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Chewy Molasses Cookies

December 9, 2014 by Renee

Easy Molasses CookiesChristmas came early for me this year in the form of a brand new range. Yay! Finally! After surviving two years of Thanksgiving dinners saved by the Wolfgang Puck Convection Oven and a series of rather scary explosions every time the oven tried to preheat (the oven door is not supposed to blow open, right?) I finally said “I’m done!” and I went online to seriously research a new oven.

I had dreams of upgrading to a Wolf or a Viking 36″ range with 6 burners and the grill/griddle. (I’d have loved the 48″ range too, but my kitchen is just too small for that.) I had these dreams for a long time. But after talking to several people who have one of those high end ranges, I decided they just didn’t have all the features I wanted and that I could get so much more for half the price. I opted to be practical. After all, two of the three kids are getting braces this year and we have a family trip to Italy planned, not to mention the renovations that I have planned.  So, I read all of the reviews for nearly every stove out there over the course of the holiday weekend and on the Sunday after Black Friday I made my purchase.  It’s a Samsung 30″ slide in range with a convection oven. It has all the bells and whistles, I could honestly jump for joy I am so happy.  

Here it is (a blurry iPhone photo- never mind the ugly floor- it’s going the way of my old range soon too!)

The Stove

It arrived on Saturday and I’ve been baking every day since.

So I thought we’d continue the celebration with a few of my favorite cookie recipes this week that are perfect to keep or to share.

Start the holiday cookie making with these incredibly easy but addicting Chewy Molasses Cookies recipe. Soft and chewy in the middle with a crispy edge, they melt in your mouth!Their cinnamon, clove and ginger goodness will make you feel warm all over! Mix up a double batch because they will go quick.

Chewy Molasses Cookies
 
Print
Author: Renee
Recipe type: Cookie
Ingredients
  • ¾ cup Butter, softened
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • ¼ cup molasses
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground cloves
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • ½ cup white sugar
Method
  1. In a medium mixing bowl, cream together butter, brown sugar and egg until smooth.
  2. Add the molasses. Set aside.
  3. In a large mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves and ginger.
  4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.
  5. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.
  6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and remove the dough from the fridge.
  7. If the dough seems overly sticky, add more flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together and it can form into a ball that holds it's shape.
  8. Place the white sugar in a shallow bowl or on a plate with a rim.
  9. Roll the dough into two inch balls and roll them around in the white sugar to coat.
  10. Place cookies unto an ungreased cookie sheet spaced about 2 inches apart.
  11. Bake 8 to 10 minutes until the tops are just cracked. For an even chewier cookie, bake a little less- maybe 7 minutes.
  12. Cool completely on a wire rack. Makes about 2 dozen.
3.2.2885

Easy Molasses Cookies-2

 

Filed Under: Eat, Desserts Tagged With: Cookies, Molasses

It’s National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day- Tips for Perfect Cookies

May 15, 2014 by Renee

Today, May 15th,  is National Chocolate Chip Day! Chocolate chips are an essential ingredient in dozens of delicious treats—from chocolate chip pancakes, chocolate chip muffins, chocolate chip brownies, to chocolate chip ice cream and so much more! But it’s the humble chocolate chip cookie that takes the lead and is the star among chocolate chip uses.

In the 1930s, Ruth Graves Wakefield created the original chocolate chip cookie at her Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. Ruth intended to bake chocolate cookies for her guests, but she ran out of baker’s chocolate. She substituted with chopped up semi-sweet chocolate morsels and discovered that the pieces did not melt into the dough as she expected. Her cookies were an instant hit. Today, nearly 1/3 of all the cookies baked in the United States are chocolate chip!

I was thinking of recipes I could use and while the Almost Healthy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies are the ones I usually make (and is one of the first recipes I posted here on the blog way back when), I also dreamt of Dulce de leche chocolate chip cookies as well as a salted caramel bacon chocolate chip cookie or even a gooey chocolate chip cookie pie. But no matter how exotic, outrageous or trendy a recipe I thought of, the best chocolate chip cookie remains the unadulterated one. A simple chocolate chip cookie with a glass of milk is the most satisfying.  And that’s exactly what I made.

In honor of the holiday, Nielsen-Massey sent me a bottle of their Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract to help make my chocolate chip cookies even that much better than they already are.

NMV-Mad-8-oz-small

Nielsen-Massey really stands apart from other vanilla producers . In the December issue of Bon Appétit, the magazine listed 50 products in four categories that “will upgrade every aspect of your culinary life, guaranteed” and awarded  the Bon Appétit Seal of Approval to Nielsen-Massey’s Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract for Best Vanilla Extract.

Nielsen-Massey takes hand-selected vanilla beans that have been cultivated on the Bourbon Island of Madagascar, and using their proprietary cold extraction process gently draws out and preserves the vanilla’s over 300 flavor compounds. This method produces  a sweet, nutty and mellow vanilla flavor with velvety after-tones making it the perfect “all purpose” vanilla extract.

During the research I also learned  that one tablespoon of vanilla extract is equivalent to one vanilla bean. That’s a fact I actually never knew before.

Batch One: FAIL! 

For some reason, but perhaps maybe the fact that it was 10pm when I started and I was barely awake and feeling lazy, the first batch was a complete visual fail. The cookies were flat- so flat that they looked more like pancakes than cookies. They were nearly sheer. On the plus side, they still tasted great and the littles don’t mind eating the failures.  (Neither did I as a midnight snack!)

Here’s where I think I went wrong-the butter was too melted, the dough was too wet and my oven temperature was too low (I need to buy an oven thermometer (read: new oven!) as it’s been wonky for a while now). I know better. I should have only melted half of the butter, and then I should not have overworked the butter, sugar and eggs with the mixer.  Finally and probably the most important part, I should have added more flour when I saw that the dough was not the right consistency and too wet.

I probably should have chilled the dough too. But I didn’t and the flour did not have the time it needed to absorb the moisture and let the gluten relax. But perhaps that may not have even mattered as I didn’t have enough flour to start with. I’ll be honest and say that I only chill the dough on occasion, but I do find it is easier to work with when it’s cold. So there is obviously some argument to support that theory.  But when it’s late and you just really want the instant gratification of cookies this is a step that is often skipped.

For the second batch, more flour was added as were more chunks and chips and the oven temperature was raised.  I love a gooey, melty chocolate chip cookie and every bite should have both a crisp outside and a soft middle. Happy to report that this batch turned out perfectly. Those small things really make a difference.

After the second batch, it was well past my bedtime so I put the rest of the dough in the fridge.  Tonight, I’ll be making the rest. This will probably be the best batch.

Here are some tips in mind when making your own perfect chocolate chip cookies:

Use the best ingredients you can afford. Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract and Ghirardelli Chocolate Chips are a great place to start. I always like to add chunks of chocolate too. Use a fine dark chocolate bar and chop it into small chunks. I prefer Michel Cluizel but Lindt will do when I haven’t stocked up- and you can always sneak a piece for yourself too.

Start with room temperature ingredients. Use salted butter and only melt half of the butter, this will help your consistency stay a bit firmer as you cream the sugars and eggs together.

It’s best to add the flour by hand and just mix it until the dough comes together and pulls away from the side of the bowl. If it’s too wet, then add more flour a tablespoon at a time. But don’t overwork your dough.

Add the chocolate chips and chunks last. Reserve some to press into the tops of the balls right before they go into the oven. You want the tops to look extra chocolatey!

This is a maybe tip- refrigerate your dough for at least an hour if not overnight. I know you “should”, and I know the cookies “usually” come out better then, but really, who wants to wait that long? So you can take that one or leave it. Up to you!

You may use a scoop if you’d like but I prefer to roll the dough into balls by hand.  They always come out perfectly round when you do it this way and it’s one less gadget in your drawer and one less thing to wash.

Try to use a Silpat mat or parchment to line your trays. One, it keeps your trays in better shape and two, it helps keep the cookie bottoms from getting too dark before the tops get done.

And lastly,

Resist the urge to lift the cookies from the tray the moment they come out of the oven. This one is hard, because who doesn’t love cookies straight from the oven? Letting them rest a few minutes before moving them to a cooling rack lets them settle into themselves. Besides, boiling chocolate will really leave a nasty burn! The cooling air will help the bottoms crust a bit and the tops firm up so they don’t look like a Salvador Dali when you try to lift them with your spatula.

Best served warm with a big glass of ice cold milk.

Enjoy!

Salted Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies
 
Print
Prep time
15 mins
Cook time
11 mins
Total time
26 mins
 
Author: Renee
Ingredients
  • 2½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon sea salt (Maldon Sea Salt works great)
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, melt one stick, leave the other at room temperature
  • ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • ¾ cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract)
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1½ cups of chocolate chips
  • ½ cup fine dark chocolate, chopped into bits
Method
  1. Mix the flour, baking soda and sea salt in a small bowl. Set aside.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and pure vanilla extract until creamy.
  3. Add the eggs, one at a time and just mix to incorporate them into the butter and sugar.
  4. Remove the bowl from the mixer and add the flour while stirring with a large spoon or fork. Mix well but just until the flour is absorbed.
  5. Add the chocolate chips and chocolate chunks, reserving ¼ cup to add to the tops of the cookies right before baking. Mix in the chips and chunks but don’t overwork your dough.
  6. At this point, you may either refrigerate the dough for an hour (or overnight) or shape the dough into round small round balls for baking.
  7. Preheat Oven to 375 degrees F.
  8. Prepare your cookie trays by lining them with a Silpat or parchment.
  9. Form round balls by rolling the dough in your hands. Place the balls of dough on the trays about 3” apart. (I usually get a dozen on one pan.)
  10. Press some of the chocolate chips and chunks gently into the top of your balls of dough without pressing them down too much.
  11. Bake 9-11 minutes or until the tops just start to brown from the bottoms upwards. Remove from the oven and cool on the trays for 2 minutes before removing them to wire racks to cool.
Notes
Variations: I prefer purely chocolate cookies, I don't add nuts or dried fruits but you may choose to do so- add ¼ to ½ cup of your favorites at the same time you add the chocolate.

You can also make this recipe into bars by using a 10 x 15-inch pan and baking for 20-25 minutes.
3.2.1310

Chocolate Chip Cookies-1

Disclosure: I received a bottle of Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon Pure Vanilla Extract to try for this recipe. As always, all opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this post. Except that cookies are always good to make and I’d take them as compensation. 🙂

 

 

Filed Under: Eat, Kitchen Sink, Desserts, Product Reviews Tagged With: Chocolate Chip Cookies, Chocolate Chips, Nielsen-Massey, Recipe, Vanilla

Visitandine – French Fridays with Dorie

April 6, 2014 by Renee

Visitandine Cake

Visitandine Cake-2This week for French Friday’s with Dorie we made a Visitandine cake. A Visitandine cake is a delightful short crumb cake that is probably the precursor to the shortbread cakes we eat today and it’s quite similar to financiers, though not quite as spongy. This very simple cake originated in the convent of a community of French nuns called the Sisters of the Visitation, or the “Visitandines.”  I wonder what it would have meant to be visited by the nuns. I would guess that upon being served this cake, they would have easily won over whomever they visited for whatever purpose they wanted.

Normally, a very white cake, it suddenly takes on a deep, nutty flavor and brown hue when you take the opportunity to brown the butter. The scent alone of the cooking butter is enough to make you want to devour the cake the moment it emerges out of the oven.  But if you are patient and take a little time to macerate your berries with a bit of sugar and lemon juice and drizzle them over heaps of whipped cream sitting on top of layers of this cake, you will be most pleased with the result. It’s incredibly simple to make. And yet, it’s scrumptious and will be a huge hit with everyone you serve it to. Those nuns knew what they were doing. The table was cleared and ready for dessert in no time flat.

I will definitely be making this cake again (and not just to bribe the kids into submission) and will be sure to double the recipe as it disappeared quickly. Everyone really enjoyed it. And despite the butter and whipped cream, it’s really a rather healthy dessert. (Ok, maybe not, but it feels healthier!)  It would also be delicious with so many different toppings, not just berries, but lemon curd, apples, caramel, chocolate, peaches and even plums. It is a great base that would let you be very creative with it. I already have too many ideas for it!

Visitandine Cake-3

While I cannot share this delicious recipe, you can (and should!) buy the book and cook along with us. It’s great fun! Every Friday we make a new recipe. Looking forward to next weeks! For details and to see how others are recreating the dishes from this awesome book, check out the FFWD site.

Buy the book:

greenspan

frenchfridayswithdorie16

Filed Under: Eat, Kitchen Sink, Desserts, French Fridays with Dorie Tagged With: FFWD, French Fridays with Dorie, Sponge Cake, Tea Cake, Visitandine

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