Coconut Cardamom Macarons

It’s the 15th of the month, that means it’s time for this month’s Baking Partners Challenge. The theme for this month is Macarons.

I know you guys, I gave up sugar for Lent but luckily for me I whipped these up a few weekends ago when I was still indulging in the white stuff.

I think I’ve only eaten macarons twice in my life and neither time was I all that impressed, so naturally I wasn’t excited for this challenge; I’d rather be eating macaroons instead (mmm… macaroons). But in a way I was excited because otherwise I probably would have gone my whole life without making macarons and that would have been a damn shame.

They were enjoyable, delicate, and eating them felt really indulgent though that last part may be because making them myself allowed me to fully appreciate all the effort that went into making these fickle little sandwich cookies.

I did a bit of research on macaron making before diving into it since I’ve heard they can be a bitch to make. I read blogs and books and magazines and watched the Sandwich Cookie Episode of Bake with Anna Olson more times than I care to mention.

Finally I was ready to start.

What is a Macaron?

Basically it’s a fancy sandwich cookie. The cookie part is made from almond meal, sugar, and well beaten egg whites to make a sweet biscuit that’s crisp on the outside but chewy on the inside. They’re so delicate that they pretty much have to be sandwiched together to hold up.

The filling is usually a jam or curd or ganache but I went with a buttercream which was really rich and very sweet (too sweet for some, but not for my sugar loving family).

The recipe I used was Martha Stewart’s recipe for French Macarons not to be confused with her recipe for Parisian Macarons which is somehow different in ways I fail to understand. (Are Parisians not French, Martha?)

The Filling

Now of course a macaron is nothing without its filling and Martha has a number of recommendations that are just as complicated (if not more so) than the macarons themselves.

I liked the sound of Martha’s coconut filling because it is a Swiss meringue buttercream filling with coconut flakes stirred in . . . and I myself am equal parts buttercream and coconut fanatic.

I’ve never made Swiss meringue buttercream before since it involves complicated things, like double broilers and candy thermometers, of which I like to steer clear. So before starting I consulted my sister, the buttercream guru. (Legend has it she once made 18 different buttercream variations to find the perfect recipe.) She confirmed that Swiss meringue is a bit time consuming but figured I could manage it without experience. And manage it I did.

The Swiss meringue buttercream took a bit more attention than other frostings, but it had a nice smooth consistency that’ll get me making it the next time I tackle a cake.

The Cookie

With a successful buttercream under my belt (Quite literally. I ate a lot of it by the spoon.) I moved on to tackle the main event – the cookies. Making them wasn’t as complicated as I thought. I followed the recipe exactly, using a few extra tips that I learned along the way and I got good results.

The only issues I had were:

1) Piping perfect circles took a bit of practice and I was practically out of batter by the time I got the hang of it.

2) It was difficult to get the baking time right. I wish that I would have baked them maybe one minute longer because many of them were too soft and stuck to the parchment when I tried to pry them off.

The Result

Immediately after I made a batch, I wanted to make another. I wanted to get them perfectly right (ie. perfectly round and baked slightly longer) and I wanted to try adding a different flavour to the cookie and I wanted to experiment with different fillings. I liked the buttercream a lot, but if you’re not a fan of super sweet things , then try a ganache or a citrus curd filling instead.

Obviously I’m going to be making these again. . . in 40 days.

Tips and Techniques

Here are a few posts I found useful when it came to making my macarons.

Macaron Troubleshooting

Top 10 Macaron Myths

Sandwich Cookie Episode of Bake with Anna Olson

Nick Malgieri takes on Macarons: The Preliminaries, The Shells, The Filling

The Recipe

Coconut Cardamom Macarons

From Martha Stewart

Ingredients

For the Filling:

1 egg white
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut

For The Macarons:

1 cup confectioners’ sugar
3/4 cup almond flour (aka ground almonds)
Pinch of freshly ground black cardamom seeds
2 large egg whites, room temperature
Pinch of cream of tartar
1/4 cup sugar

Directions

For the Filling:

Place egg white and sugar in a heatproof mixer bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk until sugar dissolves and mixture registers 160 degrees on a candy thermometer. Remove from heat, and whisk on high speed until mixture is cool and stiff peaks form, about 6 minutes.

Leave meringue in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, on low speed, mixing after each addition. Beat until smooth, about 3 minutes. Stir in the coconut.

For the Macarons:

Preheat the oven to 375F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Pulse the cardamom, confectioners’ sugar, and almond flour in a food processor until combined. Sift the mixture 2 times (don’t skip this step, sometimes there are big chunks of almond in the almond flour and you don’t want those).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk whites with a mixer on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar, and whisk until soft peaks form. Reduce speed to low, then add the sugar. Increase speed to high, and whisk until stiff peaks form, about 8 minutes. Sift flour mixture over whites, and fold until mixture is smooth and shiny.

Transfer batter to a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain round tip, and pipe 3/4-inch rounds 1 inch apart on the baking sheets, dragging pastry tip to the side of rounds rather than forming peaks.

Tap bottom the of each backing sheet on work surface to release trapped air. Let the cookies stand at room temperature for 15 minutes to 30 minutes prior to baking so that a sheen forms on the cookie and you can touch it with your finger without the batter sticking.

Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees. Bake 1 sheet at a time, rotating halfway through, until macarons are crisp and firm, about 8-10 minutes. After each batch, increase oven temperature to 375 degrees, heat for 5 minutes, then reduce to 325 degrees.

Let macarons cool on sheets for 2 to 3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. (If macarons stick, spray water underneath parchment on hot sheet. The steam will help release macarons.)

Sandwich 2 same-size macarons with 1 teaspoon filling. Serve immediately, or stack between layers of parchment, wrap in plastic, and freeze for up to 3 months.

Bran Flakes Cookies

Okay, I’m a little bit late to the Baking Partners challenge this month. It was supposed to be posted on Saturday. Woops.

I got caught up doing really important things this weekend like drinking enough wine to get me dancing to a live Bon Jovi cover band, sipping Starbucks as I waited in Canadian Tire for some terrible news about the state of my car’s suspension system, and (sort of, but not really) watching football. You know, important stuff.

Anyway, this month’s theme was cookies. There were three cookie recipes to choose from, or you could make all three. Given that I’m trying to whittle my middle I opted to only make one type, and I opted to try to healthify it.

The recipe in question is for Cornflake Cookies, supposedly (based on my comrades results) it is a crunchy cookie filled with coconut and raisins and crusted with crushed cornflakes. I made a few swaps to the recipe and I got an entirely different result. I think.

Substitution 1: Coconut

First off, the recipe calls for dessicated coconut. Earlier in the week I had cracked open a fresh coconut, shaved the insides into flakes with a vegetable peeler and toasted under the broiler. I figured it would be a shame to use store bought shredded coconut in these cookies, so I used these flakes instead.

Tip: Stick with shredded coconut, but toast it.

The toasted flavour was amazing in the cookies, but the large flakes didn’t really combine well into the dough. Next time around, I’ll used shredded coconut but I will toast it first to bring out the nutty flavour.

Substitution 2: Sugar

In sticking with the coconut theme, I decided to substitute coconut sugar for granulated. This was among my free swag from Swanson and I wanted to give it a try in baking.

I thought this made a decent sub for regular sugar. It had a nutty taste and though it didn’t cream together with the butter as well as white sugar does, it didn’t affect the texture of the cookie, which is something I worry about when I sub different sweeteners during baking.

Coconut Sugar

Butter Creamed with Coconut Sugar

Substitution 3: Raisins

This recipe only called for 2 tablespoons of raisins. I found this volume to be absurdly low so I amped it up a bit, to 1/4 cup. Still not enough. In the end I was lucky if I found a raisin in the cookie at all. I would definitely ramp up the raisin count next time.

Tip: Add 1/2 – 3/4 c raisins to the cookies. Even that will be a modest amount.

Substitution 4: Flour

Since I’m trying to steer clear of white carbs I swapped all purpose flour for whole wheat. This also ups the protein and fibre content of the dough which makes the cookies chewy since protein and fibre bind to water.

Tip: The fibre in whole wheat flour makes it absorb moisture more easily than all purpose flour, this could make the cookie dough a bit drier. If the dough is too dry to work with, try adding a tablespoon of milk.

Substitution 4: Cereal

While we’re talking fibre, I figured I’d up the fibre content even more by swapping out regular corn flakes for bran flakes. Now that’s a high fibre cookie.

Rolling the cookie dough in crushed bran flakes

Ready for the oven

Results

I baked the cookie for only 12 minutes instead of the 15-20 recommended and it yielded a very nutty flavoured cookie that was chewy but had a crunchy exterior from the bran flakes. In the end I really liked it.

The only changes I would make would be to add a lot more raisins and to use the shredded coconut called for in the recipe.

Bran Flakes Cookies

adapted from Baking: Common Sense by Murdoch Books

Ingredients

125 grams softened butter
3/4 c (165grams) sugar coconut sugar
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 t vanilla extract
2 T 1/2 c raisins
1-1/2 c (135grams) toasted shredded coconut
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t baking powder
2 c (250grams) all purpose whole wheat flour
2 c crushed cornflakes bran flakes

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F, line two baking trays with baking paper.Sie ve the flour with baking soda and baking powder.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl,using electric beaters until they turns light and fluffy.

Gradually add the egg, beating thoroughly after each addition, add the vanilla and beat until combined.

Now add the raisins,coconut, give a stir. Fold the flour mixture with a metal spoon and stir until the mixture is almost smooth.

Put the crushed cornflakes in a shallow dish, then drop tablespoon of this cookie mixture onto the cornflakes and roll into balls.

Arrange on the trays, bake for 15-20minutes or until they turns golden.

Cool completely and arrange it in an air tightened box.

Check out some of the other Baking Partners post at the link up here.

Chewy Espresso Chocolate Cookie

I’ve been back to baking a lot of cookies again. It’s track & field meet season and Matt likes to bring cookies for his fellow coaches so it seems like I’m making a batch of cookies each week.

This week I made two.

I picked up a Food & Drink magazine from the LCBO and they had a recipe for Espresso Chocolate Cookies in it and I wanted to make they right away. They were loaded with chocolate chips, dried cranberries, pecans, and shredded coconut, and they had a fudgy chew to them which was an awesome texture.

Matt like them a lot too, even thought they had a strong coffee flavour and he’s not a fan of coffee, and he wanted to make some for the track coaches at the WECSSA meet. 4 of his throwers are going on to SWOSSA next week– Go Team!

This version of the cookie is a bit different. I didn’t have any more baking chocolate for the cookie base so instead I used more butter and I mixed cocoa with the flour. Also, I left out the cranberries and swapped the pecans for walnuts and basically made these cookies more friendly on the wallet.

They turned out quite good actually! Matt preferred them to the original batch I made. They were very chewy with a strong espresso flavour and lots of chocolate chips.

Good thing I was paying attention, because I’m going to want to make this recipe again, and probably soon.

Chewy Espresso Chocolate Cookie

(makes 20-24)

Ingredients

½ lb salted butter at room temperature
¾ c sugar
¾ c brown sugar
½ t baking soda
½ t baking powder
1 ¾ c AP flour
¾ c Dutch process cocoa powder
1 T espresso
2 eggs
½ t vanilla
1 ½ c semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c chopped walnuts
½ c shredded coconut

Directions

Cream the butter in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment until it’s soft, white, and fluffy.

Beat in the sugars together with the butter on medium speed for about 2 minutes. Add in the vanilla, and eggs (one at a time),

In a separate bowl stir together the baking soda, baking powder, flour, and cocoa powder until well combined.

Scrape the sides of the bowl of the mixer, add in dry mixture a little bit at a time. Mix until incorporated then add the nuts, chocolate chips, and coconut just until mixed.

Scoop cookie dough and form into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet and flatten the balls slightly with your fingers.

Bake at 350*F for 10 minutes or until the top is just set (not shiny).

The cookies should still be very soft and look underbaked. Let them cool on a rack before eating.

Homemade Fig Newtons Recipe

It’s time for another Eating the Alphabet recipe link-up where each month we make a recipe featuring a fruit, vegetable, legume, or whole grain from a different set of letters of the alphabet.

So far I’ve done:

(A or B): Buttercup Squash and Artichoke Pasta
(C or D): Grenadian Oil Down with Cassava (Favourite)

This month is E and F so I decided on figs!

Figs are one of my favourite fruits. They’re amazing when they are fresh in the summer months because they have a great texture is both smooth (from the flesh) and crunchy (from the seeds) at the same time.

Dried figs are satisfying in their own right because of their intense sweetness (one of the main reasons that I love them).

Even the leaves from the fig plant used in cooking, often as a parcel for roasting meat or seafood. I’ve never tried this before but it sounds pretty intriguing.

Aside from their deliciousness, figs are a good source of potassium, a mineral that helps to control blood pressure, and one of the highest plant sources of both fibre and calcium.

There are several different varieties of figs, but the more common ones are Black Mission which have a deep purple skin and Calimyrna which have a green skin (and are my personal favourites).

Fig Newtons are one of my favourite cookies (or should I say, ‘fruit and cake’) so this recipe appealed to me. Since figs aren’t in season right now, I made this recipe with dried Calimyrna figs that I picked up at the grocery store. The result was delicious. Matt and I nearly ate the batch in 3 days. Nearly. The cookie part is more of a cookie than ‘cake’ like a traditional Fig Newton, but I quite liked it.

I will make this recipe again.

Information Sources: 1, 2

Homemade Fig Newtons

adapted from Scientifically Sweet and Our Italian Kitchen
makes 20

Dough:

1/2 c butter
1/2 c sugar
1 egg yolk
2 T milk
1/2 t orange blossom water
1-1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder

Jam:

1 package (8 oz) dried figs, chopped
1 1/2 c water
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 c brown sugar
juice of 1/2 lime

Cream together butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Add in the egg yolk and orange blossom water.
In a separate bowl stir the flour with the baking powder and add this dry mixture to the butter mixture a little at a time, mixing on low speed until the dough starts to come together.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm (about 2 hours).

Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, combine the jam ingredients over medium-high heat until bubbling. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 30 to 35 minutes, until it is thickened to a gel and very little liquid remains. Cool completely.

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 8”x8” baking dish.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out to a 8” x 16” rectangle, about 1/4” thick. Cut the dough in half (into two 8” squares) with a pastry cutter or pizza cutter.
Lift one square gently off the floured surface and place it into the baking dish. You want the dough to just cover the bottom of the dish so trim off any excess.
Spoon the filling on top and spread it over the dough evenly.
Place the second square of dough on top of the jam and again cut off any excess.

Bake for 22-25 minutes, rotating the baking dish halfway through, until golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool before cutting into squares with a sharp serrated knife.

Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies

So I found this recipe online for something called Carnival Cookies filled with popcorn and chocolate chips. I had made a pact with myself last month to stop baking so many goddamn cookies after overdosing on cookie dough in the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies bake-off.

And then I saw these gorgeous little creatures with the super-cute name that don’t call for any butter or sugar and I decided to give them a go.

I like them, but they’re not sweet enough or rich enough. Most of the sweetness comes from the banana and the chocolate chips. They’re not really cookies, ya know?  They don’t deserve the moniker and, no, I don’t think everything rolled into a golfball shape and baked should be called a cookie.

Matt came home and tasted one and immediately asked, “What are these?”

“Ummm… they’re like cookies, but they don’t have any sugar?” It was definitely a response in the form of a question.

And then he grabbed another—the one with the most chocolate chips because it tasted the best.

I ate two of these this morning for breakfast without feeling all that guilty, and they were surprising more filling than I expected. So I changed the name of them from carnival cookies to breakfast cookies so

1) I don’t fool myself into thinking I’m going to be eating a delicious dessert
2) I do fool myself into thinking it’s cool to eat some for breakfast

Plus, I changed a bunch of ingredients so I have some liberties with the recipe title.

Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies

adapted from Carnival Cookies

makes 20

Ingredients

2 really big ripe bananas, mashed (or 3 normal sized bananas)
1 t. vanilla extract
1/4 c. vegetable oil
2 T. all natural peanut butter
1/2 c. rolled oats
1 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. semolina flour
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. mixed spices (incl. ground pepper, clove, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom)
1/2 t. salt
1/3 c. chopped walnuts
3/4 c. chocolate chips
1 1/2 c. popped popcorn

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine the mashed bananas, vanilla, peanut butter, and oil. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flours, baking powder, salt, and spices. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix to combine.

Fold in the chocolate, nuts, and popped corn.

The dough may be looser than most cookies. Heap 1 tablespoon worth of cookie dough on to your palm and shape golfballs. Place about 1 inch apart on baking sheets. Bake for approximately 15-18 minutes until golden, rotating the baking sheet 180deg halfway through baking.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Cookie Party 2011

My husband thinks I’m too competitive. Which I am. It stems from the high standards for success and overachievement of my childhood, but let’s not get into that. Anyway, if I’m the competitive one I don’t understand why he always insists that our parties become contests or competitions. Wine tasting competition, chili cook-off, dessert bake-off, beer tasting competition, we’ve had them all.

“Can’t we just have a party that doesn’t involve competing?” I’ll ask every time we discuss our next party

“What do you have against competitions?” Matt will reply. And so it always goes.

Sometimes I win out. One time I convinced him to have a potluck. A normal one where people bring food and we all eat it and enjoy it rather than critiquing it for its flaws. That’s when my friend Kyle brought the Epic Mealtime Lasagna to “change the game” and I started to think that competitions are expected at the Menzies’.

I see where Matt’s coming from though. People get more invested in something when they think they could be a victor which makes the party that much more exciting. Instead of bringing a tray of leftover cookies to the party they spend a hundred bucks on fast food and 40 of Jack Daniels to make a lasagna that will blow people’s minds (seriously. that’s what was in the epic mealtime lasagna).

Of course given my own competitive nature, when we have these parties I toss the ‘gracious hostess’ act in favour of my natural ‘cut-throat contender’ persona because I want to win as much as the next guy. More, probably.

On the 23rd Matt and I hosted a Christmas Cookie party at our place for our friends. The rules were simple, everyone brings a cookie, guests vote on their top 5 favourites (with #1 favourite getting 5 points and #5 favourite getting 1 point) and the winner is determined by total number of points.

For our cookie competition I spent a lot of time trying to determine what kind of cookie would be worthy of the win. I make a lot of good cookies but it’s tough to determine what is going to appeal to everyone in a large group of people. I decided on 3 factors- Rich, Chocolatey, and Complicated- and wound up making Peppermint Patty Cookies- a chocolate sable, topped with peppermint fondant and dipped in semi-sweet chocolate- a recipe that was entirely my own creation.

Yummy. Irresistible.

Sounds pretty damn awesome, doesn’t it? Sounds like it would win, right?

Well the head gamemaker, my husband, decided on a last minute rule (once all the votes came in and my peppermint patty came out on top, mind you) that the host of the party couldn’t win.

Say what?!? Why did I even bother entering this goddamn thing then? I was unimpressed.

Can’t you just say that I won, but give the prize to second place? I asked Matt as he tallied up the vote count. I don’t care about prizes, all I care about is recognition.

Why are you so competitive? Can’t you just win humbly without announcing it to everyone?

Umm. . . actually, no.

It took everything I had not to be that asshole and shout out “Lies! Lies!!!!” while Matt read the name of the “winner” and didn’t even give me a fake second or third place.

The number 2 cookie was phenomenal and fully deserved to win that LCBO gift card (seriously Zack, please send me the recipe.) It was a peanut butter sandwich cookie half dipped in chocolate that was soft and sweet and peanut buttery and chocolatey and that everyone was a big fan of.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie. Delicious. But, ya know, not quite as delicious as mine.

But between you, me, and the Internets the secret is out that I make the best cookies (even if I only won by 3 points).

And now I can sleep better at night.

Kifle with Hazelnut Liqueur

How about some more Christmas Cookies, hmm?

It’s week 12 of the 12 weeks of Christmas cookies and I decided to go with a cookie that I found in my mom’s old recipe folder dated from December 2004.

I remember her coming home one day and talking about these delicious cookies called kifle that one of the other teachers brought in to school one day. (I can’t for the life of me remember whose recipe they were how typical of me to remember more about cookies than people.) I think they are an Eastern European Christmas cookie but I don’t quite know for sure. I do know that my mom raved about how fantastic they were and told us that she was going to make them as soon as she got the recipe from her friend.

I don’t know why I have such a vivid memory of her baking these cookies. Maybe because she hardly baked. Maybe because she talked up these cookies so much that I was more than excited to taste them. Maybe it was the way that she indulged in them and savoured them like each bite was worth a million dollars.

I might go out on a limb and say that these were her favourite cookies. But I can’t be sure. I never got the chance to ask her.

Kifle with Hazelnut Liqueur

The original recipe called for brandy or rye in the filling but I used Frangelico instead to play up the nuttiness of the cookie. Feel free to use brandy or rye if you so desire.

makes about 30

Dough

2 c flour
1/2 lb. butter
1 egg yolk
3/4 c full fat sour cream
icing sugar for finishing

Combine the flour and butter together in a mixer until fluffy. Add the egg yolk and sour cream and mix by hand until it comes together into a soft dough.

Divide dough into 3 parts, sprinkle each part with a bit of flour, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least one hour. Meanwhile, prepare the nut filling.

Nut Filling

1/2 c ground walnuts
1 egg white
1/2 c sugar
1 t vanilla
1 shot of hazelnut liqueur, such as Frangelico (or brandy or rye)

Stir the ingredients together in a small bowl until well combined. Set aside until ready to use.

Preheat the oven to 325F.

Assembly

On a well floured surface, roll out one third of the dough to about 4” wide and whatever length will give you a 1/8” thickness. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut the dough into isosceles triangles with a base of about 2”-2.5”. Re-roll any excess dough and repeat.

Just like this cool drawing:

Spread about 1 teaspoon of the nut filling onto each triangle and roll like a croissant.

Place on greased cookie sheet about an inch apart and bake 20?30 minutes or until a very light golden colour.

Roll in or dust generously with icing sugar.

This recipe is part of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies.

Prior Posts:

Week 11: Pumpkin Raisin Muffin Bars
Week 10: Momofuku Chocolate Chocolate Cookies
Week 9: Flaky Butter Tarts
Week 8: Lime Curd Sablés
Week 7: Thomas Keller Chocolate Chip Cookies
Week 6: Macaroons
Week 5: Wildberry Dream Cookies
Week 4: Speculaas: Dutch Spice Cookies
Week 3: Poppy Seed Filling
Week 2: Cinnamon Bun Cookies
Week 1: Soft & Pillowy Coconut Frosted Cookies

Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

Today’s 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies recipe comes from Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar. I’ve heard lots of good things about her recipes and how they’re really creative but work with the most blue-collar ingredients like her compost cookies, which I had been hoping to make, and crack pie.

I was really excited to bake these cookies but after having done it, to be honest, I don’t think I will make them again. They weren’t as amazing as I hoped. They were too big, too crisp, too chocolaty (if that’s even possible), and too salty.

Or maybe I will try making them again but change things up a bit like cutting back (way, way, waaaaay back) on the salt in the recipe and bake them for a little less time since mine came out crisp rather than chewy. I would also make them smaller; I’m not sure if that would affect their texture but their current size is unreasonably large and it only takes about a quarter of a cookie to be fully satisfied in the chocolate department.

One thing I did like about the cookies was the chocolate crumb. It’s a nice change in texture to have that extra toothsome crunch compared your standard chocolate chip cookie which has lacks that variance of texture. I’d like to try making chocolate chip cookies with this crumb instead of chocolate chips. The crumb recipe is a keeper.

Anyway, if you’re interested in trying them out for yourself, I won’t stop you. If you like a big, crisp, chocolatey cookie with a hefty salt content then these are for you.

Chocolate-Chocolate Cookies

Makes 10 to 15 cookies
From Christina Tosi via Bon Appetit

Ingredients

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup corn syrup
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 ounces 55% chocolate, melted
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cup dark cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1-3/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 recipe Chocolate Crumb (below)

Directions

Cream together butter, sugar, and corn syrup with a mixer on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, and melted chocolate, and beat for 7 to 8 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix on low speed until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute (do not overmix).

Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and add the chocolate crumbs and mix on low speed just until incorporated, about 30 seconds.

Using a 1/3-cup measuring cup, portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, 4” apart. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat. Wrap the sheet pan in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature–they will not bake properly.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Bake for 18 minutes. If after 18 minutes, the cookies still seem doughy in the center, give them another 1 minute in the oven, but not more.

Cool the cookies completely on the sheet pans before transferring to a plate or an airtight container for storage. At room temp, the cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.

Chocolate Crumb

Makes about 2 1/2 cups

Ingredients

2/3 cup flour
1 tsp cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
2/3 cup dark cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions

Heat the oven to 300F.

Combine the flour, cornstarch, sugar, cocoa powder, and salt in a bowl. Add the butter and stir until the mixture starts to come together in small clusters.

Spread the clusters on a parchment-lined sheet pan and bake for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The crumbs should still be slightly soft when taken out of the oven and they will crisp up as they cool. Let the crumbs cool completely before using in a recipe or eating. Stored in an airtight container, they will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or 1 month in the fridge or freezer.

Prior Posts:

Week 9: Flaky Butter Tarts
Week 8: Lime Curd Sablés
Week 7: Thomas Keller Chocolate Chip Cookies
Week 6: Macaroons
Week 5: Wildberry Dream Cookies
Week 4: Speculaas: Dutch Spice Cookies
Week 3: Poppy Seed Filling
Week 2: Cinnamon Bun Cookies
Week 1: Soft & Pillowy Coconut Frosted Cookies

Channelling the Inner Pastry Chef

Matt and I did something fun on our last date. After Korean food for dinner Matt asked what I wanted to do. I suggested baking cookies and watching Top Chef: Just Desserts.

Matt, of course, had to take things a step further. We couldn’t just bake cookies, that would be too boring. Too “plain vanilla”, if you will. So instead we had a mission: go to the grocery store, separate, pick one ingredient each, and rendezvous back at the cash registers with said ingredient.

I spent about 10 minutes perusing the aisles and came up with a few options:
1) Cinnamon Toast Crunch
2) Pie Filling
3) Cream Cheese
4) Egg Nog

I settled on the Cinnamon Toast Crunch because I haven’t had it in ages (by the by: cinnamon toast crunch cereal tasted way better when I was 11) and Matt came back with a chili chocolate bar that he ended up swapping out for peanut butter.

So on the car ride back home we talked out our game plan:

“What about a peanut butter cookie with cinnamon toast crunch pieces?”
”Or, a cookie made from cinnamon toast crunch crumbs sandwiched with peanut butter?”
”Oooh! How about a sandwich cookie?”
”I just said that”
”Right. Okay, how about a cookie bar?”
”Yes! Okay. With peanut butter filling. . .”
”And a shortbread crust. Topped with cinnamon toast crunch.”

So that’s what we made. We pulverized about 2 cups of the cereal in the food processor and combined it with some a cup of flour, a touch of sugar, and enough butter to just hold it together to make the crust, which we baked until golden.

Then came the filling which proved a bit trickier because I wasn’t getting the consistency I wanted. I boiled up heavy cream, sugar, butter, and peanut butter on the stove until it was really thick. I tested out the consistency by pouring a bit of the filling on a plate and putting it in the freezer to see if it would set when it cooled. Eventually, after adding some flour and boiling it down a little more, I got it where I wanted it to be.

We poured the filling over the cooled crust and topped with cinnamon toast crunch cereal and let it cool in the fridge while we watched Top Chef: Just Desserts online.

The resulting cookie bar came out a little bit too sweet for my taste buds (and I like sweet things). Also, it was a bit boring to look at: beige crust, beige filling, beige cereal topping.

So it didn’t end up being a winner, hence no real recipe, but it was fun to put together anyway. And half of them were gone after the boys came over to watch Sunday night football, so I guess they weren’t all bad!

Lime Curd Sablés

I have been finding it easy to forget that daylight savings time is over. The sun goes down at 5:00 in these parts and it is pitch black by 6. I forgot about this last night when I headed out on a 9 mile run at 4:20pm. I realized at mile 4 that it was getting dark a hell of a lot faster than I was able to run which meant that I would end up running in the dark on an unlit road with no shoulder. Not exactly my smartest moment (But at least I was wearing blue! Normally I wear black, like some sort of runner in mourning).

On the plus side, my desire to get home before nightfall got my motor running and I was able to crank out 9 miles in 1:22, (ie. 9 minute miles). I was stoked with my time and, to be honest, not all that tired when I finally got home. In the dark.

Other things I’m proud of: no sweets eaten today! Perhaps because my sweet tooth was satisfied by the sweet and delicious baked beans I made for dinner? I’ll write more on them later.

And speaking of sweets, I didn’t even eat any of these bad boys. . .

. . . because I actually made them a few weeks back.

These Lime Curd Sablés fall in the realm of “good” cookies, like the TK Chocolate Chip cookies of last week. The cookie itself was tasty: sweet, tart, and buttery. I found the lime curd to be slightly bitter, so I will probably cut back on the zest next time I make them, though when sandwiched between the cookies I didn’t taste much of that bitterness.

Also, I will double the recipe because it only made twelve cookies. Twelve! I mean, these aren’t simple drop cookies. It is hardly worth the effort of chilling, rolling, cutting, and filling required for just a dozen cookies that I can probably eat in one sitting.

When I piled the finished cookies onto a small salad plate, which they hardly even filled, I told Matt in despair, “this is all we have! we have to ration them!”, as if it were a zombie apocalypse and we were on our last supplies of food. Cookies are a big deal chez Menzies.

Lime Sablés

Makes 12 sandwich cookies
From Une Garmine dans la Cuisine

For the Lime Curd

1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons grated lime zest, plus 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (~3 limes)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Combine sugar, eggs, lime zest, and juice in a saucepan, and set over medium-low heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until mixture begins to thicken and holds the mark of the whisk, 10 to 12 minutes.

Remove pan from heat, and whisk in butter, a piece at a time, until well combined. Strain mixture through a sieve into a glass bowl. Lay plastic directly on surface to prevent a skin from forming. Chill 3 hours or overnight to set the curd.

For the Cookie

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons pure lime extract
Lime Curd

Place flour, confectioners’ sugar, granulated sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until well combined. Add butter, and pulse until coarse crumbs form. Add lime extract, and pulse just enough to mix.

Transfer the dough to a clean work surface, and flatten, forming a disk. Wrap the dough in plastic, and transfer to refrigerator; chill until very firm, at least 2 hours.

Heat the oven to 325F.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll out the dough to a 1/8-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Using a cookie cutter, cut the dough into circles. Place circles on the prepared baking sheet, spaced about 1 inch apart.

Bake until just golden, 15 to 17 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To assemble the sandwiches, place 1 teaspoon key lime curd on the underside of half of the cooled squares. Top the curd with the remaining squares to form little sandwiches. Refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes, and serve.

Prior Posts:

Week 7: Thomas Keller Chocolate Chip Cookies
Week 6: Macaroons
Week 5: Wildberry Dream Cookies
Week 4: Speculaas: Dutch Spice Cookies
Week 3: Poppy Seed Filling
Week 2: Cinnamon Bun Cookies
Week 1: Soft & Pillowy Coconut Frosted Cookies