Milk & Cookies

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!

I can has cheezburger?

I really owe this recipe to my soccer teammate Corby.  He made little cheeseburger cookies like this for one of our soccer bbq’s a couple of years ago, and I have never forgotten them.  Don’t they just look amazing?  Anyways, in tribute to the usual culinary treats associated with the 4th o’ July, this week’s treat is fresh off of the grill.

These cookies are great for a few reasons.  First, did I mention that they look amazing?  Second, they require no cooking. Third, they taste surprisingly good for a cookie mash-up.  So go make some already!

INGREDIENTS (makes 20 burgerz)

• 40 Nilla Wafers
• 20 Grasshoppers (or thin mints)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup coconut flakes
• 1 tblspn sesame seeds
• 1/4 cup vanilla frosting
• Red, Yellow, Green food coloring

DIRECTIONS

Start off by setting up your buns (aka the nilla wafers). Put half of them face up and half of them face down in two separate areas. The face up ones will be the tops. Bust open the egg and keep just the whites in a bowl. Using a small brush (or a papertowel all folded up if you don’t have one), coat the tops of the top buns with the egg whites. This will make them temporarily sticky. Before they have a chance to dry, sprinkle the sesame seeds on top, and press them down to set them. Set these buns aside to dry.

Now take your coconut flakes and shake them around in a baggie with a couple drops of green food coloring. The goal is for them to look like little shredded lettuce. Set these aside for now also.

In another bowl mix your vanilla frosting with a few drops of red food coloring and about 4X as many drops of yellow. Feel free to tweak the color to your desired cheese coloring. This frosting will act as both cheese on the burger, as well as the glue that holds the various pieces together. Once this is mixed up, grab your first grasshopper and put a dab of frosting on the bottom. The goal is to put enough to hold the bottom bun on, but not enough that the frosting visibly squirts out the sides. Press the grasshopper onto the bottom bun. Now add a much thicker layer of frosting on top of the grasshopper. This will be the cheese and it should be enough to be visible once the top bun is put on. Sprinkle some of the green coconut onto the cheese. Lastly, before you put the top bun on, add another small glue dollop onto the bottom of the top bun and press it into place. Repeat this assembly line for all of your cheezburgers.

Where is the cow this week? Who eats cheeseburgers with a glass of milk?

cocococococonut

Last minute coconut cookies is a much better post title this week. Zoe decided Wednesday afternoon that she wanted me to do the cookies for her this week. Such is the life of an overworked grad-student. This week’s cookie is in honor of my sister, who just got hired on as the executive director of the new mexico wine growers association. Congrats Olive!

Ingredients

• 1-1/2 cup flaked coconut
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1-1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tspn baking soda
• 1/2 tspn vanilla
• 1/4 tspn salt

Directions

Before you get started mixing ingredients do the following:
Soften the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds.

Ok, to make the dough start by combining the butter, sugar, and eggs in the mixer. Blend them up until they are nice and fluffy. Now add in the flour, baking soda, salt, and vanilla. Finally, add in coconut flakes and mix them in well. Set the dough in the fridge for a while and take a break. You earned it!

Get the oven preheated to 375°F, and prepare some baking sheets with parchment paper. Start plopping down teaspoon sized balls of dough about 2″ apart on your sheet. I was managing 24 cookies per batch. Let them bake for 8-10 minutes. This week I actually followed my own advice from last week and I melted a little bit of chocolate chips down in the microwave to drizzle on top of the cookies. Unfortunately, I did it with 100% cocoa chips thinking that it would be rich and dark and delicious. Instead I managed to turn one tray of cookies bitter. Oh well, I learned my lesson well. Use 70% cocoa or less unless it is being mixed in with something sweet. I still plan on eating those chocolate covered cookies though.

Stay tuned for a future post about making home-made samoa’s. You know, those delicious coconut, caramel, chocolate girlscout cookies.

First batch, ready to go!

This week, once again there were issues with the cookie poll. I even got rid of the old version and installed a newer *better* plug-in, but now it appears that most people can not vote at all, and are just stuck indefinitely with a loading graphic. I’m sorry. At this point I am not sure what to do, because I have tried many different approaches to fixing this issue, and I am just about out of ideas. Perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be.

This week’s cookies come from a couple different sources. It is really a mash-up recipe combining a handful of different recipes from all over the internet. The directions below will be for a single batch (about 30 cookies), even though I made a double batch (which was a large mistake on my part).

Ingredients

• 8 oz (1 pkg) cream cheese
• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 egg
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tspn baking soda

Directions

I think these cookies are probably very easy to make. I managed to make it very hard on myself by doing a double recipe when my mixing bowl and electric mixer were just not big enough to handle the task. In the end I did a lot of mixing by hand, but I think that can be avoided by not being an idiot. Here are some more tips to make these cookies much easier:

1. Soften the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds before mixing it in.
2. Soften the cream cheese by letting it sit out for an hour or so before making the cookies.

Ok, to make the dough start by combining the butter, sugar, and eggs in the mixer. Blend them up until they are nice and fluffy. You can optionally add the cream cheese into the mixer now, but I chose not to for reasons I will point out later. Now, melt down 1/2 of the chocolate chips in either a double boiler, or by microwaving them in a plastic bowl for 30 seconds at a time and stirring until they are fully melted. Mix this melted chocolate into the dough. Now add in the flour, baking soda, and remaining chocolate chips. At this point the dough should be pretty thick and gooey. Now add in the cream cheese and mix it sparingly. The goal here is to try to obtain a marbled look, where the cream cheese leaves streaks in the cookie. Now stick the dough in the fridge for a bit to let it thicken up (this will make the cookies softer in the end).

Get the oven preheated to 375°F, and prepare some baking sheets with parchment paper. Start plopping down tablespoon sized balls of dough about 2″ apart on your sheet. I was managing 12 cookies per batch. Let them bake for 8-10 minutes. As usual, let them cool off for a bit before moving them to a tupperware, serving tray, or your mouth (recommended). If you want some really fancy cookies, save a little bit of the melted chocolate until the end and drizzle it on top of the cookies.

Moo!