Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies.....



Honestly, there isn't much to say about these.... the pictures pretty much say it all.



Can't you almost taste them?



It's like a powdered donut (one of my personal favorites) and a chocolate bar rolled into one.



And if you think you've had chocolate crinkle cookies before.... you might want to give these a shot anyway. They have mini chocolate chips inside. Genius I tell ya, genius. Oh, and some serious chocolate overload to boot....but a little chocolate overload never hurt anyone. In fact, sometimes it's for the best.



Chocolate Crinkle Cookies
adapted from Williams Sonoma Baking Essentials

4 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup (2 oz) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups mini semisweet chips
1/2 cup (to 1 cup) confectioners sugar

Place the semisweet chips and butter into a double broiler and gently heat and stir until melted. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, mix the flour cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Mix together with a fork until well combined.

In a stand mixer, combine the eggs, granulated sugar and vanilla and beat on medium speed until the mixture both lightens in color and thickens (about 3 minutes or so). Add the melted chocolate mixture to the blender and mix until just combined. Add the dry ingredients in 2 to 3 batches and mix until just combined. Finally, add the mini chocolate chips and mix until they are distributed throughout.

Cover the bowl and place in the refrigerator for 2 hours or so, until the dough is firm enough to roll into little balls.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Roll cooled dough into 1 tablespoon-sized balls. I always use my trusty little mini ice cream scoop for cookies....that way they all come out uniform and my obsessive compulsive side can rest easy. Once the dough is rolled into a ball, drop it in to the confectioners sugar and roll it around to coat it. Then place it on a parchment lined cookie sheet. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Bake for 13 to 17 minutes until the tops are cracked and feel firm when touched. Cool and then eat.

Grand Central Chocolate Chips

In search of that perfect chocolate chip cookie.....



...or at least for something to keep the 'natives' happy for another week.


Chocolate chip cookies are universally accepted by the natives.....at least by my natives.



When I buy cookies from the store these days, there is usually a small uprising....my natives are rather spoiled. 


The natives were a little restless on this particular day, and so my sous chef (a native himself) baked these cookies for me, after I prepared the dough, of course. 


The cookies are fabulous, the natives were happy for yet another week, and what can I say, life was good.


Life is always good with chocolate chip cookies in the mix...... at least that's my theory.



Adapted from The Grand Central Baking Book by Piper Davis and Ellen Jackson
a fabulous baking book, that I highly recommend, by the way..... I love it for this as well.  If you love baking, it's a worthwhile investment for any cookbook collection.

Recipe makes about 3 dozen

2 cups all purpose flouir
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (or 2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar (lightly packed)
2 eggs, at room temp
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups rolled oats
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
1/2 cup white chocolate chips (or more milk chocolate)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper

Measure the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl and combine.

In a stand mixer, beat together butter, and both sugars until combined and 'fluffy' (about 3 to 5 minutes).  Make sure you scrape the sides and get it combined well.  Add eggs one at a time, and mix til just combined.  Add in vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet in 2 to three batches.  Mixing after each addition until just incorporated.  Combine both chocolate chips and oatmeal together in a separate bowl and add in batches once again, until just combined.

Use cookie scoop, or desired cookie scooping utensil and place dough in desired amounts on cookie sheet.  I am a big fan of the 1 tablespoon-sized cookie, myself.  Bake 10 to 13 minutes until evenly browned and golden along the edges.

Remove from oven, let cool, and call in the official cookie taste testers!

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was inspired by a couple of different websites to purchase this book last weekend.  Good to the Grain by Kim Boyce.  The book is centered around recipes using different types of whole grain flours.  It's a beautifully put together book, with gorgeous pictures of most of the recipes included.  I did do a little investigating prior to buying to make sure that the flours used are indeed available to most normal grocery store shoppers, and yes indeedy they are.  I found most if not all of them in the organic section of my favorite grocery store. 

This was the first thing that I made.  They were calling out for me to make them as soon as I flipped to their page.....


Now let me tell you, I have tried recipes centered around whole wheat flour before, and was not impressed by the overall texture, or the flavor of whatever it was I had baked at the time.  So I will say that initially, I had my doubts about whether these cookies were going to be an all-out showstopper or not.



All suspicions were put to rest after one bite of these babies.  They held their shape nicely in the oven without turning into flat, lifeless blobs.  Big plus in my book.

They were delightfully chewy, and I thought the distinct prescence and flavor of the brown sugar was heaven.


Add to that the chocolate that oozed out of them, and it doesn't get much better.  They would rank pretty darn high on my list of favorite chocolate chip cookies..... if I had a list of favorite chocolate chip cookies.... They can, without a doubt, hold their own against any white flour recipe out there, and I think there's definitely something to be said for that.



Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies
Recipe adapted from Kim Boyce and Good to the Grain

Dry Ingredients:
3 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

Wet Ingredients:
8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cold and diced into 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 oz bittersweet chocolate (1 Giardhelli bar), roughly chopped
4 oz semisweet chocolate (1 Giardehlli bar), roughly chopped


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and get your cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and ready to roll.

Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl. 

In your stand mixer, combine cold cubed butter and both sugars until blended.  About 2 minutes.  Scraping down the bowl with a spatula as you go, add the eggs, one at a time and blend until just combined.  Add the vanilla and mix to combine.  Gradually add the flour mixture in 2 to 3 batches, blending well after each addition.  Finally, add the chocolate pieces and blend until evenly distributed throughout.  The cookie dough will resemble rough, wet, sand.

Whereas I normally put cookie dough into the refrigerator to avoid lifeless blobs on the cookie sheet upon removal from the oven, with this particular recipe, that was not really necessary.  I did put it into the refrigerator between batches, but I found that the cooler the dough was, the harder it was to get the dough to stay together.  This is a very dry mix.  It will come together in your fingers when pressed, but for all intents and purposes will look like a big bowl of rough sand.  Take note.....you're going to have to mold it fairly firmly in order to get cookie mounds and not piles of crumbs on your cookie sheet.

Scoop the cookie dough with whatever your desired scooping tool is, onto the baking sheet in even mounds.  I used my 1 tablespoon sized cookie scoop, and pressed the dough firmly into the scoop before releasing the dough onto the cookie sheet, and it worked fairly well.  Bake the cookies for 15 to 20 minutes, until evenly brown.  How do you tell when brown cookie dough is evenly brown???  I checked the bottoms of a couple cookies before calling the batch done.  After baking a couple of batches, you'll get the time down perfect, and won't need to check for done-ness.   This recipe makes enough cookies to feed an army by the way.

Cool and eat....... or eat when they come out, but be careful and don't burn the top of your mouth and tongue like I did.  They were delicious.  You'll want to eat them as soon as they come out of the oven.  Trust me.

Almond Blueberry Cookies

Yes, I realize that the cookies are literally blue.  I always manage to turn the batter blue when blueberries are involved.  There's just something about the instruction that always says something like '...gently fold blueberries into batter...'.  No matter.  They are just as delicious blue.

 

These cookies were sweet, but not too sweet.  Delightfully crunchy (if you ask me) and light.  They taste very much like the top part of a blueberry muffin.  Which is my favorite part of a blueberry muffin, or any muffin for that matter.



Almond Blueberry Cookies
Recipe from Giada De Laurentiis and foodnetwork.com

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup whole milk (or heavy cream if you forgot to buy the milk)
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 teaspoons lemon zest, about 1 lemon
1/2 cup chopped almonds, toasted
1 cup frozen blueberries, thawed and drained

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

In a stand mixer (or with a hand mixer), cream together the butter and sugar. Add egg and beat to incorporate. Add milk, almond extract, and lemon zest.

Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Fold in the almonds, then the blueberries. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Spoon cookie dough onto cookie sheet in equal portions of about 1 tablespoon. I like to use one of those handy dandy cookie scoops so they're all evenly sized, but I'm crazy like that.

Bake until golden brown around the edges, about 15 minutes.

Mascarpone Chocolate Toffee Bars

I know I say this every time, but you really should make these.



They have a chewy sugar cookie base... with chocolate toffee bar chunks mixed in there too...



and a creamy, chocolatey, decadent, top layer, sprinkled with the rest of the chocolate toffee pieces and roasted almond slices..... am I in heaven?



Oh my goodness.......

They are very, very decadent and rich. I would compare them to brownies. I cut them into small pieces because they were so very rich, and I stored them in the refrigerator because the chocolate/mascarpone layer got a little melty when left out at room temperature. I personally thought they were better served chilled, straight out of the fridge. Perfect for that late night chocolate craving...

Warning: I had some trouble with the pan that she is recommending for baking these. I did not have this particular size pan, nor did many people who commented on the recipe on foodnetwork.com. I used my stoneware 7 1/2" x 11 1/2" shallow baking dish. Many people who reviewed the recipe complained that her baking time was not near enough to bake the cookie layer completely through. I agree. 12 minutes was a joke. The cookie dough was practically raw. I believe that I put the pan back in the oven for another 8 or so minutes, but it will depend on what size pan you're using, and also I assume on whether the pan is metal, glass, stoneware, etc as well. I kept a really close eye on the pan after about 15 minutes and checked on it in 3-4 minute intervals until the top was a golden brown and looked done. Then do the whole toothpick maneuver to make sure. It's just sugar cookie dough, not rocket science people..... wing it.

Recipe adapted from Giada De Laurentiis and foodnetwork.com

Vegetable cooking spray
1 pound refrigerated sugar cookie dough (recommended: Pillsbury)
2 (1.4-ounces) chocolate-toffee candy bars, coarsely chopped, divided (Skor or Heath)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 cup (8 ounces) mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
1/4 cup sliced almonds, toasted * see Cook's Note

Position an oven rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spray a 7 by 10 3/4-inch nonstick baking pan with vegetable cooking spray. Lay a 6 by 18-inch piece of parchment paper in the pan, allowing the excess paper to overhang the sides. Spray the parchment paper lightly with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine the cookie dough, 1/2 of the chopped chocolate-toffee candy pieces and vanilla extract. Using damp fingers, gently press the dough into the prepared pan. Using the tines of a fork, prick the dough all over. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes until the crust is lightly browned. Cool for 15 minutes.

Place the chocolate chips and vegetable oil in a medium bowl. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until the chocolate has melted. Cool the chocolate mixture for 10 minutes. Whisk in the mascarpone cheese until the mixture is smooth. Using a spatula, spread the chocolate mixture over the cooled crust. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate-toffee candy pieces and sliced almonds over the chocolate mixture. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours until the chocolate layer is firm.

Peel off the parchment paper and cut into 1 1/2 by 2-inch bars. Serve at room temperature.

*Cook's Note: To toast almonds, arrange in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 350 degrees F oven for 8 to 10 minutes until lightly browned.

Almond and Lemon Biscotti

Almond and Lemon Biscotti..... Dipped in White Chocolate
Mmmmm..... The perfect accompaniment to a big cup of tea or coffee. I've been enjoying these every night with a big cup of ginger orange tea and my favorite shows, on the couch, under the covers. My favorite part of these is the texture added by the cornmeal and the almonds. They are so very simple to make and the recipe makes plenty. Why buy the ones in the box, when you can make these? I think they might just become a staple around here....
Recipe from Giada De Laurentis and foodnetwork.com You can also find the recipe in Giada's newest book Giada at Home

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cornmeal
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
3 tablespoons grated lemon zest (from about 3 to 4 lemons)
3/4 cup coarsely chopped whole almonds
18 ounces white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt.

In another large bowl, beat the sugar and eggs with an electric mixture until pale yellow, about 3 minutes. Mix in the lemon zest and then the flour, and beat until just blended. (The dough will be sticky). Stir in the almonds. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes.

Divide the dough evenly into 2 equal mounds and place on the prepared baking sheet. With moist hands, space the dough evenly apart and form into 2 (9 by-3-inch) logs. Bake for 35 minutes until lightly browned. Cool for 5 minutes. 

Using a serrated knife, cut the logs crosswise into 3/4-inch-thick diagonal slices. Arrange the biscotti cut side down on the same baking sheet. Bake until the cookies are pale golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely.

Place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water, making sure the bottom of the pan does not touch the water. Stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Dip the end of each biscotti in the chocolate. Transfer the dipped biscotti to a wire rack, set over a baking sheet, until the chocolate has hardened. Store in an airtight container.

Italian Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

Italian Chocolate Sandwich Cookies...
Recipe from Giada De Laurentiis and foodnetwork.com


These cookies have managed to make it to my short list of favorite cookies... They're surprisingly light and delicate, the orange and chocolate are perfect complements to each other, and the addition of the cornmeal imparts such a wonderful texture and crunch to the cookies. Try them. They'll become your new favorite too.

Ingredients:

Chocolate cookies:
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (2 sticks)
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornmeal or polenta
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 orange, zested


Orange filling:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature (1 stick)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 orange, zested
Pinch salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To make the Chocolate Cookies, in a large bowl use an electric mixer to cream together the butter and sugar until light in color and fluffy. In another medium bowl stir together the flour, cornmeal or polenta, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and orange zest. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir to combine using a wooden spoon. Place the dough on a sheet of plastic wrap. Press the dough into a 1-inch high round. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 day.

Roll out the dough to between 1/8 and 1/4-inch thick. Use a 1 3/4-inch round cookie cutter to cut out the dough. Bake on a heavy baking sheet for 15 minutes. Place the baking sheets on a wire rack to cool cookies.

Meanwhile, to make the Orange Filling, combine the butter, powdered sugar, orange zest, and salt in a medium bowl. Use an electric mixer to cream the ingredients together.

To assemble the cookie sandwiches, place about 1 teaspoon of the Orange Filling on a cookie. Top with another cookie and press the cookies together. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 day.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Well, this is it. My new blog in which I attempt to chronicle my adventures.....both in the kitchen and out. I'm a little obsessed with food and cooking these days, so it'll likely be more 'in' than 'out', but I'm sure some other stuff will sneak in there here and there. Bear with me.... I'm trying to figure all this out......

We'll start with these. These delicious cookies are from Martha.....yes, that Martha. The recipe makes a ton of cookies and they were a big hit here. Soft and chewy. Yum.

Thanks for stopping by! And for heavens sake, if you try one of the recipes yourself, let me know how it turns out!


Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Recipe from Martha Stewart

Makes about 4 dozen

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly firm and cut into chunks
1 cup packed light-brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup sour cream
2 cups semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups chopped walnut or pecan pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt; and set aside.

With an stand mixer, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat until combined. Add sour cream, and beat until combined. Add flour mixture; beat until just combined. Fold in chocolate and nuts.

Drop dough in mounds at least 2 inches apart onto prepared baking sheets (as you work, chill any remaining dough until ready to bake).

Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are golden brown but still soft to the touch, 13 to 15 minutes (chilled dough will take longer). Cool 5 minutes on sheets; transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.