Milk & Cookies

I made cookies for my qual committee. I knew it wouldn’t affect their decision, but I thought maybe it would put them in a better mood so they would be nice to me! (They were). I offered them the cookies and one of my committee members said, “Ooh, cookies. Are we allowed to eat them or is there some rule against that?” (I think there might be).

My advisor said, “Oh, it’s fine, Zoe makes cookies for us all the time.” (It’s true). Sweet, my advisor’s got my back.

These cookies are called “World Peace Cookies”, aka, if everyone ate them we could finally have world peace. Perfect for a blustery Wednesday afternoon qual exam.

Here’s where I found the recipe: http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/01/in-which-world-peace-eludes-me/

Mix the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together with a fork (or sift it… okay, you’re supposed to sift it but I didn’t.)

Using your stand mixer, beat the butter until it’s nicely creamy. Add the sugars, salt, and vanilla extract and beat for 2 more minutes.

Pour in the dry ingredients and mix just until the flour disappears into the dough.

Add the chocolate chunks and mix a little more.

Work the dough into two logs, each 1 1/2″ in diameter. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or overnight.

It was tough to get a good photo of the logs before slicing.

…Wait 3 hours. I used this time to make another batch of cookies – regular chocolate chip cookies – in case these didn’t work out. Wouldn’t want my committee members eating gross cookies! Baking also distracted me from my exam…

Slice the logs into 1/2″ thick slices. The recipe is very detailed and notes that your cookies might crumble a bit during this step. Mine did, but it was okay.

A lucky uncrumbled cookie.

Bake on a cookie sheet for 12 minutes at 325 degrees F. Again, the recipe was detailed here and absolutely correct. It says your cookies will not look or feel done at this point, and mine didn’t. Take them out anyway! Basically, they are very limp at this stage but as they cool down they will harden. There are no eggs in this recipe so underbaking isn’t really an issue.

Once they cool, you can test them! I have to say, mine did not look like the pictures on the internet say they’re supposed to look. But they tasted great. It seemed like mine expanded/melted more and also developed some holes in them, like they had bubbled during baking. Maybe my oven was too hot? We don’t have an oven thermometer but I have always estimated that my oven runs 25 degrees hot and adjust accordingly. I use this correction because it seems to lead to the right bake time for most recipes. These cookies seem extra sensitive to temperature so maybe my oven is off by more than that. Or maybe it’s because I didn’t sift… I should probably sift.

Funny looking cookies.

Well, this was almost 3 months ago but just writing out this post is making me hungry! Maybe I should bake some more cookies today… In fact, I’m inspired to make a second attempt at these to get them to look right.

It’s been a while! Well, here’s the thing. Making cookies every week was getting to be a bit much. First of all, Jason’s coworkers were very enthusiastic cookie fans, but he’s working from home now so there’s less of an audience. And second of all, Zoe started eating all the cookies that Jason’s coworkers used to eat, and has gained 5 pounds. Jason hasn’t had this problem for some reason.

I still have one recipe from March that has gone unposted. And I have a few more ideas of cookies that I want to try. So there should be more posts soon, but not weekly.

In the meantime, feast your eyes on this!

Maya licking her lips in anticipation

I did end up making those brownies I mentioned after I finally picked up some eggs. I made them from scratch, using Baker’s chocolate (100% cacao). This is the way we made brownies when I was a kid, and I always was kind of a snob about it! I didn’t like brownies from a mix as they were usually too cakey. Now, I have to say… the mixes are getting pretty good. Everyone who used mixes thought I was crazy for making brownies from scratch instead of the easy way. Actually, making them from scratch is incredibly easy but you don’t have to tell people that…

I just followed the recipe on the Baker’s chocolate box (“One Bowl Brownies”):

• 4 squares Baker’s unsweetened chocolate
• 3/4 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt chocolate and butter – the recipe says to microwave it and that’s what I always did as a kid, but our only large microwaveable bowl is currently full of cat food. So I used a double boiler instead which is just as easy. Then stir in sugar. Then eggs and vanilla. And finally the flour.

Grease a 13″x9″ pan. If you’re smart, line it with aluminum foil so you don’t have to wash the pan! Even so, you have to grease the foil. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake 30-35 minutes.

These came out pretty good, nice and fudgy, but I think I have been spoiled by great chocolate. I actually think the brownies from the Ghirardelli mix may be better than these from scratch! Heresy! I think it just comes down to the quality of the chocolate. All 100% cacao is not created equal…

Hey guys, I know it’s been a while since I posted anything. Well, I’m back from the twilight zone and should have time to post my most recent escapades soon. And by twilight zone I mean quals-studying-and-trying-not-to-freak-out zone. That’s right, they are over, after a very noneventful 1.5 hours. (And I think that’s a good thing)

Okay, I have been really craving sweets so I bought some baking chocolate and was going to make brownies this weekend. But we ran out of eggs! D’oh! Instead, I remembered that we had some leftover gingerbread dough in the freezer from Christmas AND still had that fresh ginger from the past two cookie recipes. Ginger lasts for a really long time in the fridge. So I decided to make the gingerbread cookies, adding some fresh ginger and some extra spices for more flavor.

I was also excited that I baked these during the day so there was some natural light for the photography. I discovered a secret of some of the food blogs out there – they use special, expensive flashes instead of the one that comes on their camera. I always wondered about that… most people cook at night but the cooking blogs have these beautiful pictures that look like they are naturally lit. Anyways, this blog let me in on the secret. For now I am stuck with natural light (and not much of it) or the regular flash.

Chopped ginger

First, I defrosted the dough and let it come to almost room temperature so it was roll-able. Meanwhile I chopped the ginger, watched some winter olympics (biathlon!), took a shower, and took some pictures of my cats. Some of these steps are optional – use your judgement.

Maya, the photogenic one

Once the dough was  ready, I rolled it out a little and carefully measured a pinch of nutmeg, a pinch of cloves, and 2 pinches of cinnamon onto the dough. Then I added the fresh ginger and kneaded it all together a few times.

That looks about right

Then I rolled out the dough and cut out some shapes. I made some hearts, a dog, 2 cats, a flower, a moon, the state of California… then by the end I got tired of the shapes and made Colorado, Wyoming, and some coastal states that might have existed had we drawn the lines differently. One of them looks like Kentucky but that was an accident. Then instead of frosting I pressed each one into a pile of sugar and baked them for 7 minutes at 350 F.

There's Wyoming in the middle, and part of Kentucky in the bottom left

Then I ate them and ruined my dinner.