Milk & Cookies

Rocky Road? ... nope thats the cookie dough!

I keep running into recipes for “Dark Chocolate”, “Double Chocolate”, “Super Chocolatey”, even “Triple Chocolate” cookies. Well eat this one all you wannabee’s! These are QUADRUPLE chocolate cookies! “Ridiculous!” you say…
yes, ridiculously good!

This recipe is based on a couple of different recipes from the Food Network, America’s Test Kitchen, and AllRecipes.com. It is far enough from them that I will not link to them since this recipe is truly my own.

If you don’t like these cookies… you must be dead already. Go see a doctor immediately.

INGREDIENTS (makes ~3 dozen cookies)

• 16 ounces semisweet chocolate (chopped, chips, or morsels)
• 10 Tbls. (1-1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 2 tspn. baking powder
• 1/2 tspn. salt
• 4 large eggs
• 2 tspn. vanilla extract
• 6 oz. white chocolate chunks (or chips) (recommended improvement – 8 to10 oz. instead)
• 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate chips (60-70% cocoa)

DIRECTIONS

Start by (slowly) melting your semi-sweet chocolate in either the microwave or on a double boil on the stove.

In a large mixing bowl beat together the softened butter with the two types of sugar for about 1 minute.

Add the eggs and vanilla and beat for another 45 seconds or so.

Now pour in the melted chocolate and beat again until combined.

Now stir in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Do not over mix these ingredients, its ok if it isnt completely smooth.

Finally stir in the two types of chocolate chips / chunks. This recipe reflects the actual quantities that I used, and I would recommend adding more white chocolate since it seems to get lost in these cookies. Maybe use 8-10 oz. instead.

Now your dough is complete, you can either start making the cookies now, or refrigerate the dough for a while to let it stiffen up.

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a couple trays with parchment paper. Start placing tablespoon sized scoops onto the trays with a least an inch of clearance around the dough. Cook each tray for 13-15 min. Let each tray cool for a few minutes before moving the cookies to a cooling rack or tupperware container or (best of all) your mouth.

Super ultra secret guest COOKiE blog!

I had promised to bring these into work when Zoe first started gracing us with her and Jason’s cookies…oops.  Yes, I am a procrastinator. lazy. You can make the dough way in advance and then slice them as you want them (which’ll probably be ASAP if you read a cookie blog, in which case it’s after ~8hrs. in the fridge). And they look pretty, which is why I wanted to make them in the first place.

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Pinwheels (Courtesty of Recipezaar)
Ingredients:
2 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup creamy peanut butter or chunky peanut butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For Filling:
1 (6 ounce) package semisweet chocolate morsels
1 teaspoon butter

Directions:
1. Sift flour with soda and salt.
2. Set aside.
3. Beat butter until fluffy.
4. Beat in sugar.
5. Beat in peanut butter, egg, and vanilla.
6. At low speed, add half flour mixture.
7. Mix in the rest by hand to form a stiff dough.
8. Refrigerate 30 minutes.
9. Meanwhile, make the filling by melting the chocolate and butter.
10. Cool.
11. Divide dough in half.
12. Roll each half into a 8×10 inch rectangle on a lightly floured surface. between two pieces of plastic wrap.  In the future, I would use two pans to flatten so that it’s more even. (Mine was fatter in the middle because I suck at rolling.)
13. Spread each with half the filling.
14. From the long side, roll each rectangle tightly like a jelly roll.
15. Gently press edge to seal.
16. Wrap separately, seam side down, in saran wrap or foil.
17. Refrigerate until firm, about 8 hours or overnight before slicing and baking.
18. (They will keep in the fridge for a little over a week.) Preheat oven to 375, and place 1/2 inch slices 1 1/2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.  Warning: slicing these cookies may be tricky because the chocolate filling will likely be solid.
19. Bake 6-8 minutes or until lightly browned.
20. Let cool for a few minutes on sheet, then cool on wire rack.
21. Makes 40 cookies all together.

So, I had forgotten that these had to chill overnight…luckily, they bake super fast in the oven (6-7 minutes was plenty, and I still burned a bunch of ‘em). Slicing through the chocolate filling after a night’s hardening was tough, so I might add a bit more butter in the future. The PB cookie part of the swirls was the softest, chewiest PB cookie I’ve ever made. And it’s probably one of few cookies that was actually better fully cooled than straight out of the oven.  Work loved them, and I enjoyed them enough that I’ll probably make them again…although maybe somehow both add more chocolate and yet make it easier to cut through.

first four

In the past couple weeks I’ve talked to two different friends who both claim that the best cookies they’ve ever had were no bake cookies. The idea of no bake cookies was sounding really good to me because (a) the most fun part of cookie making is the stirring and all that, not the baking and (b) the heat from the oven plus summer heat plus lack of air conditioning can add up to some seriously unpleasant heat trapped in our upstairs bedroom on cookie nights.

But alas… despite my super advanced planning by asking for the recipes at least 12 hours before I needed them neither of these supposed best cookie recipes have materialized. Anyways, I looked around online and apparently there is a very popular no bake cookie recipe which sounds a lot like the one my friend Alex was talking about. So I will try it out and she can tell me if it looks right or not.

first four at a boil

Recipe:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 3 cups dry quick set oats

Here’s the thing about no bake cookies. Instead of baking them, you cook them on the stove. I thought this was cheating a little because cooking and baking are very similar. But I guess until I can find a way to get cocoa powder, sugar, milk, and butter to turn into chocolate without heating it up (blender?), I’m stuck with cooking.

check out the new camera

So you put the first 4 ingredients in a large pot and bring them to a boil. Boil for 1 minute, not more! Then remove from heat and mix in the next 3 ingredients. I decided to add the vanilla and peanut butter first because that seemed to make the most sense. But maybe it doesn’t matter. The peanut butter and vanilla mix in pretty easily.

Then you just spoon the batter onto parchment paper and let it cool and harden. Even when it’s cool, it’s not 100% hardened, it’s a little mushy. Oh well.

Personally, I like these cookies but I think they’re a little too sweet. Maybe next time I will cut down the sugar to 1 1/2 cups or so.

P.S. There are many copies of this recipe on the internet, but one of them claims that these cookies are healthy. Apparently the oats and peanut butter give this cookie a low glycemic index. Just tell yourself that while you’re eating them.

Cookie Action Shot!

Today is a special day. It marks one of the most frightening and fulfilling days in my life. A day that I will cherish forever, as a moment when I felt completely full of love and completely loved in return. I am talking of course of my wedding day three years ago. Thank you, Zoe, for making me as happy today, as I was when you first entered my life some 8 years ago.

As a special treat for Zoe, this weeks cookies feature an ingredient that I usually shun from being in my cookies. I am talking about nuts. But as all things should be, I compromised, by making sure that the cookies selected this week are also full of rich dark chocolate so that I will also be unable to resist them! I guess this weeks cookies are a match made in heaven.

INGREDIENTS (makes 35-40 cookies)

• 8 oz. bittersweet chocolate, 60%-72% cocoa (chopped)
• 4 Tblsn. butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tspn. espresso powder
• 1 tspn. vanilla extract
• 1 cup flour
• 1/4 tspn. baking powder
• 1/4 tspn. salt
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 3/4 cup golden raisins

DIRECTIONS

These cookies are very straight forward to make, just like any chocolate cookies. Start off by setting up a double boiler to melt the bittersweet chocolate and the butter together. Be sure to keep the temperature low so not to burn the chocolate. Mix these two together until evenly melted and creamy.

In a separate bowl combine the sugar and eggs. Beat them together until smooth and a bit frothy. Now add the melted chocolate and butter mixture and mix it in. Finally, stir in all of the remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate the dough if you like, to make the cookies a bit softer and chewier, as well as easier to scoop.

Preheat the oven to 325°F and line a couple trays with parchment paper.  Start placing tablespoon sized scoops onto the trays with a least an inch of clearance around the dough.   These cookies will spread a bit, but not as much as many other cookies.  Cook each tray for 11-13 minutes until the tops just start to crack like brownies.

Even the force can’t help you from loving these cookies!