My summer job is being a summer student in a lab at the BC Children's Hospital. Our lab researches new treatments for leukemia and also how to make bone marrow transplants less harmful to the kids. A couple nights ago, I was in a baking mood and tossed these together and brought them to work yesterday.
Wonderful Doctor N I work with sat down to prep an experiment she was going to do later in the day and says.
"You just received a nice compliment from Dr. S_____ . . .
On how I'm such a promising scientist?
On how I'm going to be a great doctor?
Really?
. . . On those cookies you brought."
Though I do love compliments on my career potential (Once a prof at school said that I "cut well" when we were dissecting, it pretty much made my day), compliments on my baking pretty great too.
Even if its past midnight. Even if I'm tired. Even if I still have exams left that cover 10 months and 700+ pages of material.
I just need to, it's like therapy. I don't know what's so therapeutic about trying to cream butter without a mixeror working with measuring spoons that are less than accurate, but it is. It just is.
At least my friends don't seem to mind. . .
Butterfly Sugar Cookies
Yield: 6-7 dozen (I lost count)
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking soda
3 cups flour
Cream butter and sugar
Add egg and vanilla and mix
Alternate adding dry ingredients and milk and mix well
Chill dough in the fridge for at least an hour
Preset oven to 375F, Roll out dough to no thicker than 1/4" and cut out with cookie-cutters
I bake to stay sane, I bake for the people around me, I bake to experiment with new ingredients and techniques. But sometimes, the things I bake make me laugh.
I awoke this morning set on the idea that I would bake blookies. Blondies + cookies = blookies, chewy golden brown cookies with crunchy toffee bits. Throughout my whole ab workout I thought about how I was going to make them, how they would look, what ingredients I would use. I had this idea in mind that I would roll the dough in the Skor candy bits and then bake them to create a crunchy toffee crust. Doesn't that sound great? It did to me.
This is what came out of the oven.
Cookies that looked like toffee termites had settled in, began tunnelling and built a toffee puddle moat.
And that's when I was laughed and remembered what this blog was all about, the misadventures of a college girl and her oven. I remembered what I have forgotten for a while now, that it wasn't about trying to take foodgawker worthy pictures and getting more page hits than the day before. I had started this blog to document my hobby, both the ups and downs and I'm happy that my misadventure this morning served as a reminder.
So here you go ladies and gentlemen, readers, a post, as advertised.
PS A more aesthetically pleasing version of these cookies are pictured below, bake them without the toffee and then drizzle with chocolate and sprinkle with the toffee bits.
I always wonder what Christmas is like in the Southern hemisphere. Does Starbucks still sell peppermint hot chocolate? Does the term 'White Christmas' conjure thoughts of a day spent on a white sandy Australian beach instead of waking up to a white blanket of snow? But more importantly, do they still bake cookies?! Or is it too hot out to turn on the oven comfortably?
Though I love gingersnaps and gingerbread as much as anyone, it always seems rather inappropriate to be baking Christmas cookies until at least November. It's a shame because I missed out on making peanut blossoms this year and it's still seven months until November. And frankly, I don't have the patience to wait seven months to enjoy Hershey Kiss topped cookies.
This is why I decided to summer-ize the holiday classic by making graham blossoms. Graham crackers are used to make s'mores, which are eaten when camping, which happens in the summer. It's seasonally appropriate, I promise.
I blame my parents for my early exposure to Nutella and resultant lifelong addiction to hazelnuts. I put hazelnuts in my oatmeal almost every morning and at every gelateria, I choose hazelnut (it was most crushing when I was in Vienna a couple summers ago and they didn't have it, but then again maybe they did and I just couldn't decipher it from the German menu).
Last week I headed to my favorite bulk foods store and picked up a large bag of raw hazelnuts, with many delicious bowls of oatmeal in mind. But then I dug up this recipe that's been on my computer for a while. It was a recipe for hazelnut cookies with only 5 ingredients and were super simple, surely it was worth some of my stash.
So I followed along the recipe, I roasted, peeled, chopped and threw it all into my magic bullet (food processors are for adults, college kids get magic bullets). This is the part where I neglected a user comment that said not to try to make these without a food processor. I had been making food processor recipes all this time with my magic bullet, hummus, peanut butter, lemon bars, Mr. Bullet had tackled them all, until now. My cookie dough just wouldn't come together. I rolled it into logs the best I could and hoped that it would all come together while chilling in the fridge.
Unfortunately my cross-fingered prayers to the baked good deities were not heard and I was met with a colder version of the crumbly mess I had stuck in the fridge. Maybe leaving them overnight would work?
Since I've now become a morning person (I bet it was the oatmeal), I was up with well enough time to bake before my first class, which was when plan B came to mind. I should just press it all into a pan and make shortbread! And that was exactly what I did, and we all lived happily ever after. The End.
It is often said that you get what you pay for and that quality will cost you. But when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, does that still hold true?
Showdown
Chocolate chip cookies are one of those things that are always good. Even when they're bad, they're good, unless of course you burn them. But even then they might still be pretty good. So would I be splitting hairs if I set out to find the 'better' chocolate chip cookie? Probably, but that's no reason not to.
In my freezer I had two bags of chocolate chips. One was Trader Joe's house brand, which costs about $2.50. The other was from San Francisco chocolatier Guittard, which costs about $5. Both are semi-sweet, perfect for cookies and both came with recipes printed on the back.
Guittard calls its recipe 'THE ORIGINAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE' (yes, actually in capital letters) while TJ's modestly titled its as 'Chocolate Chip Cookies'. The truth is, both recipes were exactly the same except for the ratio between brown and white sugar. Another thing is that folks at Guittard like little baby cookies, because their recipe claims to yield seven dozen, while TJ's, two.
Comparing the chips alone, Guittard's are a clear winner. Their chips just taste smoother and with less in-your-face sweetness. But then again, this is a chocolate chip cookie test so I had to see how they'd compare when engulfed by dough.
I suppose the fairest way to have done this was to add each chip to its respective advertised dough recipe, but they differ so little and I personally really like brown sugar, so I chose TJ's recipe. I made the dough as directed and then divided it into two separate bowls before adding the chips. I then scooped out the dough with a level tablespoon and refrigerated it for an hour (apparently cookies are better if you let the flavours 'marinate', the NY Times said so). They were baked side to side for consistency (This is serious science).
Once they were all baked, cooled and anonymised, I set out to gather some data. Unlike most scientific studies, this was easy to recruit subjects for. All I had to do was offer people a cookie with one catch, they had to take TWO cookies. It was really hard, really.
I got quite a few interesting guesses on what was different between the two batches. "This one's store bought and this one you baked!" No. "These have sea salt" No. It was great fun.
The results:
TJ's: 7
Guittard: 11
Can you guess which is which?
I guess money does buy quality. But the numbers are pretty close, so I have other suspicions. First, you have to watch this:
Ok, watched it? I think chocolate chips are like Malcolm Gladwell's spaghetti sauce. There's no perfect chip, only perfect chips, as he would put it. Personally I liked the 'cheaper' cookie, I think the sweeter TJ's chips worked better because the cookie itself was quite sweet and they needed the sweeter chip to be able to stand out. On the other hand, one of my friend's like the more subtle Guittard chip and thinks its because she doesn't really like things that are over sweet. I guess my chocolate chip palate isn't so refined, but I am perfectly ok with that.
And yes, this post has a larger word count that the current state of the real lab report I have to hand in soon. Ugh, school.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
From the TJ's bag (This is half the recipe)
Yield: 6-7 dozen baby cookies
1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter, softended
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg (I replaced this with 1 tablespoon ground flax + 3 tablespoons water)
1 cup chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 375F
Cream butter and sugars. Add vanilla and egg.
Mix all dry ingredients and add to wet.
Scoop the dough in spoonfuls and refrigerate for as long as you can resist (Make sure you scoop then refrigerate, its really hard to do it the other way around)
March 1st was the day my beloved cousin AP was born. It is also the day that Bosnia and Herzegovina declared their independence in 1992 and the birthday of Justin Bieber (perhaps you've heard of him?). But more importantly, it is National Peanut Butter Lovers' Day!
This comes to me as a shock because I've lived all these years under the impression that everyday was PB lovers' day. Surely a dip/spread/stand-alone meal as delicious as PB deserves more than one day a year to celebrate its many fans. But I guess when there's only 365 days in year and you're competing with World Nutella Day (Feb 5th) and National Chocolate Chip Cookie day (May 15th), you'll have to settle for the first day of March.
I celebrated by abandoning my anatomy notes and baking up these marbleised PB Chocolate cookies. I needed somewhere to start so they're loosely based upon this widely acclaimed recipe from allrecipes.
These turned out chewy and wonderful and I have to constantly remind myself not to offer any to my nut-allergic roommate PB (love how ironic her initials are). The only disappointment I have now is how I have 1/2 cup less of peanut butter in my cupboard than before.
There are 4 times a year when it is beyond reproach to eat copious amounts of sweet things. They are Christmas, Halloween, Easter and of course, Valentines day. As a soph (like an RA, except less rule-abiding), I get to mentor around 100 frosh. The froshies had planned a Valentines cookie decorating date for Sunday afternoon and I was obviously eager to do the baking. Good sophs don't let frosh eat store bought cookies. . .
According to my notes, this recipe made for 2 dozen medium sized 'star' cookies so I decided to double it to get 30-ish large heart cookies. Either my 'star' cookies of yesteryear were really tiny or I'm not very good at counting, because I ended up having to quadruple the recipe to have enough for the frosh a few for the roommates. The recipe below is 1/4 of what I actually made and was adapted from one on cookingnook. Also, this is a great one for when you don't have a few consecutive hours to bake because they need chill time in the fridge anyway, leaving you at least an hour to get some laundry done, or take a nap in my case.
Happy Valentines Day,
CollegeBakerGirl
Sugar Cookies
Yield: 12 large cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 egg (use the other half to make yourself some French toast)
3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Cream butter and sugar
Add egg and vanilla and mix
Alternate adding dry ingredients and milk and mix well
Chill dough in the fridge for at least an hour
Preset oven to 375F, Roll out dough to no thicker than 1/4" and cut out with cookie-cutters
Bake for 8-9 minutes
Per large cookie:
151 calories | 8.2g sugar | 7.8g fat
Update: From the words of an eloquent froshie: "They were like moist, yielding with just the right amount of crumbing.
The concept of frozen milk with added sugar always seemed like an odd thing to eat for dessert to me, but through some food chemistry reasons I will never understand, ice cream is absolutely and always delectable. And though I would like to eat it as if it were its own food group, the fact that were hovering around -25C windchill right now makes it slightly less acceptable to be eating it all the time. No matter, I'll just eat my ice cream in cookie form!
These were a bit of an experiment so the recipe below includes my suggestions of increasing the almonds, reducing the oats, and reducing the baking time for chewier cookies. Alternatively you can just store them with a muffin or slice of bread, which will soften them right up.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (165 degrees C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture until just blended. Mix in the quick oats, almonds, and chocolate chips. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets.
Bake for 9-10 minutes in the preheated oven.
Straight out of the oven, press marshmallows onto cookie, return to oven for a minute until slightly melted
My good friend SP requested my baking skills last week as she was planning to make a 'cupcake castle' for a friend's 21st birthday. Though I had no idea what exactly a 'cupcake castle' was, I was glad to help. This was under the assumption that she wanted help with the cupcake part, and not so much the castle part as I'm quite sure castles aren't exactly my area of expertise. Since I was going over to bake anyways, I thought that we may as well make it bakefest and baked up something too.
The copious amounts of oranges I've been consuming in the form of smoothies recently was the inspiration for these cookies. And since chocolate is good in almost anything. . . Chocolate orange cookies were an obvious choice.
This recipe is loosely based on another chocolate cookie I made during our December exam period. I also made them as freeze-and-bake style cookies as I realised that this was much faster than to scoop out individual portions of dough. Besides, this makes for very aesthetically pleasing perfectly circular cookies. This recipe makes for many many cookies (I ended up with 114) but the dough can be kept frozen until your next craving, which is another great thing about freeze-and-bake cookies.
This one is definitely going in the 'favourites' pile. They are thin and crispy and taste just like those chocolate oranges that you smash before eating. Except better.
According to a very reliable source (i.e. Wikipedia), butterscotch was traditionally made with one pound each of butter and sugar, and a quarter pound of a sugary syrup known as treacle, which I’ve never even heard of. Regardless, I knew that this toffee-coloured little piece of heaven was too good to pass up when I saw bags of butterscotch chips displayed at the store while I was home for the holidays. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but then again, I buy most of my baking ingredients without a specific goal in mind.I like to let the ingredients guide me to my creations.
In search of a recipe to use my new find, I came across countless recipes for some horrendous concoction involving coloured marshmallows and peanut butter (which my sister actually enjoys quite a lot) and many others that would involve melting the chips to use the butterscotch flavour to complement something else. But this would not do, if I was going to bake with these, they were going to have play the leading role.Finally I found this interesting recipe for cookies that have crisped rice cereal in them and deemed it worthy of my precious butterscotch chips.
These came out deliciously light and airy thanks to the cereal, a perfect platform for sinfully sweet butterscotch. If it’s any representation of how good they are, I’ve eaten about four in the last hour. I made some alterations to the original recipe and made sure to mix carefully near the end so the cereal wouldn’t get pulverised to a dusty mess. I suggest you do the same, unless a dusty mess is what you’re looking for.
After eating quite a few these delicious cookies from President’s Choice and deciding that the thin Chocolate Coconut kind were my favorite (see below), I’ve set out to create the perfect Chocolate Coconut Marshmallow Sandwich. I optimistically thought that I would be able to do this with one go, but it appears that this experiment is still a work in progress. Here’s a summary of attempt 1 and 2! Also, thanks to the all-consuming huge lab report I have due next week, I currently only know how to write in the form of lab reports. So here it is!
Objective:
Thin crispy chocolate coconut cookies with marshmallow centre
ATTEMPT #1 (January 2, 2011)
Reagents and materials:
2 1/4 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tbsp water
3/4 cup cocoa
2/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup butter
18 large marshmallows
Methods:
Oven was preheated to 350F.
Butter and sugar were creamed and vanilla added, followed by milk and water.
Dry ingredients were then added and mixed until a homogenous dough was formed.
Level teaspoons (small cookies)and tablespoons (large cookies) of dough were distrubuted onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and baked as follows.Tbsp: 8 min; Tsp: 6 min
Half a marshmallow was then placed on cookie halves and broiled until marshmallow was lightly browned, another cookie half was placed atop immediately out of the oven to form sandwiches
Results: 3 dozen thick soft cookies with theright level of sweetness, needs more coconut
Future Experiments: Try more baking time and more liquid (more water, less milk) to get flatter cookies.
