Cake Batter Cookies

Do you ever see the 10 for $10 sales on boxed cake mixes at the grocery store? And then think, "hmm, that's a good deal but why would I ever need multiple boxes of cake mix?" Now of course I know that you don't have to buy 10 boxes to get them for $1, but sometimes I have a hard time passing up a good deal. Nonetheless, I usually skip by the cake mix sales, but now that I discovered these cookies I may have a harder time next sale.

These cookies would be perfect for a quick sweet tooth fix, or those nights you remember you are supposed to bring treats to school or work. They are super easy to throw together and a lot easier to eat than a piece of cake! And while they taste a bit like cake (obviously), the addition of chocolate chips make them taste more like a traditional cookie.

Cake Batter Cookies
Source: All Recipes
Makes ~2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the cake mix and baking powder. Add eggs and oil; mix until well blended. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have finally returned to the land of the blog! The past two months have been a blur, between writing my clinical competency exam, writing parent assessments, spending time with Abby and Mason, keeping the house clean, weddings, friends, family etc. I have not had any spare time to blog my adventures. And honestly, the adventures were few and far between:/ But I'm back, with a backlog of things to post, so hopefully I can keep up!

Ah the chocolate chip cookie. So simple, so delicious, and yet they so easily snuck under my radar. I'm sure everyone has their go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, I mean a cookie is a cookie right? Wrong. Sorry mom, but these cookies beat out your recipe we have been making for years. 

The technique to these cookies is a bit untraditional based on other cookies I have seen/made. From what I gather from America's Test Kitchen, when the melted butter mixes with the dough, the flour proteins grab onto freed water molecules from the butter, forming elastic sheets of gluten. In other words, gluten=chewy cookie. Science aside, these are just damn good cookies. Thick, chewy and chocolate-y. Even if you have a go-to recipe already, I strongly urge you to give these a try and compare.

Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Adapted slightly from American Classics, from the editors of Cooks Illustrated

Ingredients:
2 cups plus 2 Tbls all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
12 Tbls unsalted butter, melted and cooled until just warm
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg plus one egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Adjust oven racks to upper and lower middle racks; heat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Whisk together dry ingredients.

3. By hand or with stand/electric mixer, beat melted butter and sugars until thoroughly combined. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla; mix until incorporated and smooth. Slowly add in dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Be careful to not overbeat. Add chocolate chips and stir to combine.

4. Roll a scant 1/2 cup dough into a ball. Holding dough ball in fingertips of both hands, pull the dough apart into two equal halves. Rotate the halves 90 degrees and place on baking sheet with jagged surfaces up, leaving enough room between each ball.

5. Bake for 11-14, rotating baking sheets halfway through baking, until outer edges start to harden but centers are still soft and puffy. Cool cookies on baking sheet until they can be moved to cooling rack without breaking.

Do-Si-Dos

Who doesn't love girl scout cookie season?! What I don't love though, is how expensive they are these days. Of course we'll continue to buy a few boxes when we can to support the cause, but it's also fun to make your own, and know that you can have them any time of the year. Sadly, we didn't buy any do-si-dos this year so I don't have anything to compare these cookies to, but if my memory serves me right, they are pretty darn close to the real thing. The cookie is very light and crunchy, and the smooth filling really ties the whole thing together. These are very far from being figure-friendly, so I tried to give away as much as I could, but they are a fun treat to hand out.

This recipe is kind of time consuming from start to finish because to be authentic, the cookies must be small and you have to make a lot of cookies in order to get roughly 48 sandwiches. However, because they are so thin, the cookies take very little time to cool so you can start filling as you go.

Morgan wanted a treat too! I really wasn't teasing her, she just came running when she smelled food, but I left her have a little piece just because she's so cute.

Homemade Do-si-dos a.k.a. Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

Source: Adapted from Baking Bites

Cookies
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup chunky peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats (not instant or regular)

Filling
1 1/2 cups creamy peanut butter, room temperature
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 - 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar, taste as you add

Preheat oven to 350F.


Start with the cookies. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and peanut butter. Beat in the sugars until fluffy, then add in the eggs one at a time, waiting until each is fully incorporated before adding the next. Stir in vanilla extract.

Working at a low speed, mix in the flour, followed by the oats (if you don’t have quick-cooking, pulse whole rolled oats in the food processor to chop them up a bit).

On a parchment-lined baking sheet, drop teaspoonfuls of batter (roughly 3/4-in. sized balls), leaving about 2 inches between each to allow for spread.

Bake for about 10 minutes, until cookies are a light golden brown. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, making small holes in 1/2 of the cookies (for the tops of the sandwiches) before they set up. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once cookies have cooled, make the filling.

In a large bowl, cream together smooth peanut butter, butter and confectioners’ sugar until very smooth. Pour filling into pastry bag or quart size ziplock bag. Cut corner of bag and squeeze 1 tbsp. of filling into center of cookie and sandwich with the remaining halves. If you chose to make yours with GS-lookalike holes in some of the cookies, use these as the tops of the sandwiches.

Store in an airtight container.
Makes about 48 sandwich cookies.

Note: Use unsalted butter with this recipe, as different brands of peanut butter can vary hugely in salt content and it’s possible you’ll end up with a too-salty cookie with the salted butter, salted peanut butter and added salt. If you must use salted butter and are using brand of peanut butter that seems a bit salty, you can always reduce or eliminate the added salt. Personally, I like the salty sweet combination with peanut butter, but it’s only fair for me to give a little warning just in case!

Pistachio Chocolate Chip Cookies

I had to buy a bag of shelled pistachios for dinner, and because they were kind of pricey I wanted to find a way to use up the rest. I LOVE pistachios, but had never used them in cooking or baking before, but now I may have to find more ways to use them. I normally despise nuts in my chocolate chip cookies, but pistachios have more of a 'smooth' crunch than the typical crunch of other nuts, so they are a lovely addition that I will totally allow in my cookies in the future.

The original recipe calls for white chocolate, but since I didn't have any on hand I used a mix of bittersweet and semi-sweet chips. I think the white chocolate would be great though, possibly reminiscent of a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie?

Pistachio Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Adapted slightly from Simply Recipes

Ingredients
1 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of dark brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of kosher salt (regular salt will suffice)
1 cup of rolled oats
1 1/2 cups of coarsely chopped pistachios, raw and unsalted
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Cream the butter and sugars together on high speed for three minutes.

2. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and beat for 3 minutes, being sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing.

3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and rolled oats. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture slowly, being sure to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl once or twice to ensure even mixing.

4. Fold in the pistachios and white chocolate chips. Drop heaping teaspoonfuls onto parchment lined cookie sheets, add an extra pistachio or two on top of each bit of dough for decoration if desired.

5. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to set up on the cookie sheets before moving to a baking rack to cool completely.

Makes 6 dozen.

Cinnamon Sugar Biscotti

Sometimes there's nothing better than a hot cup of coffee in the morning. Add in one of these crunchy biscotti and you have the perfect breakfast. I've never made biscotti before, but it was surprisingly simple, and tasted as good as I imagined.

Cinnamon Sugar Biscotti
Source: Joy the Baker
makes about 24 cookies

2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
6 Tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla

For Topping:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 beaten egg (for brushing biscotti before baking)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and arrange two baking racks in the upper portion of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

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

Also whisk together the cinnamon and sugar for the topping and set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, fit with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the down and beat in the egg followed by the egg yolk. Beat in the vanilla extract.

Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter all at once. With the mixer or just with a spatula, bring all of the ingredients together until a somewhat stiff dough is formed.

Divide the dough in two on the two baking sheets. Shape each half of dough into a 9-inch long and 1 1/2-inch wide log. Brush with the beaten egg and sprinkle very generously with cinnamon sugar. Bake the two sheets on two different racks in the oven for 20 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheets for even baking and bake for 20-25 more minutes until golden and firm to the touch.

Remove from the oven but keep the oven on. Let biscotti cool until able to handle. Using a serrated knife, cut logs into 1/2-inch wide diagonal slices. Place biscotti cut side down on baking sheet and sprinkle with more cinnamon sugar. Bake again until pale golden, about 10-15 minutes.

Store in an airtight container for up to one week.

Crunchy Caramel Reeses Cookie Bars

Once again, Picky Palate posted an amazing recipe that I could not wait to make. If any of you watch the Food Network as often as I do, you may recognize the writer of this blog, Jenny, from a few recipe cook-off competitions they have had. It is also inspiring to see all the great recipes she has come up with, after starting out basically the way I am now!

But back to these bars. I made them to bring to class, and then brought the rest to Thanksgiving, and they were a hit! Perfect with a glass of milk or coffee, these are quite rich but so tasty.

Crunchy Caramel Reeses Cookie Bars

Source: Picky Palate

1 Roll Sugar Cookie Dough, Pillsbury (or use your favorite sugar cookie recipe)

1 Cup crushed pretzels
3 Cups mini Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, unwrapped
10 Kraft caramels, unwrapped
1 Tablespoon milk
1/2 Cup semi sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven 350 degrees F. Line a 8×8 baking dish with foil and spray with cooking spray. Cut cookie dough roll in half and press half into bottom of baking dish. Layer with pretzels. Cut PB cups in half and layer over pretzels. Melt caramels and milk in a microwave safe bowl until melted, about 1-2 minutes in microwave. Pour caramel over PB cups. With remaining cookie dough, crumble evenly over top PB cups. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Let cool completely. Melt chocolate chips in microwave until smooth, drizzle over top of bars.

9 bars

Chocolate Fudge Butterfinger Cookies

I whipped up these cookies a few weeks ago to bring over to our neighbors. Since moving in, Erin and Sam have been great to us, and when they invited us over for ribs one Sunday I wanted to bring a little treat for dessert. I had starred these in my google reader a few days before and knew immediately I had to make them. I mean, how could I pass up any recipe that incorporates my favorite candy bar?!

These cookies are amazing. They were fresh out of the oven when we made the trek across our lawn to Erin and Sam's house, so by dessert time they were still warm and full of fudgy goodness. The butterfinger taste is pretty subtle, but they almost melt into a caramel-like texture. I really can't wait to make these again.

Chocolate Fudge Butterfinger Cookies

Source: Picky Palate

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Cocoa Powder)
2 tsps. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 Full size Butterfinger Bars, crushed
1 1/2 Cups semi sweet chocolate chips


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and use a cookie sheet with a silpat liner.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Slowly add eggs and vanilla until well combined.

3. In another bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to wet ingredients then stir in crushed butterfinger and chocolate chips. Using a medium cookie scoop, drop by rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared cookie sheet.

4. Bake for 9-11 minutes, should still be soft in center. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

3 dozen cookies