Dave and Blake, purveyors of fine stone fruits and delicious Japanese mushrooms, respectively. 

To be perfectly honest, I'm shocked that I haven't blogged this cookie recipe yet, because it has quickly become one of my favorites. No-frills-added, classic chocolate chip ranks #1 when it comes to cookies in my book, and this recipe by Jacques Torres from the New York Times is the cream of the crop. It's a little bit complicated, what with having two different types of flours and all, but it's totally worth it if you ask me. 

Also, instead of using straight chocolate chips, I actually chopped up a couple bars of this orange peel + 55% cocoa chocolate by Chocolove. I love using chocolate bars instead of chips because when you chop up a bar, you get all these little tiny bits of chocolate coupled with oddly shaped chunks. When you mix all that into the dough and bake it, the little bits add a hint of chocolate-y goodness to the dough.

Finally, the one thing I will say about the chilling is: DO IT. About a year and a half ago, when I was living abroad, I read that one of the best kept secrets to deliciously chewy CCCs is to let the dough sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours before baking it. Apparently it allows the flours to soak up more of the moisture from the eggs, which results in a more tender cookie. I did an experiment where I whipped up a batch of cookies and chilled the dough for 12, 24, and 48 hours, and it is true -- the longer you let it hang out, the better the cookies become. 

Incidentally, I made another batch of CCCs when I got back to LA, and I'm sad to report that they weren't quite as good as the ones I made at home. Maybe it's because I don't have a mixer at school, so I didn't blend the ingredients quite as well. Or maybe it was because I used plain chocolate. This past week, my local Whole Foods had the Chocolove bars on sale, so you can bet my next CCCs will not be plain chocolate. Can't wait to share those! 

Without further adieu, here's the recipe, courtesy of the New York Times:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Jacques Torres

Time: 45 minutes (for 1 6-cookie batch), plus at least 24 hours’ chilling

2 cups minus 2 tablespoons

(8 1/2 ounces) cake flour

1 2/3 cups (8 1/2 ounces) bread flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks (1 1/4 cups) unsalted butter

1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (8 ounces) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract

1 1/4 pounds bittersweet chocolate disks or fèves, at least 60 percent cacao content (see note)

Sea salt.

1. Sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

2. Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Drop chocolate pieces in and incorporate them without breaking them. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Set aside.

4. Scoop 6 3 1/2-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet, making sure to turn horizontally any chocolate pieces that are poking up; it will make for a more attractive cookie. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake until golden brown but still soft, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. Repeat with remaining dough, or reserve dough, refrigerated, for baking remaining batches the next day. Eat warm, with a big napkin.

Yield: 1 1/2 dozen 5-inch cookies.

Gluten-free Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm back in the Bay Area now, but I right before I left LA I attempted a sort of kitchen purging process whereby I tried in vain to use up all of the perishables in my fridge and cupboards. I didn't get anywhere close to finishing everything, but I did manage to eek out one last batch of cookies using this almond meal that has been in my fridge for a while (Egads! Does almond meal go bad? Hmm...).

As the three people who read this blog know (Hi, Elaine!), I always have chocolate on hand, so chocolate chip cookies seemed like a plausible choice. I occasionally worry that "gluten-free" versions of beloved desserts will disappoint and seem too "healthy," but these actually came out pretty tasty. They didn't have the same "crispy on the edge, chewy in the center" texture that I crave in traditional CCCs, but they were moist, chewy, and not too sweet... And since we're being honest (as we always are on this blog), I'll reveal that I had four in one night while studying for my corporate finance final. I haven't received my grade in that class yet, so it is still TBD whether there is a positive correlation between cookies consumed and exam performance. Stay tuned for updates on the findings of my research in this area.

I used this recipe from a blog with an intriguing title, thewannabechef.net. I don't have any insightful observations about this blog beyond what I just said, so I will simply leave you with the recipe, which I now consider a completely wonderful way to use up leftover almond flour.


Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies, slightly adapted from thewannabechef.net

(Makes about 12 cookies)

• 1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) almond flour
• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup chocolate, chopped into chunks (I used parts of two bars I had lying around, including one that had hazelnuts and dried currants. #swoon.)

Preheat your oven to 375.

Chop chocolate bar into chip-sized chunks. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Mix in the egg. Next, add the almond flour, vanilla, salt, and baking soda and mix until it’s all incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Scoop the batter into even portions onto the parchment paper and press down slightly. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Let cool slightly before removing the cookies from the tray.

Experimenting with Snickerdoodles

I'm flying out tomorrow night on a red-eye to attend my five-year college reunion. Shocking, but true. Five years!

Anyway, I managed to finish all my homework and reading early (or at least all the reading I could motivate myself to read...), so after packing, cleaning, watching How to Steal a Million on Netflix, and running some errands, I decided to bake some cookies. There's no way I can eat two dozen cookies in 24 hours, so in retrospect, this wasn't the best idea... I guess I'll have to share with some of my pals at school!

I didn't feel like running out to the store (obviously), but I keep staples on hand for just this kind of cookie crisis. Enter the snickerdoodle!

I'm calling these "experimental" for two reasons... 

Diversion #1: For some reason, I thought snickerdoodles didn't have any special ingredients... Turns out that all the best-rated recipes call for cream of tartar, though. I, of course, do not stock cream of tartar. However, I read online that you can replace the combination of cream of tartar and baking soda with baking powder. Hurray for improvising!

Diversion #2: I try to use a scale whenever I bake, because I've read that baking by weight is more accurate. Unfortunately, my baking scale chose tonight to start going on the fritz, and it kept zero-ing out as I was measuring the flour. As a result, I'm pretty sure I over floured by about 1/2 a cup; the only thing I could think to do was to add an extra egg white I had in my fridge. More improv!

Thankfully, neither of these changes seemed to impact the end result. I guess these came out a little bit more "fluffy" than the traditional snickerdoodle, but how can you go wrong with sugar, butter, flour, and cinnamon?

Here is the recipe I tried to follow -- emphasis on the "tried"...

Snickerdoodles from Smitten Kitchen (I made a half-recipe, since I honestly would not know what to do with three to four dozen cookies)

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar*
1 teaspoon baking soda*
1/4 teaspoon salt
16 tablespoons (2 stick or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups sugar, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon, plus more if needed
2 large eggs

Preheat the oven to 400°, with one rack in top third and one rack in bottom third of oven. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper; set aside.

Sift together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add eggs, and beat to combine. Add dry ingredients, and beat to combine. Chill the dough for an hour.

Once dough has chilled, in a small bowl, combine remaining 1/4 cup sugar and the ground cinnamon. Use a small ice-cream scoop* to form balls of the dough, and roll in cinnamon sugar. Place about two inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are set in center and begin to crack (they will not brown), about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets after five minutes. Transfer the sheets to a wire rack to cool about five minutes before transferring the cookies to the rack.

* I substituted 1 tablespoon of baking powder for the baking soda and cream of tartar

Homemade Oreos... TKO-style

Mom rarely let J and me eat processed sweets as kids. She claims this is because she has a guilty conscience about working for a marketing firm that promoted sugary cereals that rot children's teeth, but I suspect it had more to do with not wanting to deal with rugrats on sugar-highs. However, yesterday it occurred to me that despite herself, my mom did allow one particularly delightful treat into our home: Oreos. There is only one explanation for this... Nabisco must be right when they claim that Oreos are America's favorite cookies. Even Mom couldn't resist.

Understandably, then, when I came across this recipe for Thomas Keller's TKOs (yes, this links to a recipe for the Oreo-style cookies he sells at the famed Bouchon Bakery), my heart nearly skipped a beat. My beloved childhood treat transformed by one of the world's master chefs? Done and done.

These were delicious. Obviously. Rich, buttery chocolate cookies filled with creamy white chocolate flavored cream? I don't even know where to begin (or end... I've had three just today), so here's the recipe. Bake and enjoy.

TKOs (from Gilt Taste)
Adapted from Thomas Keller and Lena Kwak

Makes about 3 dozen cookies

For the cookies:
1½ cups all-purpose plus 3 tablespoons flour
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed)
1½ teaspoons kosher salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
15 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the filling:
½ cup heavy cream
8 ounces white chocolate chips

1. Make the cookies: Preheat oven to 350°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.

2. Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, salt and soda in a mixing bowl, then mix with a mixer on low speed. Add butter a few tablespoonfuls at a time and continue to mix, increasing speed until a dough forms. (It will look dry and sandy at first.)

3. Divide dough in 2 halves. Roll each half between 2 sheets of parchment paper to 1/8-inch thick, then chill on a baking sheet in the refrigerator, 25 minutes. Cut rounds from dough using a 2” to 2½” cutter, then transfer rounds to buttered baking sheets. Bake cookies, rotating sheets half way through, until centers are dry to the touch, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool cookies on sheets, 10 minutes, then transfer to cooling racks to cool completely.

4. Make the filling: Bring cream to a boil in a small sauce pan. Place chocolate in a heat-proof bowl, then pour boiling cream over chocolate, whisking to combine. Let cool to room temperature.

5. Assemble cookies: Spread 1 cookie with some of filling, then sandwich with another cookie. Serve with milk.

Chocolate-filled shortbread

Last Friday I had an insatiable cookie craving, but I didn't feel like going out to the grocery store or slaving away in the kitchen. I decided to make these chocolate-filled shortbread cookies because they're relatively simple and don't require any special ingredients -- I had everything in my pantry already, including four different kinds of chocolates to stuff inside the cookies.


I can't remember exactly, but I think I came across this recipe via the Kitchn blog, which is a fairly recent addition to my Google Reader. I've been an Apartment Therapy reader ever since I moved to LA and needed ideas to decorate and furnish my apartment, but their AT sister blog focused on cooking and kitchens is truly exceptional. Tons of great recipe ideas and clever kitchen design/appliance ideas. 


The actual recipe comes from Cooking Weekends, and I was intrigued by this recipe for two reasons: first, of course, I love all things chocolate, and second, it calls for corn starch, which I've never included in shortbread before. I adore the way shortbread cookies simultaneously crumble and melt in your mouth, and corn starch is supposed to enhance that characteristic -- winning on all fronts!


Now, back to those four different kinds of chocolates... I decided to play a taste test game (with myself, eek!), using different chocolate bars to figure out which ones work best in the shortbread. The four bars I used were a Trader Joe's 73% organic cacao, an 85% dark from Divine, at 70% dark chocolate orange from Theo, and 70% Madagascar dark from Rogue Chocolates called Sambirano. 

My favorite for eating is the Theo, but it turns out that the best one for these cookies was the $2 TJ's bar! I think the cocoa butter content in that bar is a little higher than the others, so it melted to a wonderful creamy consistency.

Go figure! Sometimes cost isn't everything, even when it comes to chocolate. Without further adieu, here is the recipe, courtesy of Cooking Weekends:


INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/8 tsp fine sea salt
3/4 cup unbleached flour
1/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup unsalted butter (1 1/2sticks), cut up
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz baking chocolate bar, broken into 16 pieces



DIRECTIONS
Place the cornstarch, icing sugar, salt and flour into the bowl of a food processor and pulse a few times to combine.  Add the butter and sprinkle the vanilla extract evenly over the top. Run the motor until a soft dough begins to form.


Preheat oven to 300°F.


Divide the dough into 16 equal pieces. Encase a piece of chocolate inside each piece of dough.


Place the cookies about an inch (or more) apart of an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for about 25-35  minutes or until the edges begin to brown.


Remove from oven and cool on baking sheet for a minute or two, then remove shortbread onto a wire rack.

Super Bowl Sugar Cookies

I don't follow football super closely these days (I'm more of a baseball kind of gal), but it wasn't always that way. In the mid-90s, many a Sunday I could be found jumping around the living room, yelling at the TV, cheering on my beloved San Francisco 49ers. I remember those afternoons vividly because my brother and I had fencing practice at 4:30pm every Sunday, and we always begged Mom and Dad to let us watch one more down before we had to run out of the house. As a kid, I idolized Steve Young and Jerry Rice, I despised the Cowboys, and I thought George Seifert was infallible. Until he became a Panther, that is. This year, for the first time in almost a decade, the Niners made me feel like a kid again. So even though they didn't make it to the Super Bowl, I'm excited to be seeing red and gold again. 

Now then, that's enough nostalgia for a Sunday night...

My classmates had a some people over for the game, and in keeping with the theme, I decided to make football-shaped sugar cookies. I usually avoid sugar cookies because after the first tray, I inevitably grow weary of the "roll, cut, decorate, bake, repeat" routine. Also, the nagging perfectionist in me hates it when the cookies get deformed during the transfer stage between cutting board and cookie sheet. 

But this was special, so I decided to bust out my rolling pin and give it a whirl. I planned to frost the cookies with chocolate icing and use white icing to draw on the laces, but what about cutting the cookies into footballs? I thought about buying a biscuit cutter and pinching the sides to make a football shape, but that would have require advance planning and a trip to the cooking store. Ex-nay. Then I considered cutting a football-shaped template and using it as a guide, but I couldn't be bothered to find an appropriately clean piece of cardboard. Ex-nay. So... what's left? Free-hand, of course! A little knife work is good for keeping nimble fingers, I say.


Here is a drawn recap of how I cut all those footballs, courtesy of my brand new Wacom Bamboo tablet! First, I cut circles of dough using a coffee mug, then I lightly scored each circle with a cross. I used the score lines as a guide to cut symmetrical shapes (well, almost symmetrical), then I loaded up the baking sheet and popped those suckers in the oven!

After the cookies cooled, I frosted them with chocolate icing, then drew on the laces using white icing. If I had to do these cookies again, I think I would have rolled the dough a little bit thicker and baked them a little bit less, because I like my sugar cookies a little but soft, but to be perfectly honest, these were more about the looks. So how *did* they look? See for yourself! Here are the results, in full HD!

And here's the cookie recipe, courtesy of the Flour Bakery Cookbook, as well as an icing recipe that I made up:

Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt



1 cup confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup chocolate chips


Directions


Cream together the butter and granulated sugar for about 5 minutes using a stand mixer (or 10 minutes by hand with a spoon, like me!). Beat in the eggs and vanilla.


In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt until well mixed. Slowly blend the flour mixture into the butter-sugar mixture and then mix just until the flour mixture is totally incorporated and the dough is evenly mied.


Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap the dough in the plastic wrap, pressing down to form a disk about 8-inches in diameter and 1-inch thick. Refrigerate dough for about 1 hour, or until it firms up enough to roll out (I did mine overnight and it warm up on the counter before rolling out).


Preheat oven to 350 degress.


Roll out your dough, cut out your shapes, and place them on a cookie sheet. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the edges turn brown but the centers are still pale. Let the cookies cool for 30 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack.


While the cookies are cooling, mix together confectioners sugar and milk. Remove 1/4 of the icing and set aside.  Melt the chocolate chips, and mix into the larger portion of the icing. Using a pastry bag filled with the chocolate icing, draw the outline of a football on each cookie, then fill in with more chocolate icing. Once the chocolate icing hardens, draw on the football laces using the remaining white icing.

Chocolate-on-chocolate revisited

My love affair with chocolate goes way back, but it has evolved over the years from the snack sized Crunch bars you get at Halloween (heavily influenced by Shaq's early endorsement of said candy), to the purest, darkest artisan chocolate bars I can get my grubby little hands on. 

My current favorite is the Costa Rica 70% from Dandelion Chocolate. Its toasty at first, and then gradually becomes tangy, almost citrus-like, all with a super rich chocolate base. If you ask me, it's pretty amazing that so many flavors can be extracted from a bean! If you like chocolate, even just a little bit, I highly recommend Dandelion. Hurray for supporting local businesses!

So, along with my growing chocolate obsession, my quest for the perfect chocolate-on-chocolate continues. My last attempt at C-on-C cookies was super chocolatey, but the texture left something to be desired. This time around, I got closer to perfection.

When I first took these out of the oven, they were so soft that I thought they might break if I tried to pick them up. But after I let them cool for a bit, they became cookie-chewy, which is just to say that they break easily and melt in your mouth, but don't crumble when you try to move them. One thing I really liked about this recipe is that the batter includes melted chocolate, not just cocoa powder, which gave the dough some extra chocolate depth.

As far as distribution, this batch worked double duty -- I brought them to a potluck and also gave them to a friend for her birthday. But perhaps even more interesting, I  recently discovered that leaving chocolate chip cookie dough in the fridge for a couple of days before baking improves the cookie texture immeasurably -- it gives the flour time to soak up the liquids, so you get insanely tender, flavorful cookies. I've been wanting to try it with other cookies, so when I made these last week, I wrapped some extra dough in parchment and stuck it in the fridge. I pulled out the dough today and baked up the remaining three cookies. Verdict: AMAZING.

Here's the recipe, which I found on Lovin From the Oven:

INGREDIENTS

2 2/3 cups (16 oz) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's dark)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cold egg
2 teaspoon vanilla

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 325 degrees.

Melt 2/3 cup of the chocolate chips in the microwave by heating in increments of 30 seconds and stirring in between. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and both sugars. Stir in the melted chocolate chips. Add in the egg and vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt) to the chocolate mixture until just incorporated.

Fold in the remaining 2 cups chocolate chips.

Scoop tablespoon sized dough onto baking sheets.

Bake for about 11 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack.

I'm mellllltttinnnggg!... Mint Melt-away cookies

My friend Ed and I have an unusual tradition where sometimes when one of us asks how the other is doing, we respond by saying "I'M MELLLLLTTTINNNNGGGG!!!", in the style of Donkey from Shrek (see: clip). Sometimes it means one of us is straight stressin', but sometimes it's just another way of saying "Good, and you?"  It makes no sense, I know, but it makes me laugh all the same.

And speaking of melting...

I got back to LA late last week, which naturally sent me into a funk about the impending end of Winter Break. I always associated minty things with pepperminty things, which in turn remind me of the holidays, so I dusted off an old recipe I came across on SquareBakery (via Pinterest) for mint meltaway cookies. 

One of the best things about this recipe is that it's ridiculously simple. The original recipe called for green food coloring, but I almost always find food coloring to be an uncomfortable proposition. With the exception of frosting, why should your food be a different color than whatever color you get when you mash all the ingredients together? I'll probably make some enemies here, but this is the same reason I don't really like red velvet cake. I mean... It's chocolate cake. Why does it need to be red? Also, have you seen how much red food coloring it takes to make it that color? Anyway, here is everything you need for these melty minty pleasures:

Amazing, right?!?...

In addition to omitting the food coloring, I also decided to pump up the mint factor by drizzling a little bit of mint glaze on top of the cookies. I didn't really follow a recipe, but roughly speaking, I took three heaping tablespoons of powdered sugar, added a dash of water (I would have used milk. but since it was my first night back in my apartment, I didn't have any on hand), and somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of a teaspoon of peppermint extract. Use your best judgement. :)

I'm really happy with how these came out. I've always been a fan of cookies that crumble and melt at the same time -- it sort of feels like magic.

Here's the recipe, adapted slightly from Square Bakery.

Mint Meltaway Cookies

You will need:
1 C/2 sticks of unsalted organic butter
1/2 C sifted powdered sugar + 3T for glaze
2 teaspoons of vanilla
3 teaspoons of peppermint oil + 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon for glaze
2-1/4 C cake flour
1/4 teaspoon saltPreheat oven to 400 degrees

Cream butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, peppermint oil together. Stir flour and salt together and then blend into butter mixture.

Roll tablespoon sized balls of dough and press to flatten. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet (or use a Silpat!) and bake for 8-10 minutes. 

While cookies are cooling, mix three heaping tablespoons of powdered sugar with a dash of water and a dash of peppermint extract. Drizzle over cookies and enjoy!

Homemade Thin Mints

When I was growing up, one of the women at my mom's office had a daughter in the Girl Scouts. Every year, my mom purchased a big grocery bag's worth of Girl Scout cookies, including at least three boxes of Thin Mints. This was a huge deal for me, because my parents were never big on letting me eat sweets as a kid. No sugary cereals, no cakes (except for birthdays), no pop tarts (WAH!!!)... But for some reason Girl Scout cookies were allowed. Maybe because it's a pseudo-charitable donation. I have no idea, but I can't really complain because to this day, I adore Thin Mints and Samoas (nee Caramel Delights).


For my last group meeting of Fall Quarter, I decided to try my hand at my childhood favorites. I must say, there's nothing quite like the combination of mint and chocolate, and these cookies smelled outstanding. I got so hung up on the smell that I tried one of the cookies before they'd been dipped in mint chocolate... I'll just say they looked better than they tasted, and they tasted much better after getting a thin coating of chocolate.

It took me a little while to find a recipe that did not require shortening. I am assuming that's what gives Thin Mints just the right amount of crumble and crunch, but as someone who is generally opposed to the idea of shortening, I had to scour the Interwebs just a little bit harder to find something suitable.


I eventually found a workable recipe from 101cookbooks.com, but I had to use AP flour instead of pastry, because I only keep AP and bread flour on hand. Also, I didn't have to patience to let the logs of cookie dough harden in the fridge for long enough, so the first batch came out about funny looking -- the dough kept sticking to my knife as I was cutting the disks, soI had to pat down the cookies with my fingers. I figure it's not that big a deal, since they ended up covered in chocolate anyway, but as kind of a neat freak, this bothered me a little... Finally, the recipe didn't recommend sifting the flour and cocoa powder but if I had to do this again, I definitely would sift the dry ingredients, because the pure cocoa powder tends to clump together, and you get little pockets of powder that are hard to mix into the thick dough.


All that being said, I'm not sure I will make these again, but it *has* gotten me thinking about how smart it would be to keep rolls of icebox cookie dough on hand for those "emergency" sugar-fix-needed situations...

Homemade and All-natural Thin Mint Recipe (adapted from 101cookbooks.com)

Chocolate Wafers:
8 ounces organic butter, room temperature
1 cup organic powdered sugar

1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Chocolate Peppermint Coating:
1 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
natural peppermint oil to taste

Preheat your oven to 350. Racks in the middle zone.

Make the cookie dough: Cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and cream some more, scraping the sides of the bowl a couple times if necessary. Stir in the vanilla extract and then the salt and cocoa powder. Mix until the cocoa powder is integrated and the batter is smooth and creamy, sort of like a thick frosting. Add the flour and mix just until the batter is no longer dusty looking, it might still be a bit crumbly, and that's o.k. You don't want to over mix and end up with tough cookies. (If I made these cookies again, I would sift together the flour and cocoa powder to fight the clump effect.)

Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and kneed it just once or twice to bring it together into once nice, smooth mass. Place the ball of dough into a large plastic bag and flatten it into a disk roughly 3/4-inch thick. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.

Rollout and bake: Remove the dough from the freezer and roll it out really thin, remember how thin Thin Mints are? That's how thin you need your dough, about 1/8-inch. You can either roll it out between two sheets of plastic, or dust your counter and rolling pin with a bit of flour and do it that way. Stamp out cookies using a 1 1/2-inch cutter (this time I used one with a fluted edge, I've done hearts and other shapes in the past). Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool completely on a baking rack if you've got one.

Make the peppermint coating:
While the cookies are in the oven you can get the coating ready. I use a makeshift double boiler to melt chocolate (a metal pan over a saucepan of gently simmering water), but I know many people who swear by melting chocolate in the microwave. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until it is glossy and smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. If you think the chocolate needs a bit more peppermint kick, add more extract a drop or two at a time - but don't go overboard.

Finishing the cookies: You are going to coat the cookies one at a time and then gently set them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to set. Drop one cookie into the chocolate and (using a fork) carefully make sure it gets fully coated. Lift the cookie out of the chocolate with the fork and bang the fork on the side of the pan to drain any extra chocolate off the cookie. You are after a thin, even coating of chocolate. Place on the aforementioned prepared baking sheet, and repeat for the rest of the cookies. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer to set.

Make 3 or 4 dozen cookies.

Playing with food... or Happy Pumpkin Cookies

When I got home from school today I realized I hadn't consumed a single cookie the entire day. The horror!

Not to fret. I brought all the leftover pumpkin puree from my Thanksgiving experiment back to LA with me, which seemed reason enough to bake up a batch of pumpkin cookies. Then I found this recipe on allrecipes.com, which had a truly astonishing number of positive reviews; it felt like destiny.

As an aside, while I do really enjoy pumpkin desserts, I can see myself getting tired of them in the not-so-distant future. It kind of reminds me of the time my high school economics teacher made a kid eat a whole box of Entenmann's powdered sugar donuts to illustrate the concept of diminishing marginal utility. A curious choice, undoubtedly, but perhaps effective, since I still remember the incident rather clearly. He looked about ready to boot by the fourth donut. Luckily, I only have about 1.5 cups of puree left, which is probably about enough for one more recipe.

But I digress.

The cookies turned out quite tasty. The texture is almost airy, and these babies crumble like cake, but that works really well with the subtle pumpkin + spices combo. In retrospect, I should have gone easier on the icing, since I don't actually like super saccharine-y sweet stuff, but the pumpkin flavor kills, and my apartment now smells like Thanksgiving all over again. Hard to argue with that.

Also, I started making these cookies, but after the first tray came out, I decided to mix things up a bit. Enter, the new and improved, HAPPY pumpkin cookie!

Another thing I forgot to mention in some of my previous posts is that I've mastered the art of creaming butter and sugar, sans electric mixer. I started doing this in Japan, and I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how effective this method is. First, I use the wooden spoon like a pestle and mash up the butter into little bits, then I smear the remaining pieces against the side of the bowl using the back of the spoon until it's completely smooth.

Is it painfully obvious at this point that I'm distracting myself from studying for my finals that start next week? It should be.

Okay, okay... Back to work.

Here are the deets for this recipe, slightly adapted from allrecipes.com!

Pumpkin cookies with Icing

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup of chocolate chips (optional)

2 cups confectioners' sugar
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy. Mix in dry ingredients. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly. This is when I pressed in the chocolate chips in smiley faces, but obviously, this is completely optional.

Bake for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies, then drizzle glaze with fork.

To Make Glaze: Combine confectioners' sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon melted butter, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add milk as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency. To be perfectly honest, I just dipped my cookies... But, again, I think I over-iced mine. Oh, well!