Recently Casey wrote this enticing post about her favorite chocolate chip cookie, and the description and photos got my immediate attention.   At first glance, the recipe seems pretty straightforward, using the usual suspects for this traditional American favorite: butter, sugar, baking soda, walnuts, and chocolate chips.  But, what sets it apart is the browning of the butter, and the toasting & grinding of the walnuts.  Brown butter. Ground walnuts. Who would imagine they could make a simple cookie so decadent and delicious?
BROWN BUTTER CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
(from Beautiful Disasters)

1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1  + 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 +  1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1  + 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cups walnuts, toasted and ground
1-2 teaspoons of milk, as needed

The day before (or at least 3 hours before making the cookies), heat the butter over low heat in a small saucepan.  It will foam and bubble, slowly acquiring a tan color.  Keep stirring, watch it carefully so that the solids won’t burn.  Cook until the butter is a deep caramel color (it took me over 12 minutes).  Pour into a pyrex type dish, and refrigerate until  solid.

Heat the oven to 300 degrees F, and toast the walnuts on a baking sheet for 12 minutes, or until fragrant and starting to get some color.  Transfer to a small food processor and turn it on and off a few times, to grind the nuts.  Reserve.   (You can also finely chop them by hand, but it’s a bit cumbersome).

Cut the brown butter in small cubes, place it in the bowl of an electric mixer, and cream it with both sugars.   Beat in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda. Add the flour and salt, mixing gently.  Finally add the ground i nuts and chocolate chips. If the dough is too crumbly, add a couple of teaspoons of milk.

Scoop the dough onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, and bake in a 300 F oven for 18 minutes.  Let cool on wire rack.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

These are some amazing cookies!  Hot from the oven, they were simply irresistible…  I had THREE cookies.  Now, keep in mind that when I make a batch of cookies I eat one, and  that is pretty much it for me.  I had three.  One, then another.  And then another. (sigh)

My moment of pure joy, on a Sunday afternoon…

A cup of steaming spiced almond milk….  (for recipe, click here)

With bites of insanely good chocolate chip cookies…

Thank you, Casey!  

ONE  YEAR AGO: Tidy Sourdough

TWO YEARS AGO: Vienna Bread

Renee is an artist (check her store at Etsy), and that alone leaves me in complete awe, because I cannot draw a tree to save my own life! In fact, back in middle school two things terrified me to the point of losing sleep: physical education and art classes.  I was absolutely horrible at both, and wanted to disappear from the planet when it was time to face them. Back to blogging.  I fell in love with Renee’s 4th of July cookies, and adapted them for a Christmas time motif, switching the colors to green and red.  And, since I’ve always wanted to make shortbread cookies, this was a perfect excuse to bake a batch.  Without further ado, and with apologies to Renee, here is my very first attempt at playing Jackson Pollock. You can understand why I was not very popular with the art teachers…   (sigh)

WHITE CHOCOLATE DIPPED COOKIES
(adapted from Kudos Kitchen by Renee)

for cookies
1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 cups flour
3/4 cup ground hazelnuts
zest of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons vanilla
pinch of salt

for dipping cookies
1 + 1/2 packages white chocolate morsels
3 tablespoons Crisco, divided
1 tablespoon milk
red and green food coloring

In a large kitchen Aid type bowl, beat together the butter with the brown sugar until creamy. Add the flour, ground hazelnuts, vanilla, lemon zest, and salt. Beat until smooth.  Remove the dough from the bowl, form it into a log and wrap with plastic.  Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 325 F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. When the dough is firm enough to handle, remove 1 inch balls and shape as a cookie, flattening the surface. Alternatively, you can slice pieces straight from the log, 1/4 inch thick.   Smooth the surface and edges, and place on prepared cookie sheet.   Bake for 15 minutes on until set and very lightly browned on the bottom.  Remove from pan and place the cookies to cool on a rack. Before icing, place them in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Dipping the cookies: melt 1 cup of the chocolate chips and the 2 + 1/2 tablespoons of Crisco in your microwave.  Check on it often and stir it occasionally until the chocolate is smooth and completely melted.

Using a fork and working with one cookie at a time, dip each cookie, turning it over to coat both sides nicely with chocolate.  Place your dipped cookies on a baking sheet that has been lined with parchment paper.  Follow this step until all of the chocolate is used up.  This amount of chocolate will be enough to coat about 12 cookies.

With the remaining 1/2 cup of morsels, melt them in your microwave again, using 1/2 Tbs Crisco and  1 tablespoon of milk to keep the consistency thinner and better for drizzling.

In two separate small bowls, divide the chocolate and color them with the red and green food coloring. Drizzle the cookies with both colors of icing, using the tines of a fork dipped in water, or if you have the right skills, a little improvised piping bag made with parchment paper.

Place the cookies in the fridge until time to serve them.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

A few things I learned from this baking adventure…

1.  Run away from the small tubes of food coloring gel, because even if you squeeze the full tube of green gel in  1/4 cup of melted chocolate, the resulting icing will have a pale lime color. Go for the real McCoy, the type that you need to use a toothpick to grab the tiny amount that gets the job done.

2. White chocolate is not for sissies.   When Renee says to make sure the chocolate is fully melted and smooth, she knows what she’s talking about.  Lumps get together and seem to multiply at a fast rate.  Then, right before your eyes, the whole thing turns into a solid mess.

3. White chocolate is not for sissies. Melted chocolate, when smooth and fluid,  has a remarkable tendency  to splatter.  Certain types of dog fur catch droplets of icing with high efficiency, and don’t wash easily.

4. Have I mentioned that white chocolate is not for sissies?  Buy more than you think you’ll need. Have a cup of chamomile tea before icing your cookies.   You may need three shots of tequila after.

But it will all be worth it, these cookies were amazing!  You can play with the colors to match your favorite football team, or go real artistic and draw something over the white chocolate canvas, like red hearts for Valentine’s Day! 

Renee, it was great to get to know your blog, hope you had as much fun as I did with your assignment this month!

ONE YEAR AGO: Sourdough Focaccia, with a Twist

TWO YEARS AGO: Merry Christmas!

BANANA BLONDIES
(published with permission from Dan Lepard)

to make the toffee:
75g superfine sugar
2 Tbs cold water
75g Brazil nuts, chopped

for the blondies:
100g unsalted butter
250g fine sugar
200g white chocolate
1 egg
2 ripe bananas, peeled (200-250g)
2 tsp vanilla extract
200g all purpose flour
¼ tsp baking powder

Lightly coat with oil a small baking sheet. Reserve. Place the fine sugar and the water inside a small pan. Turn the heat to medium, bring the water to a boil, and gently let it boil until the sugar turns a very dark golden color, but don’t let it burn.  Immediately drop the chopped nuts inside, and stir with a silicone spatula or another appropriate tool.  Carefully but quickly pour the mixture over the prepared baking sheet, spreading it around.  Let it cool completely, then chop the toffee into small bits. Reserve.

Resist the temptation to try the toffee. Do not touch it!

Line the base and sides of an 8 inch (20 cm)  square baking dish with parchment paper and heat the oven to 375 F. If using a non-stick pan you can skip the parchment paper, but coat the pan with a little butter to prevent sticky issues.

Heat the butter and white chocolate stirring gently in a pan over very low heat until melted (or use the microwave in short 10 second cycles of heating), then transfer to a medium size bowl. Add the remaining (250g) sugar and beat with the egg, bananas and vanilla until smooth. Sift the flour and baking powder, add to the batter together with the toffee bits, folding it all gently.

Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and bake for about 35 minutes, until golden on top.   If you shake the pan slightly, the center portion should still be slightly wobbly, but mostly set. Cool it completely before slicing in small squares.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

This was my first time making toffee, and quite likely the first time tasting some made from scratch.  I had no idea it would be so amazing!  I am not that fond of Brazil nuts,  so I tried a small bite of the toffee to decide whether to add it or skip it.  The stars in the sky had never been so bright!  It was unbelievably tasty: sweet, crunchy, nutty, enough to make me lose all my composure and disregard my own motto of “everything in moderation.”   Moderation and this toffee don’t match.

Back to the blondies. These  are certainly worthy of Carmen Miranda‘s approval, tropical bits of tender cake, with intense banana flavor, the creaminess of the white chocolate, and the sweet crunch of the toffee surprising the palate at every bite.

Pointers for success:  Check the weight of the banana(s) so that you don’t go over the 250g mark.  Do not use over-ripe bananas from the freezer, because they tend to release too much liquid and the cake may not set properly.

Here’s what Carmen would tell you:

Make a double batch of the toffee.  Sprinkle some over vanilla ice cream.
Close your eyes and take a spoonful.
Repeat.

Carmen Miranda (1909-1955)

ONE YEAR AGO: Show-stopping Spaghetti and Meatballs

TWO YEARS AGO: Magical Lamb Stew with Parsnips, Prunes, and Chickpeas

I kept my passion for these cookies a secret, thinking that professing love for airline cookies would be similar to admitting a weakness for Velveeta (don’t ask, I won’t tell).  But one day, I posed a discreet question in a cooking forum trying to find out more about them.  All clouds dissipated in the horizon: those are speculaas, very special cookies that originated in Europe centuries ago.  Many versions exist, sharing in common a mixture of spices, brown sugar, and butter.  Traditionally, they have beautiful, complex designs on the surface, requiring special molds to shape them.  I used ceramic molds (highlighted here)that were a bit more affordable than the real McCoy.  As to the recipe,  my friend Gary shared the method he learned in culinary school.   The teacher, chef  Gabriel, gave me permission to publish his very own recipe, so you can fall in love with these cookies right in your own kitchen, in the safety of firm ground!   Isn’t that awesome?

SPECULAAS
(Recipe courtesy of  Chef Jeffrey Gabriel
CMC Schoolcraft College)

8 oz butter at room temperature
11 oz brown sugar
1 + 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 egg yolks
2 Tbs milk
13 oz flour
2 oz almonds, finely chopped in a food processor.

Place the butter and the brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer, and beat on medium speed until creamy and smooth (about 3 minutes).  Add the spices, egg yolks, and milk.  Continue beating until it is all well blended.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the ground almonds, add them to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until a dough forms.  Chill the dough for at least one hour, preferably overnight (easier to work with next day).

If rolling the dough,  remove from the fridge and work on a floured, cool surface.  Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick, cut in the shape you want, and bake.  If using a mold, pull small amounts of dough, press into the slightly floured mold, and delicately remove it, placing the cookie with the design up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Bake the cookies in a 350F oven until golden brown.

ENJOY!

to print the recipe, click here

Comments:  I will not lie to you.  Working with these molds requires patience. I can see that with a lot of practice, it could be a soothing, relaxing activity. Not much Zen was happening in our kitchen, though.  Gary recommended  this book  to speed the learning process, and I have it on my wish list at amazon.com.   All reviews are stellar.   But, if you don’t have a mold, don’t let it prevent you from making speculaas.  They may become your favorite type of cookie, perfect for this time of the year, when we all need the warmth of cinnamon, the nice heat of cloves and nutmeg, the sweetness of sugar and molasses.

Note added after publishing:  for a great take on speculas, jump here to see Celia’s version, that includes thinly sliced almonds. From what I’ve been reading, that type of recipe is common in Belgium.  Check it out!

ONE YEAR AGO: The Unbearable Lightness of Baking

TWO YEARS AGO: Pain a l’Ancienne