Blondies are supposedly the non-chocolate alternative to brownies, but let’s face it: they’re basically a chocolate chip cookie in bar form, and you get to cut them into bars without having to portion individual balls of cookie dough. I’ve been using a lightly adapted version […]
When I moved to California, I brought 37 boxes with me, including my collection of pint containers. Yes, pint containers, not pint glasses, procured from an online restaurant supply store. What can I say? I love ice cream, like a proper New Englander, and the […]
When I was in college, I used to open my door during final exams and find a box of cookies underfoot. This meant that Jessica had been hard at work, somehow baking off hundreds of cookies in between studying for and taking exams. For the record, getting a surprise box of cookies delivered to your door is kind of like getting asked to prom, or winning the lottery – I never knew why I made the list, or what made me a good enough friend to deserve cookies. I was just happy to find them – there’s nothing quite like starting your day with cookies that someone else made for you. Jessica’s cookies were all handed down from her German grandmother, and were so good that I would begrudgingly share them with my family, lest they miss out on truly excellent cookies. This brings me to the truism of cookies: they’re meant for sharing. (more…)
I am invariably disappointed by brownies from the store, be they artisanal or made from a box (the sole exception being the gluten-free King Arthur brownie mix). As you know, I already have a favorite brownie recipe, which is more akin to brownie-flavored fudge […]
Having mentioned my favorite chocolate wafer recipe, I figured that I should also put it up! Of all of the chocolate-and-fruit pairings, I love chocolate and lemon the best – the richness of the chocolate pairs well with the acidity and floral flavor of the […]
I’ve seen a lot of recipes for oreos over the past year or so, as it has become increasingly trendy to make classic American treats at home (twinkies, hostess cupcakes, oreos, ketchup, etc). I usually pass them by, thinking that while homemade hostess cupcakes are great, nothing could be better than storebought, mass-produced Oreos. There’s something about the balance that storebought Oreos achieve that remains elusive in so many homemade recipes, and from the recipe below, I think it comes down to texture and salt. The recipe in this post comes as close as possible to replicating the salty cookie, sweet filling balance, and the chocolate cookie has a sandy texture that is similar to that of storebought Oreos. This being a recipe developed by Thomas Keller, I found in my tests that there was no need to fiddle with its proportions. I have, however, rewritten the instructions in a lot more detail, to provide more guidance on how the dough behaves. You can make these cookies with a hand mixer or stand mixer, but it is much, much easier in a food processor. Making them with a hand mixer will take you about 20 minutes of mixing to get the dough to wet crumbs, at which point it can be mooshed into a disk of dough.
When I included these cookies in this year’s xmas cookie boxes, I was looking for a dark chocolate wafer. Typically I would use my go-to Alice Medrich chocolate wafer recipe that I use for icebox cakes, but I wanted something here that looked a bit fancier, so I used just the cookie part of the TKO recipe, without the filling. I had scads of leftover cookies, so I decided to test the filling – my first impression was that the white chocolate ganache would overwhelm the chocolate cookie. I also didn’t know how much moisture the cookie would absorb from the ganache, and I generally pick cookies for the boxes that I know will go stale very slowly. I can now happily tell you – and I believe my co-workers would agree – that the filling is definitely a good idea, and that the cookies more than stand up to it for at least a week. Further than a week, I don’t know, because the cookies were long gone by then. The cookies do absorb a little bit of moisture from the filling – just enough so that the cookie sticks together and doesn’t fall apart when you bite into it – but they remain crisp overall. (more…)
I have an ice cream machine; summer is the peak season for ice cream – these are two known facts. I bought the machine in the summer of 2011, fully knowing that it would spend the summer in storage, while I camped out in a […]
ok, nothing fancy here – just wanted to share a few recipes with you. the first is a chocolate cake, like the one i use for everything (the stout cake), but for when you don’t have beer on hand. it’s much the same in consistency, […]
those of you who know me well, know that i am not the biggest fan of nuts. i hate the way they get stuck in your teeth: not only little bits of the meat of the nut, but also flakes of skin that stick to your teeth. then you’re struggling not to look weird while trying to get stuff off your teeth, because you’re ocd and you can’t stand when there’s stuff on your teeth. suffice it to say that i do not have the best relationship with nuts.
suffice it to say that these cookies are one of the few items for which i will bear nut skins stuck to my teeth. these are deeply chocolaty from the unsweetened chocolate, with a slightly “wet” crunch from the toasted nuts (do not skip the toasting step!!!). they stay soft but are best the first two days after you make them – although magically, the nuts retain their crunch. make these: you won’t regret it! then give most of them away so you don’t eat them for breakfast and inadvertently kill your heart. (more…)
this post is really about homemade samoas, a recipe that i noticed popping up on the blogs a few weeks ago. but first (first?!), a digression about that label on so many blog recipes: “recipe adapted from.” for the samoas, i used graham crackers as […]