Chewy Oatmeal Rocky Road Cookies

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.

Chewy Rocky Road Cookies
Adapted from Oatmeal Rocky Road Cookies
Yield: 5.5 dozen

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1-1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/4 molasses
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1-1/2 cups flour
• 2-3/4 cups rolled oats
• 1-1/4 cups almonds, roasted and chopped
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini marshmallows

1. Preset oven to 325F
2. Cream butter and sugar
3. Add molasses, eggs and vanilla, mix well
4. Add salt, baking soda and flour and stir
5. Mix in rolled oats, chocolate and almonds
6. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a lined or greased cookie sheet
7. Bake for 9-10 minutes
8. Immediately out of the oven, press marshmallows into cookie

Cocoa Roasted Almonds

I still remember the first time I went to Target. I remember all the types of foods that were there that we can't get up here in Canada. I know this probably seems odd to those of you reading from the states, but the thing is, Banana Nut Cheerios are kind of shocking to see for the first time when you've grown up under the impression that Cheerios are only sold in three flavours: regular, honey nut and multigrain.

Every time my family goes to down for some cross-border shopping we always make sure to import some of our favourite goodies from Target, American Costco (yes, we call it 'American' Costco), and Trader Joes. Goodies like my childhood favorite, Trix cereal, which isn't sold here anymore and, also plenty of nuts of every kind (Don't worry, nuts are sold in Canada too, they're just much cheaper in the states).

On a recent trip I picked up some cocoa roasted almonds since I remembered seeing them on the list of '125 Best Packaged Foods for Women' in my favorite magazine. They were delicious, but sadly, I have now run out and they contain artificial sweetener, yuck!

Fortunately, I have everything I need to make my own in my kitchen here at school because I've been craving them ever since I finished off my last pack.

This should last me until our next trip down south, maybe.

Cocoa Roasted Almonds
Yield: 2 cups

• 2 cups roasted almonds, cooled (see roasting instructions here)
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 3-4 teaspoons icing sugar
• generous pinch of salt
• 1 egg white (I used 2 teaspoons of meringue powder and 2 tablespoons of water instead)

1. Preset oven to 200F
2. Sift and mix cocoa, sugar and salt in a bowl large enough for the almonds, set aside (A large tupperware container would work well)
3. Toss almonds in egg white (I recommend a ziploc bagl, I made a huge mess with my plate-bowl contraption)
4. Add coated almonds to the dry mixture, cover and shake until well coated
5. Pour onto baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 20min

Almond Joy Smoothie

I am old. It feels like just yesterday that I arrived on campus, sleep deprived from the red-eye flight, knowing no one and extremely lost. But today I officially finished my last class of third year, thereby making me a little old lady, minus the little part. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but right now I think I just want to be in undergrad forever because the real world seems pretty scary.

Does the real world have cafes that offer 5 different types of dairy to put into your coffee? How about state-of-the-art gym's that I can enter with the swipe of my student card, gyms with smoothie joints with half-price Tuesdays? And professors that defer deadlines on 'compassionate grounds' when you drop your laptop and shatter the screen? I like my current world.

I think its best to brush away these panicky thoughts until at least halfway through fourth year by going to said card-swiping gym. Gyms are sacred places where you get to run, swim, elliptical away all that's concerning in the world. At the gym there are no exams, interviews, rejection letters, or the 'real' world to freak out about. At the gym it's just me, my 'Cardio <3' (I keep the <3 from my high school days for nostalgia) playlist, and the treadmill. I can handle that.

Another one of my favorite cure-all's are smoothies. There's really nothing more soothing than an icy drink that tastes like dessert. I had an epiphany yesterday afternoon that coconut, almonds and chocolate would make the perfect combination for one. You know, like an Almond Joy? Except I've never actually had an Almond Joy before, is it an American thing? Because if so, I'd like to know so I can grab a few on my next cross-border shopping trip. I'm hoping it'll taste like this so I don't have to rename my recipe and because this is delish!

Almond Joy Smoothie
Yield: 1 ~16oz. smoothie

• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 2 tablespoons cocoa
• 1/2 cup unsweetened dried coconut
• 1 small frozen banana
• water to adjust consistency
• handful chopped almonds
• Almond extract (I don't have any but I imagine it would be delicious)

1. Blend all ingredients except the almonds, it might take a while to get the coconut smooth
2. Top with almonds
3. Sip away the 'real' world

Week 9: Oatmeal Rocky Road Cookies

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.


Oatmeal Rocky Road Cookies

Yield: 66 cookies

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1.5 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2-3/4  cups rolled oats
• 1-1/4 cups roasted almonds, chopped (Roasting Instructions)
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini marshmallows

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. 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.
3. Bake for 9-10 minutes in the preheated oven.
4. Straight out of the oven, press marshmallows onto cookie, return to oven for a minute until slightly melted

Chocolate truffles-ish

What do pitted prunes, dried cranberries and almonds have in common other than being vaguely 'healthy' ? When you combine them you get something that tastes just like cookie dough.  Amazing? I know. I found this recipe after reading the food column in the National Post. The column's called 'Making love in the kitchen' and is written by nutritionist Meghan Telpner. Though I disagree with some of her strong views against additives like MSG, the recipes all seem pretty interesting and she had me at the word: Truffle. I halved and made a few changes to this recipe, both on purpose and by accident and I'm glad I did because these are little morsels of chocolate-y heaven. Next time I'm going to make them as directed.

Chocolate Truffles-ish
Yield: 31 truffles
1. 1 cup  almonds
2. 1/4 teaspoon  salt
3. 7 pitted dates
4. 2 tablespoons dried cranberries
5. 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
6. 1 tsp vanilla extract
7. 2 tablespoons honey
8. 1 tablespoon  water
9. 1/2 cup shredded coconut (separated)

1. Blend all ingredients except for 1/4 cup of the shredded coconut in a food processor (I used a magic bullet)
2. Scoop out teaspoons and roll in remaining coconut
3. Chill until firm
Per truffle:
47 calories | 2.2g sugar | 3.2g fat

Almond Biscotti

Looking at biscotti, you would never be able to tell how it’s made. And until recently, I just accepted the fact that it was a treat only to be enjoyed at fancy coffee shops, unreachable to us mere mortals who gladly shell out a few bucks for the crispy Italian cookie. Even after reading through recipes for it, the prospect of making biscotti still seemed daunting, I mean, anything that requires 3 trips into the oven must be difficult to make. But with the encouragement from my workout buddy MC, I was up for the challenge.

 

Though MC suggested a delicious sounding chocolate-walnut version, I was fearing that I was in danger of surpassing my family’s taste for chocolate treats. There can be too much of a good thing. Instead, I chose a classic, simple, unadulterated almond type from allrecipes (of course) (the original). I halved the recipe and ended up with 40 biscotti, just the right amount for Christmas dinner dessert and other guests we have passing by this week.

 

MC was right, it really wasn’t that difficult at all  to make. I wasn’t sure how much 4oz of almonds would be in terms of cups and spoons so I just added in a cup. The biscotti were a bit on the almond-y side, so 3/4 cup of almonds should suffice next time. I also didn’t have any anise extract but they still tasted delicious. I only had medium eggs on hand so I replaced the prescribed 3 large with 4 medium. And for some reason, we were either out of baking powder (or I just couldn’t find it), so I replaced it with 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda (the internet told me that’s what I should do).

The almonds we had at home were raw, which means I had to roast them myself. This was pretty easy as I looked up some instructions online. I spread them out on a cookie sheet, sprayed them with a bit of cooking spray and stuck them in the oven (which was already preset to 350F) until they smelled…roasted?  In hindsight, I probably over-roasted them a bit. But they weren’t burnt so that’s ok.

Since I couldn’t fit all the biscotti onto a single cookie sheet, I had to place the two cookie sheets on the upper and lower rack of the oven. This resulted in the bottoms of one batch burning a bit while they were toasting (oven trip #2), so I’ll be sure to alternate them more frequently next time.

I also melted a few white chocolate moulding wafers (little disks of chocolate) and drizzled the tops of some of them, which looked quite nice. Everyone who’s tried them so far say that they taste just like the real thing, so all in all, I’d say this was a pretty successful first attempt at biscotti.

 

Almond Biscotti

Yield: 40 Biscotti

• 1/3 cup + a bit (i.e. Half of 3/4 cup) butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 4 medium (or 3 large) eggs
• 1 teaspoon anise extract (I didn’t put any but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (I used 1/2 tsp baking soda)
• 3/4 cup chopped roasted almonds (or whatever 4oz is)
• 20 white chocolate moulding wafers (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time; beat until fluffy. Stir in the anise and vanilla extracts. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; Add them to the egg mixture along with the chopped almonds. Stir with a spoon and as the dough comes together, Knead by hand.
3. Divide the dough into 2 parts. Roll each piece into a log about 15 inches long. Place logs onto cookie sheets, 2 to a sheet, the long way. Flatten the logs out until they are about 3 inches wide with a slight hump going down the middle. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, loaves should be firm. Cut the loaves into diagonal slices 1/2 inch wide, place the slices onto the cookie sheets and return to the oven. Toast on one side, then turn them over to do the other side. This will take about 7 to 10 minutes.
4. Allow to cool completely
5. Melt chocolate in a small ziploc bag in the microwave ~20-30 seconds, snip off corner and drizzle over biscotti

Almond roasting instructions, if needed

1. Spread almonds onto a cookie sheet in a single layer
2. Lightly spray with cookie spray
3. Bake in 350F oven for ~5 minutes (until the ‘look’ and smell roasted)
4. Allow to cool slightly and chop

Per cookie (without drizzle):
80 calories | 3.75g sugar | 3.5g fat