Posts Tagged ‘dessert’

This particular cookie may be the most sophisticated of the ones I’ve whipped up so far.  It also has had two very different test batches, both of which were delicious.  The flavor profile of this cookie has orange, dark chocolate and pecans. It’s called The Hug because it feels like getting a big bear hug when you take a bite.

The Hug – test batch #1

• 1 c unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 c granulated sugar
• 3/4 c packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1t vanilla
• zest AND juice of one orange
• 2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
• 1t baking soda
• 1t salt
• 1 Hershey’s Special Dark jumbo bar, chopped finely
• 1/2 c finely chopped pecans

1. Cream butter and sugars together.
2. Add eggs one at a time until fully incorporated
3. Mix in vanilla and orange zest.
4. Sift together flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder and add into the wet ingredients in small batches until well combined.
5. Stir in chocolate and pecan pieces.
6. Roll into balls and bake for 10-12 minutes.

Here’s a picture of the dough for this batch. You can see it has a lighter color and larger chocolate and pecan pieces plus all that yummy, fragrant, delicious orange zest.

Recipe notes – Test batch #2 -

These cookies had a delicate yet noticeable orange essence. The orange flavor hit after the first bite was chewed and then it just perfumed the whole cookie.  The dark chocolate chips and larger pieces of pecans packed a much bigger punch and the double zest easily replaced the juice of the orange in the first batch.  I may experiment with adding the zest of one more orange, but that will be the only change I make in this recipe.  This recipe already used more flour so the consistency is a puffier cookie.  The color of this cookie is definitely lighter because of the absence of brown sugar.  You have to check this cookie often when you pass the 11 minute mark because it won’t really turn brown.

I hope you enjoy it!

My new thing is to create cookies for people based on flavor profiles they like. There must be a million cookie recipes on the InterWebs, so I’m not saying that I am the first creator of any of  these cookies, but I don’t go looking for recipes to poach.  I think of ingredients and basic cookie doughs and figure out ratios (mostly due to trial and error and lots of taste testing – thanks family, friends and co-workers!)

Now that that business is taken care of, let’s get back to the story of The Juanifer. I asked my friend Jennifer what kind of flavors she would like in a cookie. She said, “I would like my cookie to have chocolate and peanut butter and no nuts. ”  Ok.  Game on.  Or would that be Cookie On?

This cookie idea was pretty straightforward. The easiest thing would have been to take a peanut butter cookie and add chocolate. I didn’t want to do that. I could have also made a basic chocolate chip cookie dough and included peanut butter in some form.  I didn’t want to do that either.  In the end I decided to make a chocolate oatmeal cookie with peanut butter chips.  I did make two variations which I’ll document here in this discussion. I was in the middle of massive baking the weekend I created this cookie so I didn’t take as many photos during the process.

The Juanifer – Test Batch #1
1 c butter – softened
1c sugar – *
1c brown sugar (I use 1 cup white sugar and 1 1/2T molasses)
1t vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 c cocoa mixed with 2T water to make a slurry *
3 c rolled oats *
2 c flour *
1t salt
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
2 c peanut butter chips (or one 12 oz bag)

Cream together the butter and sugars.
Add eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly.
Add vanilla.
Pour in chocolate slurry mixture. (see note below)
Combine dry ingredients and sift together, or mix with a wisk.
Add dry ingredients into the wet a little at a time.
Finally, stir in the peanut butter chips.
Roll dough into balls (or drop if you wish) and cook for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe Notes from batch one:
I added the water because the cocoa is an additional dry ingredient and I felt the dough would need more moisture. I didn’t do this for the second batch and felt it was needed, so I’m including it in the final recipe.  This resulted in a wetter dough and I had some difficulty rolling the dough balls cleanly.

The Juanifer – Test Batch #2: 

1 c butter – softened
3/4 c sugar
1c brown sugar (I use 1 cup white sugar and 1 1/2T molasses)
1t vanilla
2 eggs
1/3 c cocoa
2 1/2 c rolled oats
2 1/2 c flour
1t salt
1t baking soda
1t baking powder
2 c peanut butter chips (or one 12 oz bag)

Cream together the butter and sugars.
Add eggs one at a time and mix thoroughly.
Add vanilla.
Combine dry ingredients and sift together, or mix with a wisk.
Add dry ingredients into the wet a little at a time.
Finally, stir in the peanut butter chips.
Roll dough into balls (or drop if you wish) and cook for 10-12 minutes.

Recipe Notes from batch two:
This time, I added the cocoa to the dry ingredients and didn’t add the additional liquid.  I found that this dough was a little dry. I also put in equal amounts of oats and flour and found that the cookies had a better visual look and didn’t spread out as much while baking.

Mind you, there was no difference in the taste between the two cookies, so if you prefer batch one, woohoo!  But I’ll be using the ratios of batch two and adding the chocolate slurry from batch one.

Jennifer asked that her cookie be called The Juanifer, so please enjoy!

My brother came over to make cookies at my house.  He asked if we could make gingerbread men and snickerdoodles.  As much as I like cinnamon, I’ve never been a fan of the snickerdoodle because it’s a pretty tame cookie as cookies go. Today, I have become a convert; I really love cinnamon and smelling it cooking completely changed my outlook.  I do admit to liking the snickerdoodle warm more than I like it at room temp, so I may just have to keep rolled snickerdoodle cookie balls in my freezer (Not uncommon, btw)

While we were at the store getting ingredients for the cookie making (and for my soup creation which was documented in another blog post) I thought about making a cookie for my brother.  He doesn’t eat many cookies, so I figured if I was going to make one, it better have all of his favorite things in it.  So I created a cookie called The Jason.  It is a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips, dried cherries and chopped (unsalted) pistachios.  I rinsed off salted pistachios and threw them in the oven to roast for a few minutes.  Depending on how much salty/sweet ratio you like, you could use salted ones.

The cookies also have a pinch of cinnamon in them. I don’t care for the combination of cinnamon and chocolate even though separately they are two of my favorite flavors, but Jason does, so I threw it in.

This is the first attempt at this cookie and I do think some adjustments needed to be made, but not many.  The recipe includes the adjustments, but I haven’t actually tested this a second time.  It mostly just needed more flour (I added 1/4 cup to the recipe) and maybe less choc chips.

I’m sure this particular cookie exists somewhere on the InterWebs, but I did not seek out a recipe. I like to gather ingredients and use what I know about other cookies to create things that taste good. I’m not claiming to be the first inventor of any of the cookies on this blog, but I don’t do a lot of research before I try them.  

Here’s the recipe with pictures and it will be repeated in full without interruptions at the end.

The Jason

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening (you could just double the butter or use full margarine too)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar (I use regular sugar and a 1T of molassess)
• 1t vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1t baking soda
• 1t salt
• 1/4t cinnamon (you could add more if you really like cinnamon)
• 2 cups chocolate chips (we thought it may be too many chips, so feel free to decrease amount)
• 1 cup pistachios – chopped
• 1 package dried cherries, chopped (approx 1 to 1 1/4 cups, but I’m not positive) I let the cherries soak in hot water for about 2o minutes and then I added about 2T of the cherry water to the dough mixture as I was mixing in flour. I’m not sure it’s needed, tho.

1. Cream together butter and shortening, add sugars and beat until fluffy.
   
2. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each egg.
   
3. Add cocoa powder and mix completely.
4. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
5. Add in small batches to the wet ingredients mixing completely. (Add cherry water at this time if you wish)
6. Depending on the strength of your mixer, add in the chocolate chips, dried cherries and pistachios and mix (you may need to mix by hand, but good luck with that)
   
7. I put the dough in the fridge to firm up before I rolled it and I still needed to dust my hands with flour.
   
8. Bake at 350 for 12-14 minutes, watch carefully because you won’t see the cookies browning.  If you like them chewier, take them out sooner or leave them in longer for crunchy cookies.
   
   Here’s my brother enjoying his own personalized cookie.
   
   The Jason

Enjoy The Jason and if you try it, let me know what you think.

Apple picking is probably my favorite Fall activity. I LOVE it. I could go every week. In fact, I think that may just be my plan this season.  Two weekends ago we went to the apple orchard to pick honey crisp apples right off the tree.  Eating apples that you’ve picked seconds before you take that first bite…ah it really doesn’t get much better than that.

I always pick more apples than I can eat.  This time was no exception. I came home with eight pounds of apples. Hmm, what to do? Fortunately, when I checked my mailbox that same day, I found a postcard from one of our cruise friends.

(Yes, I know the cruise post hasn’t come yet….JenTastic needs to add her two cents to my post before I publish it, but at the rate she’s going, we’ll need another cruise to refresh our memories before this one gets written)  

Anyway, that postcard happened to have a recipe for apple strudel, so that is what I decided to make.  I didn’t actually use that recipe, but I researched a bunch of them on the Interwebs and took a culmination of what I found.  That’s how I roll in the kitchen, people. Improvise.  Sometimes more successful than others.

I had completely forgotten how finicky filo, phyllo, whatever you call it, dough is.  That stuff will drive anyone crazy. It’s no wonder things like baklava are so incredibly costly, and rarely made at home!

So here’s my apple strudel – step by step, except for the steps where I crushed sheets of filo between my fingers, cursed at my ceiling and then threw them angrily into the trash. Sadly, those steps have been edited.  Tis a shame…they were pretty amusing moments.

I’ve never made strudel before, but I used to make apple pie all the time when I worked at a little grocery store after high school so I was fairly confident in my strudel making ability.  I always TRY to stick with a traditional version the first time I make something so I actually added raisins. I don’t usually include raisins in food that needs to be cooked because of a traumatic, childhood incident.   I love raisins, really I do.  As a child, I never went anywhere without my box of Sun-Maid raisins.  Everyone knew this, including my brother.  One day, my wonderful, caring, nurturing brother decided that he would rip the legs off ants, crush them and feed them to me as if they were my beloved raisins.  Apparently, I ate many an ant until Mom discovered what he was doing.  I learned of this later in life, thankfully (I have a bug issue, much like my friend Kim) but I’ve never been down with warm, plump raisins.

I really don’t want to think about that right now. I’d rather talk strudel.

Apple Strudel – made 2 strudels (filo was smaller than I remember, so you may have to adjust filling amounts)

5 medium apples – peeled, cored and chopped
1c apple juice
2T corn starch (maybe a little less)
1/4c sugar (may need more if apples aren’t sweet enough)
1 t cinnamon
4T butter – melted
1t vanilla
1/2c raisins
1/2c chopped pecans (or walnuts)
1/2c plain breadcrumbs
4-5 sheets of filo (or as many as you can separate fully and still have enough to work with) Filo should be thawed, but very cold.  Keep it frozen until day before you use it.  Keep in fridge until you’re exactly ready to use it and keep it under a damp, cold cloth when working with it. (got that?)

Add corn starch to 1/4c of apple juice to make a slurry – set aside.

Peel, core and chop apples. In a large saucepan combine apples, remaining apple juice, sugar, cinnamon and raisins.  Cook over low to medium heat until apples are softened, about 10 minutes.  Stir slurry to mix, add to apple mixture, stir continually for another minute. Add vanilla and remove from heat.  Stir in pecans.  Let cool.

I haven’t added the pecans yet, but here they are:

On a clean, dry surface lay out one piece of filo (I put a piece of parchment right on my baking sheet and it was very easy to move around.)  Lightly brush it with butter; a pastry brush OR your fingers will work…just be careful, it’s very fragile.  Sprinkle with bread crumbs. (Yes, I know! I didn’t realize this was a secret part of strudel.  You can also use cake crumbs if you happen to have them, but really who keeps cake crumbs around? I thought that’s what your mouth was for??)

Repeat with 3 or 4 more layers, butter, breadcrumbs, repeat.  Finally you’ll have a little stack of layers.  I added half of the filling just off center on my filo stack.

Then I carefully rolled it up (with more cursing and under the breath mumbling) and ended up with these beauties!  Don’t say a word about the misshapen one, you’ll give it a complex.  When it was all baked and sliced, it looked perfectly normal thankyouverymuch.

Brush the tops with remaining butter. Bake at 450 degrees for 15-18 minutes. I think mine took about 20.  Just watch them.

Oh la la!  Look how pretty they are! and NOTHING makes your house smell better than apples and cinnamon cooking.

I let them cool overnight and then I sprinkled them heavily with powdered sugar and sliced. Here are some glamour shots of my strudel.  Head shot.

Side angle.

That’s it! With practice, the filo will come easily, but as I was fighting with it, I was already thinking of back up plans. You could cut the filo in half and layer in muffin tins making strudel cups. I may try that next time, but I WILL be making more of this soon! I COULD have made one big one, but I’m not sure how I would have rolled it up. It was hard enough with these little ones.  I’d guess that as I get better at the filo, I can make larger ones.

These actually made perfect size slices. I took them to work and shared.  I did. Really.

See?

My cruise friend Julia, whose postcard sparked this whole idea, suggested topping it with a warm vanilla sauce or of course, vanilla ice cream.  Both sound good, but warm vanilla sauce is now on my “to do” list.

This is a variation of a recipe I saw on a cooking show.  It might have been Paula Deen, which shocks me because I can never cook anything she makes.  She uses too much butter and sugar for me.  Why yes, I did just actually say “too much sugar.”

These are Lemon Coconut Macaroons and they are SO delicious.

1 large egg white
1/8 teaspoon salt
3/4 c sweetened condensed milk
2+ Tablespoons lemon zest (I used a whole lemon, it was a big one)
1/2 T lemon extract (I didn’t have any, so I used all the juice from the lemon I zested and it tasted just fine)
1/2t vanilla extract
1 – 14 oz bag of shredded sweetened coconut – roughly chopped.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

In a bowl,whisk the egg white and salt until frothy.  This took about 2- minutes using a hand whisker, faster if you use an electric mixer (which you do not need for this recipe)

Stir in condensed milk, zest and extracts (and juice if you use the lemon juice).

Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the coconut until combined.

You can use a small ice cream scoop or just use your hands to make 1 1/2 inch macaroons.  You will need to use your hands to form them together, so be prepared to get your hands dirty.

Place them about an inch apart on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper.

Bake until lightly browned. Check on them after 20 minutes, but mine needed almost 30.  They will turn brown very quickly after  they start browning so be sure to watch them.

Transfer to a wire rack and cool.

Notes: If you like your macaroons a little more refined and not so crazy, you can chop the coconut  more finely.  There are a lot of variations you can make with this recipe, just experiment with flavorings.  They can be dipped in chocolate or rolled in nuts, all sorts of things.  Be creative. If they turn out less than desired, you can always bring them to work and call them “test recipes.”