TWD: Chocolate Madeleines

So, we got snow! A whopping 3 inches! Aside from the fact that it really messes up my marathon training routines and despite the fact that I HATE being cold... I actually really enjoy the snow. I love watching it fall, I love anticipating the actual amount that will fall (which I'm always disappointed in... wherever I live never ends up getting the amount suggested by the local weather news team), and I love seeing it pile up on the trees and the sidewalks.

And as of yesterday, I have a new favorite thing about snow... I love walking in it! Yesterday was really the first time I've ever walked to work when there was actual snow piled up on the sidewalks. I wore my trail running shoes to work and was digging the sound of my shoes crunching through the snow. Sometimes its the simpliest things in life that can put a smile on your face.

In other news, I finally checked out the Birth of Impressionism exhibit at the Frist Center this past weekend. Admittedly, Impressionism is one of my least favorite art movements, but that almost makes impressionist exhibits that much more exhiliarating! Because, I'm going into it expecting to be wowed by the brushstrokes and the artist's eye to method and detail... but inevitably there's always that moment where I lock eyes on a piece and am moved like I never expected. There were a couple of pieces in the exhibit that did that to me.

One was Wrestlers by Alexandre Falguière. I am a sculpture lover. Sculpture is by far my favorite medium and as soon as I laid eyes on that painting, it immediately made me think of a sculpture. The attention to the muscles and the human body in this painting were as moving to me as they are in sculpture. Which is saying a lot. And of course, it was no surprise to find out that the artist was not only a painter, but a sculpter, as well.

The whole exhibit was amazing (Whistlers Mother! The Birth of Venus!) and I was thrilled by the amount of people that were at the museum. Sure, it makes viewing a little more difficult, but I get great satisfaction moving around shoulder to shoulder with the people of my city enjoying something so remarkable and beautiful.

I found this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe to be in the spirit of my weekend visit to the museum. What better treat after milling around amongst Monets, Manets, Degas', Cezannes and Renoirs than a delicate madeline?

These came together so easily, but I must admit.. I've made madeleine's once before (for another TWD a couple years ago) and I'm still regretting the purchase of a mini madeleine pan. It's damn near impossible to not fill that tin up too much with batter. So, my madeleines end up being less than visually appealing blobs instead of cute, dainty shells.

I guess it doesn't really matter though, because they get gobbled up before anyone has a chance to look at them for too long.

Fluff Filled Chocolate Madeleines
Recipe by Dorie Greenspan

First of all, if you're a batter lover... then whoa nelly, this is the batter for you. Seriously, I probably ate about half the batter from the bowl. It was delicious. Light and frothy and chocolate-y. So very good.

I definitely overfilled my mini madeleine pan... but with a regular sized pan I dont think it would be a problem. To be honest, my favorite part of the madelines, were the crispy-ish edges that resulted from overfilling the tins.

The only issue I had was a lot of my madeleines came out with a gross white dusting (from the flour dusting of the pan), so next time I would definitely use cocoa instead of flour to dust the pans. (Of course you were technically supposed to fill these little cakes with marshmallow fluff and dunk in a chocolate glaze. Both of which I skipped. So, if that were the case, the flour coating on the outside wouldn't have mattered).

I do see myself making these again sometime. Or at least making the batter. ;)

Visit Margo of Effort to Deliciousness's blog for the complete recipe.

TWD: World Peace Cookies

First of all, I had every intention of making the chocolate gingerbread from last week. But, I waited till Monday and I was not feeling well... I ended up measuring out the flour and as soon as I measured the ginger... the smell made me nauseous and I immediately had to go to the bathroom and puke. Which is weird... I thought ginger was supposed to be soothing to the stomach? I guess not when you're sick.

Anyway... no puking this week (thank goodness).

For this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Jessica at Cookbook Habit chose World Peace Cookies.

I was pretty excited to make these cookies... I mean, I've made them before and I remembered liking them, but not being absolutely wowed by them. (Let's just say, I would have continued to call them by their original name of Korova cookies).

Okay, so here's the deal... these cookies are good, yes. But if you're looking for something quick to whip up, that's painless... I'd stay away. These cookies gave me an absolute fit, trying to cut them. Ugh. Soooooo crumbly, I ended up freezing them and cutting them immediately out of the freezer, then I pulled them from the oven and kind of took a fork around the edges and pushed around to make them more round.

I dont know, these are good. But not out of this world.

If you want to check out my first attempt at them back in 2007, here's the link:

My first attempt at World Peace Cookies

TWD; Chocolate Chunkers

Mine and Dorie's relationship is a complicated one. (and by the term "relationship" I mean our imaginary one). I've decided that it's very similiar to the relationship I had with my favorite high school teacher, Ms. Clark.

Ms. Clark was my Latin teacher and the whole first year of Latin, we didn't get along. I didn't like her... she didn't like me. Most of the kids in Latin 1 were deathly afraid of Ms. Clark. She had a very no-nonsense demeanor and didn't seem to be the "joking" type. She was such a hard ass that year, but, unlike my peers, I stood up to her and I got the C's and D's in class to prove it. I was stubborn... and spent more time trying to break her in class than I did actually listening to the lessons.

Eventually, though... we gained a mutual respect for each other. I'm not sure how it happened, but it just happened. And it turns out... we were really similiar types of people and I suspect... back when she had been a teenager, she was much like me... an instigator. By the time I had graduated, I had gone through to Latin 4 and deemed Ms. Clark my favorite teacher. She was awesome! It just took us a little bit of time to get the headbutting out of the way.

I feel this way about Mrs. Greenspan, sometimes. I am so grateful to be apart of a group like Tuesdays With Dorie where I get to try out all of her wonderful recipes. And while I don't always like how the recipes turn out. I always find them interesting, easy to follow and with each one completed, I feel like I get a little closer to domestic goddessness. But, sometimes I find myself going into a recipe for the week, the same way I walked into Latin 1. With a chip on my shoulder. Hmph. Raisins and chocolate? Who needs it? Hmph. Conjugation and Declension? Who needs it? And then I have to take a moment and shake out my cynical, teenager attitude and be the mature adult that I am and remember, that I'm trying all these recipes to grow as a baker. And honestly, sometimes it's even better if I don't like the recipes... then I'm not tempted to eat the whole thing myself!

I have nothing but respect for Dorie. But, full disclosure here: I was NOT excited about this week's recipe. Raisins and chocolate??? (okay, you already know how I feel about that) Apricots and chocolate? (I just threw up in my mouth a little). But instead of going into this recipe with a chip on my shoulder... I lightened up and went into the recipe excited for another week, even if it wasn't something that I could salivate over.

This week's recipe was Chocolate Chunkers chosen by Claudia of Fool for Food. These cookies are basically tons and tons of chocolate with some dried fruit and nuts thrown in for variety. I subbed dried cherries for the raisins or apricots (which was what the recipe called for) and omitted the nuts entirely.

These cookies, despite my hesitation turned out really well. They are almost like a brownie cookie. Loaded with chocolate, they are so freaking rich, that I can only eat a little at a time and a HUGE glass of milk is required. They're good! Surprisingly, so!

The moral of this boring, long-winded diatribe... is sometimes you just have to open your mind up a little in life (and baking) to get a full experience. It's worth it.

Check out Claudia's blog for the recipe.

TWD: Chocolate Whopper Malted Drops

This is a redux recipe for me. Last year sometime, I started seeing these cookies on other blogs and I thought... wow... now that's an exciting cookie. What a great idea, right? Chocolate and malt in a cookie? I expected this wonderful chewy explosion of malty chocolatey goodness in my mouth but instead I wound up with gummy hardness in my teeth. They didn't taste chocolate-y enough, they didn't taste malt-y enough. Basically... they were merely a figment of what I thought a true malted chocolate chip cookie could be. Sigh.

So, when Rachel of Confessions of a Tangerine Tart chose this recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie I looked at this as an opportunity to make this cookie work. Maybe I did something wrong the first time?

I remember when I first bought Dorie's book and I was skimming through it, I noticed that the pictures she had of these particularly cookies didn't look anything like my first attempt (which I had made from a printed out recipe from a blog). So, i started thinking about what I needed to do to make my cookies better. First, I decided to lower the oven temperature. I felt like the malt in the cookies hardened too much initially and secondly, I decided to use dark chocolate cocoa powder instead of regular. Maybe that would boost the chocolate flavor.

These ideas in mind, I started to whip these cookies up. I wanted to pre-heat my oven while I was mixing the cookies and when I looked in the book I didn't see an oven temperature listed. I looked and looked and finally decided that it must be an error. There was no oven temperature listed. Hmph. I pulled out the old recipe that I had printed out from the internet and it listed 350 as the temperature (but, I wonder... how did they know?) so I decided that that was a safe temperature to start from and with my decision to lower the original temperature, I set my oven to 325 degrees.

These cookies are easy to make.

Well, except for chopping up the Whoppers. Jeez. That's time consuming alright.. Especially when you end up eating every third or fourth Whopper and especially when your Whoppers are wrapped in packages of 3. So, you have to open a new wrapper every 3rd Whopper. (Do yourself a favor and buy the box of whoppers and not the candy bar bag).

I also decided to pop the dough in the fridge for about 10 minutes before I put them in the oven. I just thought that maybe firming up the dough a bit would make for a sturdier cookie.

These cookies turned out much better this time around. They are chewy (not gummy) and they are definitely prettier than my earlier attempt. These are like a grown up malt cookie. It's like... they are too salty or something. Maybe I should have upped the sugar since I used dark cocoa. So, if you like a slightly salty chocolate cookie, you'd probably like these. For sugar fiends like myself, though... they still didn't live up to my original expectations. (Aside from the texture and the whoppers, I barely tasted malt!)

Check out Rachel's Blog for the recipe!

Chewy White Chocolate Chocolate Cookies

It would appear to you, my beloved blog readers, that I haven't really been baking much lately. And I guess that's true. I haven't been baking a whole lot, lately. And I'm not really sure why that is.

I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that I'm in full training mode for my 4th marathon and I'm at that stage where I'm concerned about my caloric intake (every pound matters when you're running) because I'm not quite at the mileage yet where I can just eat whatever I want and not gain weight (give me about 2-3 weeks and there will likely be tons of fattening recipes I've been holding onto to try).

But, I couldn't resist giving this recipe a try for now. I had seen it on a ton of blogs lately and I'm always a fan of chocolate cookies and anything with the word "chewy" in the recipe name is going to grab my attention. This past weekend I went to Louisville to visit my friend Sara. Her birthday was wayyy back in June, so I was going to take her some of my newly appointed favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies, but I also decided to give these chocolate cookies a whirl, too. The dough was really salty and that worried me. I popped the dough in the fridge for a little bit, hoping that the salty flavor would mellow out a bit (I'm not even sure if thats actually possible, but it seemed like a good solution at the time).

After I baked these off, I thought... ehhhh... they're okay. They definitely weren't sweet enough for my tastes and they were more like a brownie cookie, than a chewy cookie. And, frankly, I've had better brownie type of cookies (oops I just realized there's still no recipe on that link. I'll fix that tomorrow, I promise!).

They are good. But they're not great.

(And jeez... sorry about the photo, my lighting must have been terrible... they did taste better than they photographed, that's for sure).

Chewy White Chocolate, Chocolate Cookies
from Picky Palate, but I first saw it here

1 3/4 cup flour
1 1/4 cup cocoa powder( Hershey's dark chocolate cocoa powder)
1 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup butter
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. salt
2 cups white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350F and grease cookie sheet(I used a silpat liner)
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar and white sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition. Add the salt and vanilla.
3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, and baking soda and gradually add to the creamed mixture. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheet.
4. Bake for 8-10 minutes until fluffy, but still soft. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Cookies

So, yes, I've been on a little bit of a bar cookie kick, lately. I actually still have another bar cookie that I made last week that I have yet to blog about. But, a couple of days ago... I decided I wanted something chocolate-y, rich and sturdy. Normally, I would just make brownies... but for some reason, I haven't been in a brownie mood lately.

I flipped through my recipes and came across this recipe that I found on a blog a few weeks ago. As I looked over the recipe, I thought to myself... now, this sounds perfect! Chocolate! Chocolate Chips! Pecans! Coconut! You can't go wrong, there, right?

I was imagining a big, chewy cookie... but the recipe called for all white sugar. So, I decided to substitute all the sugar for brown sugar. And, for someone that likes intense chocolate flavor these cookies would be great. But, I found myself wanting the cookie to be sweeter and chewier. A good cookie, indeed... but, next time I think I'll kick up the sugar a little more. I'm a sugar fiend. Try it if you're looking for a sturdy, chocolatey, substantial cookie.

Dark Chocolate Coconut Cookies
found at: Genesis of a Cook

2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
2 sticks butter, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup large pecan pieces
1 1/8 unsweetened shredded coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, cream the butter and the sugar together until well blended and fluffy. Add the eggs and beat until well incorporated, then beat in cocoa powder.
3. Mix in flour, salt and baking powder until just combined. Gently fold in remaining ingredients.
4. Transfer dough to a clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients. Divide into 12 equal portions and transfer on a sheet pan with parchment paper.
5. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes. Take care not to over bake. Let cool on rack.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

416 people can't be wrong. Right? 416 rave reviews of a cookie recipe can only mean one thing: EXCELLENT COOKIE. When I saw these cookies on Anna's site Cookie Madness and I read the reviews of them on allrecipes.com I couldnt help but want to make them immediately. I actually went out that night and bought reese pieces so that I could make these cookies.

I took the suggestions of the reviewers on allrecipes.com and used half shortening/half butter and I also used half light brown sugar and half dark brown sugar.

The cookies turned out good. But, they weren't like WOW these cookies are amazing (which was how most of the reviews were written). I felt like these cookies fell kind of flat. It's like, they weren't chocolatey enough and they certainly weren't peanut buttery enough.

Recipe

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

Warning: This post is likely to contain lots of exclamation points. So many in fact, that your retinas might just burn right off, or if they don’t, you’ll be so annoyed with the overusage of the exclamation points, that you’ll totally blow my excitement off as me being “crazy.”

I’m an excitable person. Let’s just get that out of the way upfront. But, let me clarify. I’m not the type of person who jumps up and down, screams and shouts, and generally overreacts to things. (Well, okay, I do generally overreact to things, but dude… it doesn’t seem like I’m OVERreacting at the time, it just seems like I’m reacting, ya know?). But, Wednesday night, after making these cookies, I found myself precisely in that mode. Jumping up and down, squealing in sheer delight and pleasure over these cookies.

Seriously. Squealing like a 7 year old at a Hannah Montana concert. (As a side note, let me just take a moment here and say that I have no shame in admitting that a cookie can make me as happy as a 7 year old at a Hannah Montana concert. Nope, no shame whatsoever).

Ok, so let’s talk about this for a minute… Name some totally awesome things:

Brownies. Unicorns. Cookies. Cream Cheese Icing. Balloons. Daniel Craig.

End of list. I mean, those are the most awesome things in the world, no?

So, think about how happy you’d be if two of those things magically combined. Take for instance… Daniel Craig and Cream Cheese Icing! Holy crap! I think I need a moment to think about that for a second.

...

Okay, sorry. Now, What about Balloons and Unicorns? I mean. That’s some cool stuff, especially if the balloons were tied to the unicorn's horn. Pretty! Sadly, these two combos aren’t likely to happen to me (well, at least not this week), but…. I found a recipe that magically combined Cookies and Brownies into one beautiful concoction.

I found the recipe in that 500 cookies book that my mom bought me. The picture made the cookies look light and fudgy and crispy but chewy. But they actually came out thick and chewy and exactly like a brownie. These cookies are delicious!!!!!!!!!

Seriously. These cookies made me very, very happy. If you want to be happy and squeal and jump up and down in your kitchen. Make these cookies.

(I left the book at home today, so I'll post the recipe this weekend).

Beacon Hill Cookies

I like to think of myself as fairly creative. Which is one of the reasons I started this blog. I wanted an outlet to bake and take cool pictures and have cool posts like all the other food/baking blogs that I read. I was inspired and I thought... yeah, i can do that.

The problem is. I can't. I mean, yes, I physically can. But, my pictures suck. I've tried everything. I've tried the lightbox, I've tried the no flash, I've tried the natural light, nothing seems to work. And it's not just the lighting, it's the presentation as well. I know it's a work in progress, but sometimes I get discouraged by the lengthy amount of time that it takes to make any progress. Uggh. Sometimes I wonder if I need a new camera, but i like my camera and it takes good pictures. Except of baked goods.

Alright, well anyway, enough whining. I was just basically wanting to apologize to the few of you who actually read my blog. I'm sorry my pictures suck. But I appreciate you sticking with me. At some point, maybe it will just click and the pictures will magically become amazing!

Until then...

I am obsessed with Meringues. Like, literally obsessed. How can a cookie without flour or egg yolks be so incredibly chewy and tasty? I have no idea, but I love it! And not only are they delicious, they are so easy to make, too!

My mom brought me the book, 500 Cookies this weekend as a hostess gift. It's a cool book with a lot of pictures. I love cookbooks with pictures. Immediately, one cookie stuck out to me as I flipped through it. The Beacon Hill Cookie. It looked chocolatey and homey and bumpy. It looked awesome.

So, last night I decided to see what the ingredients were and see if I had them. Turns out, it's a meringue cookie! Which meant that I had to bake them right there on the spot. They came with a variation to put white chocolate chips in them, which I happened to have, so I did that.

Yum. Have I mentioned I'm in love with meringues? Okay, overkill... I know. I made a half a batch and came out with about 10 cookies.

Beacon Hill Cookies
from 500 Cookies by Phillippa Vanstone and Susannah Blake


5 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used semi-sweet)
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/4 superfine sugar
3/4 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the chocolate, set aside to cool. Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add one third of the sugar, beat for a further minute, then add one third more of the sugar. Beat until the whites are stiff, and fold in the remaining sugar.

Fold in the nuts, chocolate, vanilla, and white chocolate chips into the mixture.

Drop level teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto parchment lined baking sheets 1 1/2 inch apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the cookies are cracked and firm to the touch. Life the parchment sheets onto wire racks and allow cookies to cool.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Yield: 2 1/2 dozen.

Homemade Oreos

So, I totally love baking, right? (obviously, or I wouldn't dedicate a whole freaking blog to it!). But that whole... baking a whole bunch of the same things (booooring) and then that wrecking a bunch of recipes (frightening) will dishearten a girl a bit.

I mean, I loved making the cookies and the brownies, but when you have recipe after recipe not turn out the way you wanted... you get a little depressed and then you realize you don't have time to be depressed, because you've got to make another kind of cookie for the party and ASAP.

Enter Homemade Oreos.

Screw the fruit cookie, let's make something kitchy instead. Right?

Luckily, my friend Steph came over the night that I finally gave up on the Rugelach Pinwheels and I think she probably just had the intention of letting me borrow some of her cookie sheets, sitting down at my bar and cracking up at me covered in flour, lamenting about the woes of baking. Little did she know... she was going to help me make Homemade Oreos. And by "help" I mean, measure all the ingredients, mix them and put them on the baking sheet while I supervised.
Fellow bakers shouldn't be so slim and cute and have cute victoria beckham haircuts, right? Right.

So, she really helped me out that night. I was at my wits end and I just finished putting a whole batch of those pinwheel cookies down the disposal when she got there. It was nice, because she helped me just kind of have a "who cares?" attitude and not worry about wasting all that money and time on those damn cookies that I screwed up.

We had fun. She's one of my oldest and dearest friends and it's nice to get to spend a tuesday night baking with your best friend.

So, back to the cookies. These are exactly like oreos, y'all!!!!! They are crunchy and the icing in the middle is dry-ish and they are perfect! Although, I must admit, I kind of liked them a little softer (I put some white bread in the ziploc back with them to soften them up a bit). YUM YUM YUM.

And thanks to Steph and Homemade Oreos.... Christmas was officially saved (or at least my parents christmas party).

Whopper Cookies

Whoppers are that candy bar that I only eat at halloween. I would never buy a package of whoppers, but at halloween I always loved eating the little funsize packages. The truth is, I love malt. Like, I really love it. Malted milk, malted milkshakes, etc... It's all great for me. The thing about the whopper that keeps me from buying a whole package is... it's a little too hard for me and sometimes you get that super stale one that makes you feel like you are eating an acorn. Yeah, there's that.

So, since I love malt... i've had this recipe printed out for awhile now. It's originally from Dorie Greenspan and I've seen it made on a couple of my favorite blogs (cookie madness and foodbeam) And I've had whoppers since halloween... but I hadn't been able to find the malted milk powder at my grocery store. I knew that Harris Teeter would have it, but the last time I went to harris teeter, I had a flustering encounter and totally forgot to pick up the malt powder. So, I made a special trip the other week, because I was craving chocolate-y, malt-y goodness.

Turns out... these cookies aren't that great. They could be more chocolate-y and more malt-y.

I was really disappointed with this recipe.. especially after all the build up. But, oh well... there are plenty more recipes to be made!

Rolo Cookies

So, are you sick of Halloween candy yet???

Jeez… I sure am. Uggh. Why did I buy 11 pounds worth of Halloween candy?? What was I possibly thinking I’d do with all of it??

Well… here’s a recipe that I found that used up my rolos. They’re pretty good. Although, to be fair, when I made them, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for another chocolate cookie, so that probably affected my opinion of them.. If you’ve got leftover rolos, I recommend these cookies, but honestly.. I wouldn’t rush right out to buy a package of them for these cookies.

Reese Pieces & M&M Chocolate Cookies

I never really thought that I liked chocolate cookies that much. I've never really considered myself much of a chocolate fiend. But, ever since I started baking regularly... I find myself craving chocolate more and more. And I'm beginning to think that this isn't a good thing.

So, yesterday I knew that I wanted to make another recipe where I could use up my halloween candy that I bought on clearance and I found this recipe on Cookie Madness for Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies. It sounded like a perfect way to use up some of my Reese Pieces! I substituted Reese Pieces and M&Ms for the peanut butter chips and these cookies are excellent! They have a really interesting texture. It's like a grainy, thick, moist texture that is perfect for the chocolate flavor. Yum. I couldn't keep from eating them.

Now, I've just got to find some recipes to use up Almond Joys, Snickers, and Kit Kats... hmmmm.....

Oh, and I made these cookies while wearing my new apron that my mom made for me. Cute, huh? It only took her like 4 months, too. Amazing. She should apply for Project Runway.

These cookies are good. Make them.