The Levain Bakery Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies

December 21, 2015December 21, 2015 CarmenLeave a comment

If you A. live in New York City or B. do a lot of cookie research, odds are you’ve heard of or been to Levain bakery in the upper west side of Manhattan. They are most famous for their hugeangous (walnut) chocolate chip cookies. There are countless copycat recipes online, of people trying to recreate the masterful baked good of NYC. Hearty banter about corn starch, refrigeration time, chocolate size, and flour type fill the blogosphere, and I don’t know if anyone has arrived to the real deal, $4 cookie-scone wonder.

Luckily for me and some colleagues, one of our editors lives a few blocks from the 21-year old, tiny establishment and planned on making a trip for a friend’s mom in San Francisco who requested some from her east coast contacts. I asked if she would get me one too so I could try these allegedly amazing cookies for myself.

After waiting in a 30 minute line at the time of opening, she gets into the office and hands me the bag of what looks like scones, and feels like rocks.There’s a solid thud when I put the paper bag by my laptop. I was warned that some are intimidated by the nearly half-pound cookie, but I was ready.

When I finally took a bite, the edges of the cookie crunched, but I could tell that a soft gooey chocolatey center was waiting. There are a couple key characteristics to these cookies. First off, the mere dimensions of the thing. Not only is it several inches wide, but it stands very tall, showing off the second important factor: its just-barely-done inside texture. Because of the size of the cookie, there’s a window in the baking where the outside gets golden brown before the inside has solidified completely. And hours later that consistency keeps, melted chocolate and all.

Even though I haven’t made it very far in my cookie journey of the city, this chocolate chip cookie will easily rank in my top 5. I wouldn’t exactly aim for a Levain interpretation in my own chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I take due note in their techniques and values, and plan on standing in that 30-minute line myself some time warmer.

Take pride in your approach? Tell me what makes your chocolate chip cookies special below!

A Day in the Life: Food52

December 7, 2015December 14, 2015 Carmen2 Comments

You may know that I work at the food website food52.com. It’s a great resource for home chefs: thousands of recipes, daily content on what butter to use, how to season cast iron (I need to do that…future post?), cookie maps! and then our shop with bespoke kitchen tools and home decor. Need a bed and breakfast tray? How about a mushroom log? As the photo producer I’m responsible for making sure all the photos for the site are shot and accounted for. That means I get to run around the set with the stylists and tell them when the mashed potato flatbread is ready to be shot, or if we’re missing ingredients for the vegan fish sauce. Sometimes I even get to be a food stylist, and bake things!

26032db9-db21-4c1c-a342-586f39912823--2015-1119_chocolate-pepper-cookies_linda-xiao-063_1- — Shot by Linda Xiao

Last week we launched our holiday market pop-up right in Union Square. Many hands poured over the space to make it look like it does now. If you’re in the city, stop by and say hello, or shop around for the holidays.

Friday was #nationalcookieday, and we were fortunate enough to have the Union Square Hospitality Group grace us with a visit, and cookies from almost all of their restaurants.

Keep yours eyes out for more fun #f52life tidbits. And if you have any questions, send them my way!

Oat and Date Cookies

July 26, 2015July 26, 2015 Carmen2 Comments

I saw a post on Buzzfeed that read something along the lines of “20 treats to make with all your leftover dates from Ramadan” and that inspired me to share my beloved oat and date cookie recipe. It’s super easy and gives you chewy sweetness in one bite.

Oat and Date Cookies
Makes about 25 small cookies
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, cut up
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup coarsely chopped mejdool dates

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles fine crumbs, and sticks together when molded into hands. Add the egg, beating until just blended. Mix in the sugar, oats, and dates. Drop tablespoons of the dough 2 inches apart onto the prepared cookie sheets. This dough should be very firm.

Bake until lightly browned, 12-15 minutes, at 350 degrees. Cool on the sheets until the cookies firm slightly. Enjoy slightly warm or at room temperature!

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

March 26, 2015December 31, 2015 Carmen1 Comment

Let’s get right to it: these things are gluten-free AND vegan! But these cookies aren’t GF and V to be accommodating; they’re really just good cookies disguised as healthy. Who said you need anything more than peanut butter and sugar in a good cookie, anyway?

I was watching Unique Sweets (explanation of the show here) and they were showing the process for a bakery’s flourless peanut butter cookies, so naturally I tried to make some myself. They came out pretty great.

There are only four things in these cookies, if you count water: peanut butter, powdered sugar, and a flax egg, made from flaxseed meal and water. Make sure you sift the sugar so you don’t have to deal with squashing tiny lumps later.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Makes 12 3-inch cookies

1 cup peanut butter
1 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted
1 flax egg (1 tablespoon + 3 tablespoons water)
Optional: coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Combine the peanut butter and sugar in a bowl. Add the flax egg and mix until smooth. To make the dough easier to handle, you can chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes. Scoop out dough to form balls of desired size and flatten with hands. Use a large fork to make cool patterns, so people know they’re peanut butter cookies. Bake at 350° for 9 minutes, or until edges look crispy.

Evidently, you don’t have a real peanut butter cookie in your hands unless it has those fork marks. And if there’s a cookie with fork marks in your hands, it must be a peanut butter cookie.
Potential variations include covering the dough in granulated sugar before baking, and using brown sugar in the dough. Hooray for peanut butter!

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie, pt. II

January 25, 2015May 25, 2015 Carmen1 Comment

      Here it is; I promised the next installation of The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie, according to, well, me. Part of the problem here is that cookie eaters have different preferences in a cookie, so it’s hard to say there’s one “best” cookie. But I am close to the best one, for the typical food appreciator’s palate. There are so many things that can be done differently in a CC cookie, so I plan to slowly break down the options and results. The first thing I wrote about was the chocolate in a cookie. I should also be referring to these cookies as chocolate chunk cookies. I have since read somewhere that chunks are better anyway, especially since a lot of chocolate chips have things other than chocolate/milk/sugar. BOO! So take it from the professionals: chunks > chips. A lot of other chocolate-related things were discussed in the first part of this post, check it out here. Otherwise, prepare for some technique talk.

     Today is about butter. If you’ve ever browned butter before, you’re familiar with the aroma and taste that comes with it: caramely, butterscotchy, awesome. It can be tricky at first to not burn it, but once you get the hang of it, it doesn’t take too long, and it’s worth the elevated flavor that comes with it.

     Today is also about time. Time is of the essence as much as that vanilla extract is.

A friend in San Francisco showed me a chocolate chip cookie recipe from a well-known baker in the city, Josey Baker (yeah, his last name is Baker). He’s famous for his breads and $4 toasts in the hip SF cafés, but his chocolate chip cookie recipe also knows what’s up. His calls for all the butter to be browned. This gives the whole cookie a new web of flavor. At first, it hits you in the face. But once you’re used to it, you only notice when the brown butter is missing. This is how cookies should be: brown-buttery to perfection.

If your butter looks like this on the stove, you’re close, but not quite to browning. Make sure you keep stirring. Melt the butter on medium heat, and this bright yellow color will come after much foaming has subsided. Not long after, the color will begin to change and the little bits of milk solids that have appeared will go from white to brown. As soon as this happens, move the butter to a new vessel so it stops cooking. There you go, brown butter. I’ve read some recipes that say to discard the milk solids – don’t do it!! That’s where all the caramely goodness is. It won’t poison you!

Once all is done, it should look something like this.

     When I say time, I’m talking about baking time. Josey Baker said something pretty interesting:
     “You should probably take the cookies out before you think they’re done.”
He was on to something. Read on.
     “You’ll know they’re done when they’re a beautiful light brown; the middles will still look a little gooey, but the outsides will push back ever so slightly when you poke them with your finger.”
     Now, I’ve found that this is kinda dependent on when you plan on eating the cookies. If you’re curing a cookie fix and are planning to finish half the batch right away, you can probably keep the cookies in the oven a little longer. When you use Josey’s technique, the cookies take a long time to properly set; i.e be able to pick up without the whole cookie falling apart onto the counter. On the other hand, if you have time, the “undercooking” is great for assuring chewy cookies in days to come. I put “undercooking” in quotes because the cookies aren’t really undercooked. Once you take them out of the oven to cool, they’re still cooking slightly from the hot baking sheets, anyway. Moral of the paragraph: take the cookies out about 2 minutes before you normally would. If you’re squirming in your apron, go ahead and put them back in for a minute.

     Okay enough science, here’s an updated chocolate chunk cookie recipe for you! I’ve been making small batches recently so that 1. We don’t eat as many in the same amount of time, and 2. I have more opportunities to play around with different versions. So feel free to double this recipe.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Makes about 25 cookies

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, browned
1/4 cup white/cane sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
~combine these ingredients after the butter has cooled slightly.
1 egg
~mix into above ingredients

1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
~gradually sift these into the wet mixture, mixing until smooth

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks
1/2 cup milk chocolate
2 tablespoons cocoa nibs (optional)
~incorporate into dough

Chill for at least two hours in the fridge. Then place teaspoonfulls on baking sheets and place in an oven at 375 degrees for 6-7 minutes, or longer for larger cookies. When the edges have rounded out but the centers still look shiny, take the cookies out and breathe. Wait for some time for the cookies to set. This won’t be when the cookies have cooled, but after. Feel free to transfer to a different flat surface. Enjoy!

Christmas Cookies: Insta-dition

January 4, 2015May 25, 2015 CarmenLeave a comment

Happy New Year! I hope dieting was not on your list of resolutions this year, because there are cookies coming your way. Many cookies! They’re all excellent. Since I was running around with flour hands for two days, I thought it best to stick to my phone for the majority of Christmas’s photo-documentation. As a result, I have created a fun photo/recipe link post à la Instagram. Though none of these photos has seen Instagram as of this moment, I edited these 12 photos on my phone as if they were going to be grammed. With minimal staging, and no further ado, I present the 2k14 Christmas cookies, in square format.

First up: ginger molasses cookies! Or molasses spice, or gingersnaps. I go with the first because I make sure these come out nice and soft so they fall apart in your mouth/hand if you’re not careful. These are particularly great in the getting cold/freezing seasons, but make what you want, when you want. Recipe from Smitten Kitchen here.

Round two: chocolate chunk cookies! Folks, I’ve been working hard at the next best recipe for these things. So many variables, so many tests, so many possibilities! I’ll give you a hint while I finalize the next post: brown butter, light folding. Vanilla beans don’t hurt, either. In the meantime, find out about all things chocolate in your chocolate chunk cookie here.

This year’s MVC: the Citrus Snickerdoodle. Introduced to me by my friend Adriel, these cookies throw you for a loop, then make you question your relationship with snickerdoodles altogether. I asked for the recipe he used, but he geniusly made it himself – here’s what he wrote out for me:

Faux Citrus Snickerdoodles
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 c. butter, softened
2 eggs, room temperature
2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
1 T. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 1 orange
1 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice (optional)
1 T. freshly squeezed orange juice (optional)

1/4 c. sugar, set aside
approx. 1 T. ground cinnamon, set aside

1) Preheat oven to 400°F.
2) Cream sugar, butter, eggs, & juices if using. Add flour, baking powder, salt, & zests.
3) Shape dough by scant tablespoonfuls into balls; roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture.
4) Place 2 in. apart on ungreased (dark) cookie sheet.
5) Bake until set, golden & slightly crisp, about 8 minutes. Cool cookies immediately on wire rack.

Yield: 3-4 dozen cookies

Do make sure to chill this dough for a bit; it will make it a lot easier to work with.

Winner of best wrap-up to 2014 goes to the lavender shortbread. You see, I brought back the lavender from my stay in France for the first half of the year (memories/mishaps found here), and tried my first lavender shortbread in San Francisco, where I spent the middle of the year. But I still have a whole bag of the stuff (taking suggestions now). Here’s the recipe that I doubled, with too much butter here. Will most likely have an updated recipe later because these were frachement excellents.

No I did not arrange the sink like this, nor did I plan on taking a photo of it, but I thought it looked kinda cool so, here you go. Dishes.

Here’s to finding the mathematical equation for eating many baked goods while staying extremely fit, right? Happy New Year!

Christmas Bread

December 28, 2014May 25, 2015 CarmenLeave a comment

Happy holidays! We’re reaching the end of the year already? I’ve finished school, which hopefully means I will be living in the kitchen, learning all sorts of exciting things, and documenting them. Stay tuned for new developments with this new time on my hands. In the meantime, enjoy the first steps: my first EVER solo bread loaf! It came out pretty great! Just in time for New Years; dig out your scale and flour and try your hand at some yourself.

Randomly selected ingredients/add-ins from the local co-op:

Dried apricots, dried cranberries, golden raisins and walnuts!

This picture was an accident, but I thought it looked better than what I was going for.

Essentials: Water & yeast, flour, and Ratio by Michael Ruhlman:

how to make anything from bread to sausage to soup with a simple ratio for each,

just add nuts/pepper/cheese etc.

No dough hooks or paddles necessary! Just add the water,

grab a wooden spoon and mix until you’ve got a dough.

Heyy check out my mom’s photography skills! Apparently you’re supposed to knead for 10 minutes; you can add your particulars halfway through this. I’m still working on the kneading thing…my
dough was kinda dense but that also may have been the pastry flour I was using…oops.

Woot feast your eyes on the jam-packed super-bread. Only four ingredients,
apart from the fruit and nuts. If you think you’ve added too much and bits
are falling out, fret not! It will all be okay.

Voilà! Despite the different lighting, it did not take too long to make this bread,

just some waiting. All worth it! Now we have a yummy bread chock-full of

nutritious things! It still looked kinda foldy before I threw it in the oven so it was dense but
IT’S COOL, still tasted great.

This is what the dining room table looked like by Christmas morning. Turkey? Nah,
cookies. And bread. Stay tuned for cookie recipes shortly! In the meantime, enjoy the leftovers of the holidays before your resolutions kick in.

Dried Fruit and Nut Bread

Adapted from Ratio by Michael Ruhlman

20 oz bread flour

12 oz warm water

1 packet or teaspoon active yeast

2 teaspoons salt

2 cups of your choice of dried fruit and nuts

1 cup water and cast-iron skillet for steam

Put your mixing bowl on the scale, zero it out, and measure out the flour. If you have a stand mixer, you add the rest of the ingredients, zeroing as necessary. With no mixer, get a second bowl and measure out the water using the same process, and add the yeast and salt. Add this to the flour and combine with a wooden spoon.

Once you get a homogenous mixture, take out the dough and knead it on a floured surface for 10 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic. Halfway through, gradually fold in your fruit and nuts. After kneading, place the dough back in the bowl, greased and/or floured, and let sit until double in size (an hourish).

Take the dough out and knead again to get rid of excess gas, or punch it down, then let it sit again for 10-15 minutes. You can then shape the dough into a boule by rolling it on the counter until it is a round ball. Place it on a ceramic surface or pan and let sit one more time for an hour. You can also refrigerate the dough at this time for up to a day, allowing it to come to room temperature for 2 hours before baking. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, and put a cast-iron skillet on a rack to heat up for steam during baking.

Take the boule and cute an x, pound sign or any other pattern you want at the top to allow the dough to expand in the oven. Pour the cup of water into the skillet to create steam in the oven. This process helps to create a thick, crisp bread crust. Do it: it’s important and impressive! Bake the dough at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, and then at 375 degrees for another 45 minutes or so. When the bread is done, it will sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Cut and enjoy naked or with anything on top!

Shout out to my mom for helping with the lighting 😀

PSA

July 29, 2014May 25, 2015 CarmenLeave a comment

This is a public service announcement. For all you innovative thinkers and die-hard believers, go do you. Don’t be afraid of what The Man has to say about your ridiculous ideas and true efforts to create. For all you naysayers and Debbie Downers, eat some cake. Give love a chance. Hug a dog. Don’t take life so seriously. Be happy. But most ~~importantly~~ relevantly, don’t knock it till you try it.

Sometimes you want chocolate chip cookies and you have no brown sugar. But you do have a large tub of molasses. Wam bam shazam half a cup of normal people sugar and a teaspoon of molasses later, crisis averted.

I have nothing more to say for myself. Except for I’m not the first to think of this, so…don’t blame me. And to go do something crazy and ridiculous and love it. Yeah. That’s about it.

Let’s take a closer look at that. In case you missed it. That’s popcorn in a batter of chocolate chip cookies.

Have a great, productive day. And Eid Mubarak!

Popcorned Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 15 cookies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chocolate chips

As much popcorn as you like
-These would also benefit from some coarse sea salt for sprinkling

Combine butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add vanilla and egg. Combine dry ingredients and add to butter etc. Stir in chocolate chips. Carefully fold in popped popcorn kernels. Cook in oven at 350 degrees F for 8-10 minutes. Let cool before eating.

Recipe note: these are one of maybe no other cookies that I have discovered to be better a day old, so try and save some for tomorrow. I’m not entirely sure why, but I’ll bet it helps that everything is cooled cool enough to experience all tehe flavors and texture together. Yum.

What’s in the Pantry: Sunflower Seed Butter

July 12, 2014May 25, 2015 CarmenLeave a comment

Before Ramadan started, I got on another baking kick. It’s easy to do in this house, always equipped with ingredients and interesting foods that we’re not sure what to do with. But Ramadan can’t stop me from getting in the kitchen, either. I already tried plans for popcorn chocolate chip cookies. I was inspired by the cocoa powder in the pantry. I was feeling a classic pairing of chocolate and peanut butter, but we didn’t have peanut butter. What we did have was sunflower seed butter. Have you heard of such a thing? You may have seen it among the cookie butters in Trader Joe’s. This place clearly carries everything. I found this jar sitting in the pantry, and it seemed to be waiting for the right moment to be used. No one had opened it, so I thought I would see what I could do. It wasn’t the smoothest of nut butter, but that’s not an issue if you like texture with your chewy. Thus materialized from the kitchen and my free Saturday afternoon, my sunflower seed butter-stuffed double chocolate cookies!

I don’t care what the back of the cocoa powder packet says – melting chocolate is always the best way to go when baking cookies and brownies. Moist, dense, and excellent.

You could always add some cocoa powder for that extra oomph, though.

Electric mixers! I’m all about manual labor and traditionalism, but sometimes electric mixers just give you a texture you can’t get any other way that I’ve found.

The art of moderate-sized stuffed cookies. You have to stick a hole in the first half of dough and stick a little bit of ss butter in the center then top it off with just enough dough, so the cookies don’t get massive. These came out just right. But I’ll warn you now: it will quickly become very challenging to manipulate the dough, oily fingers or not. I had to wash my hands and restart multiple times. I guess one disadvantage of the melted chocolate is the extra stickiness of the dough when you’re working with it.

So shadows. Much sunny. Wow. So much chocolate – but not too much! Dig right in.

Sunflower Seed Butter-Stuffed Double Chocolate Cookies
Makes 24 cookies

Ingredients

6 tablespoons butter

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 large eggs

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Peanut Butter Cookie Filling

1/2 cup sunflower seed butter

1/4 cup granulated sugar

Directions
In a large bowl, melt butter, bittersweet chocolate and 1 cup of chocolate chips with double boiler setup or in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted completely. Set aside and let cool.
In a small bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, add sugar and eggs, beating until light and fluffy. Add in vanilla extract and melted chocolate/butter, beating for another 1-2 minutes until combined. Stir in the dry ingredients with a large spatula until thoroughly dispersed. Fold in remaining chocolate chips. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer while you make the peanut butter cookies. Let the dough sit in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.

Place sunflower seed butter and sugar into a medium bowl, mix to combine.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the cookie dough from the freezer. and scoop out about a teaspoon of dough placing them about 2 inches apart. Using oiled hands, make a small well in the dough. Now take about 1/2 teaspoon of the sunflower seed butter and place it in the well. Scoop another teaspoon of the cookie dough and flatten into a disk. Place this over the filled well, pinching the cookie dough layers together. Repeat with remaining dough. Bake for 9-10 minutes. Let cool for at least 10 minutes on the baking sheet. Consume rapidly.

Cookie Graveyard

January 12, 2014May 25, 2015 CarmenLeave a comment

     I must get back into the blogroove while I can on break. To attempt to make up for three months of inactivity, I shall share some cookie etc recipe gems for your entertainment during the dreary month of January.
     In October, I had a free Friday to myself, and of course I opted to spend it in the empty kitchen. Three hours of oven time resulted in brown butter cookies, apple spice cookies and pumpkin muffins! Wooo!
     Why get back into the groove, you ask? Oh, you didn’t…one would assume it to be so I can ~~more~~ successfully keep writing during school for the coming semester. But what you didn’t assume was that I’ll be spending the next semester in the south of France (insert positive exclamation of choice here). So that’s cool. Be on the lookout for the latest url before I leave in two weeks. In the meantime, bake some out of season nummies.

Cinnamon Apple Cookies
Makes around 30 small cookies
From bakeperfectcookies.com

Ingredients

¾ cup butter, softened 

1 cup sugar

 1 ½ cup shredded apples (one very large apple or 2 smallish apples)

 1 egg

 1 tsp. vanilla 

2 ½ cups flour

 2 tsp. baking powder

 1 tsp. cinnamon 

½ tsp. salt 

1 cup chopped nuts

2 Tbs. sugar 

2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350F.

In a large bowl cream the sugar and butter. Once creamed, add the egg followed by the shredded apple. Stir in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix the baking powder, flour, cinnamon and salt. Add to the wet batter, one half at a time. Finally, fold in the nuts.

On a large baking sheet drop a tablespoon size of batter, no more than 12 cookies to a sheet.

Sometimes it is easier to stick the batter in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. This allows for less sticky measuring and scooping of the dough.

It is essential to bake these cookies for a full 14 minutes. The tops will be golden. Mushy-in-the-middle apple cookies are no good! As long as the tops are a light gold, the cookies are fully done.

While the first batch of cookies are baking, combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. When the first cookies come out of the oven, sprinkle the tops with the sugar-cinnamon mix. The warmth of the freshly basked cookies allows the sugar-cinnamon mix to stick. Let the cookies sit for a minute then transfer them to a cooling rack.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes 24 cookies

Inspired by Joy the Baker

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside.

Start by browning the butter. In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Once the butter has melted completely, it will begin to foam and froth as it cooks. The butter will also crackle and pop. That’s the water cooking out of the butter. Swirl the pan occasionally, and keep an eye on the melted butter. The butter will become very fragrant and brown bits will begin to form at the bottom of the pan. Once the bits are an amber brown, immediately remove pan from the heat and pour browned butter (bits and all) into a small bowl. Leaving the butter in the pan will burn it. Allow butter to cool for 20 minutes.

Wooo photo skills

In a large bowl, add the browned butter to the brown sugar. Cream until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.

Add the granulated sugar and cream for 2 minutes, until well incorporated. Add the egg and egg yolk and beat for 1 minute more.

Add the flour mixture, a third at a time. Use a spatula to fold in chocolate chips.

Chill dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Place racks in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop dough by the two tablespoonful onto prepared sheets. Be sure to leave about 2-inches of space between each cookie.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until cookies are golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes. Serve warm or allow to cool completely.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Makes 12 large muffins

From The Pioneer Woman

1 cup All-purpose Flour

1/2 cup Sugar
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon Salt
4 Tablespoons Butter, cut into pieces
1 cup (heaping) Pumpkin Puree
1/2 cup Evaporated Milk (or other milk)
1 whole Egg
1-1/2 teaspoon Vanilla
1/2 cup Golden Raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Generously grease a muffin tin.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Cut in butter with two knives or a pastry blender until it is fully incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Add raisins. Fold gently until mixture is just combined

Chocolate always helps

Pour into a greased muffin pan—batter hardly ever fills all twelve unless you keep it down to 1/2 full. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon-sugar-nutmeg mixture over the top of each unbaked muffin.
Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove and allow to cool.

Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a large bowl cream the sugar and butter. Once creamed, add the egg followed by the shredded apple. Stir in the vanilla.
In a separate bowl, mix the baking powder, flour, cinnamon and salt. Add to the wet batter, one half at a time. Finally, fold in the nuts.
On a large baking sheet drop a tablespoon size of batter, no more than 12 cookies to a sheet. Sometimes it is easier to stick the batter in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. This allows for less sticky measuring and scooping of the dough.
It is essential to bake these cookies for a full 14 minutes. The tops will be golden. Mushy-in-the-middle apple cookies are no good! As long as the tops are a light gold, the cookies are fully done.
While the first batch of cookies are baking, combine the remaining sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. When the first cookies come out of the oven, sprinkle the tops with the sugar-cinnamon mix. The warmth of the freshly basked cookies allows the sugar-cinnamon mix to stick! (yum!)
Let the cookies sit for a minute then transfer them to a cooling rack.
– See more at: http://bakeperfectcookies.com/how-to-make-cinnamon-apple-cookies/#sthash.YP2H6xlR.dpuf

¾ cup butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 ½ cup shredded apples (one very large apple or 2 smallish apples)
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 ½ cups flour, white unbleached
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. salt
1 cup chopped nuts (note: I measure the nuts after I chop them)
2 Tbs. sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
– See more at: http://bakeperfectcookies.com/how-to-make-cinnamon-apple-cookies/#sthash.YP2H6xlR.dpuf

The Rubber Scraper Movement

Eating and baking my way into the food media world, one crumbless bowl at a time

Tag: cookies