Milk & Cookies

In addition to the Saltine bark I made yesterday, Jason made some chocolate golden raisin walnut cookies. (Somebody didn’t believe that dessert with Saltines in it would taste good!) We had a little contest today to see which our friends liked better. Saltine bark won, but it was close! Here’s a nice outdoor picture of the golden raisin walnut cookies.

Delicious flaky exterior

Camouflage

Congratulations to my dear sister Lucy, who graduated from college this May! I had this Saltine bark at her graduation party and decided I had to try making it myself. So she gave me the recipe and it’s delicious!

Ingredients list:

• About 1 (maybe a little more) sleeve of Saltine crackers
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 11 oz. package of semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 to 1 cup of walnuts (I substituted hazelnuts)

A Saltine platoon

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Cover a cookie sheet with foil. Line up the saltine crackers on the sheet to completely cover it. It should take 1 sleeve of crackers or a little more.
• Mix the brown sugar and butter and boil/heat it for about 3 minutes (microwave or stovetop).
• Pour mix over saltines.
• Bake 7 minutes.
• Remove tray from oven and cover with chocolate chips. Wait for them to melt and then spread the chocolate evenly over the crackers. Sprinkle the nuts on top.
• Put in freezer to cool.

Yummy

Basically, this is a layer of saltines, a layer of caramelized sugar/butter, a layer of chocolate and a layer of nuts. Hard to go wrong with that! The only problem I had is my caramel layer is a bit too chewy. I’m not sure how I could have fixed that – maybe bake it less time? Anyways, I think it’s worth it. Picking caramel out of your teeth is a small price to pay for something this delicious.

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.