TWD: Pecan Powder Puffs

Pecan Powder Puffs, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Pecan Sandie... This cookie is called many different things, but regardless of the name it is delicious. Tender, melt in your mouth cookie speckled with ground pecans, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Yummmm... You can't eat just one.



Mixing these cookies was quick and easy, especially since I took Dorie' suggestion and mixed the dough in a food processor.



But I did have a little trouble with the baking. I chilled the dough for about 3 hours, but I guess my hot little hands softened the butter as I formed the balls. The cookies spread like crazy. Poor little Pecan Powder Pancakes.



For the second batch I rolled the dough into the little balls first and then chilled them for a few hours. This time they baked up perfectly round little domes of puffy pecan delights.



I baked these gems for my Mom's 77th Birthday on March 20th. She got a laugh from the 77 candles I had on her cake. She had no trouble blowing them all out, and no, the smoke alarm did not go off.

TWD: Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

This week’s Tuesday with Dorie was selected by Donna of Life’s Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First.

Now I’m not a fan of coffee flavored desserts, but these weren’t half bad. A little less coffee/espresso and a little more sugar and these chocolate shortbread cookies would have been perfect for my coffee-adverse taste-buds.



And I was really WOWed by the tip about rolling out the stick dough in a zip-lock bag. Why has it taken me 40+ years to learn that trick? Thanks Dorie, I’m always learning something new from you.



Update on the job front: Only one week till I start my new job!!! Yea!!!

I’ve been working as a “temp” since I was laid off in June. It is/was a good job except for the fact it offered no benefits. And being uninsured really had me worried. I must have had a hundred nightmares about getting into a car accident and having to pay hospital bills out of pocket! Yikes! Come on September 7, I need a good night's sleep.

Triple Chocolate Chip - Chocolate Almond Cookies

Every morning I run on the treadmill and while I'm sweating and panting and cursing my fat thighs I watch cooking shows. Go figure. The other day I watched an Ina Garten - Barefoot Contessa episode entitled Baking Basics. She baked some soda bread and some savory palmiers, but then Kathleen King, of Tate's Bake Shop, came on and together they baked Double Chocolate Almond Cookies. Oh-la-la. As soon as the treadmill timer hit 30 minutes I hopped off that torture device and started yanking ingredients out of the pantry. (No wonder I can't lose any weight, I get off the treadmill and bake cookies!)


But before I actually started to bake I pulled up the recipe on the Food Network web site and read all the reviews. Yes, all of them. Most people LOVED the cookies, but a few complained that the dough was dry and the finished cookies were crumbly. One reviewer suggested adding another egg to the recipe, and another suggested reducing the amount of flour.

I took all the comments to heart and adjusted Kathleen King's recipe slightly. My final cookies were wonderful. Everyone agreed that they were the best chocolate-chocolate chip cookies ever. Thank you Kathleen and Ina, this has become my new Go-To chocolate-chocolate chip cookie recipe.




Triple Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Almond Cookies
Adapted from Kathleen King's Double Chocolate Almond Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 -1/3 cups all-purpose flour
( IMPORTANT, sift the flour and then measure, if you don't sift you will use too much flour and the cookies will be dry)
• 3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
(I used Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa, it give the cookie dough a pitch black color)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
(Kathleen's recipe called for 3/4 tsp, but I used unsalted butter so I upped this a little)
• 1 -1/4 cups (2 -1/2 sticks) UNSALTED butter, softened to room temperature
(Kathleen used salted butter, but I only had unsalted butter in the house. I upped the amount of salt accordingly.)
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
( I added another egg to combat cookie dough dryness)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup milk chocolate chips
(I decreased the volume of semisweet chips and added some milk chocolate. I think the lighter color of the milk chocolate really stands out against the dark cookie dough)
• 1 cup almonds, toasted and chopped


Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugars. Add the eggs one at a time mixing until the yolk disappear. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.

Add the flour mixture and continue mixing on low just until combined.

Add the chocolates and almonds and using a spatula mix until combined.

Using a small ice cream scoop (2 Tablespoon size), drop the dough two inches apart on sheet pans lined with parchment. Note: the cookies don't flatten or spread very much so if you like flatter cookies press the ball of cookie dough down with moist finger tips.

Bake for 12-15 minutes. (My convection oven runs hot, so I only baked my cookies for 12 minutes. The outsides were crispy and the insides were soft and chewy.)

Cool the cookies on the cookie sheets. The cookies should be very soft when they are removed from the oven. They will firm up as they cool.

Cinnamon Bun Cookies

Something that had long been on my baking "To Do" list were Cinnamon Bun Cookies. The name alone is enough to fill my nose with remembered scents of yeast, cinnamon and sugar. Ahhh Cinnabon where art thou?


But despite my fevered anticipation (or may be because of it), my Cinnamon Bun Cookie experience was not up to par. I had both assembly and baking issues, and honestly I just didn't think they tasted all that great. I thought there was too much cinnamon and the cookie part was kinda bland.

So now the recap:

The dough was easy to prepare. Here I am rolling it to 1/8" thickness between two sheets of waxed paper. Since discovering this method a few months ago I have never gone back to "floured surface" method. Using the wax or parchment paper eliminates the mess, the sticking, and the real hazard of adding too much additional flour to the cookie dough.


Here is the dough topped with its cinnamon-sugar filling. Notice how close I have the cinnamon-sugar to the long edge of the dough. Uh-Oh, this will come back to haunt me.


The rolling up of the dough was a little tricky. The dough got very sticky and tore in a few spots. I also had an issue with the center of the dough rectangle being thicker than the ends, so my log rolled uneven. This caused another set of problems during baking.


Here is the dough getting sliced. The center pieces looked really nice, all perfectly round and tightly rolled, but the pieces cut from the ends were lopsided and malformed (notice I didn't photograph them).


I take that back, I did photograph some of the deformed looking end pieces. To get rid of the gaps between the cinnamon-sugar and cookie dough layers I tried squishing it tight together. But ultimately my squishing didn't help.


Just out of the oven and Cinnamon Bun Cookie disaster! The outer ring of dough and cinnamon just kinda collapsed and fell flat. I was so disappointed.

With the second batch I squished the cookie rolls even tighter but the sides still fell over. Thinking about it now, I probably didn't leave a large enough sealing edge of dough. I probably scattered the cinnamon-sugar too close to the outer edge of the roll-up so there wasn't enough dough-to-dough contact to form a tight seal.

Poor little Cinnamon Bun Cookies how unlovable you look, but it is amazing how many flaws you can cover up with a little bit of icing.


So all-in-all not a very satisfying baking experience. The Cinnamon Bun Cookies tasted okay, but not good enough to warrant a second baking attempt.

If you want to see what they SHOULD look like, check out The Recipe Girl's version (and not mine).

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Homemade Oreo Cookies have dominated the blogoshphere lately, and they have gotten such rave reviews that I had to give them a try.



And you know what? All those bloggers were right. These things are fantastic. I’m a long-time lover of Oreos, but the homemade version is better, much, much better. The filling is a perfect copy-cat of the Oreo filling but the homemade cookie wafers are sweeter, slightly softer and so much better than the originals.

The cookie dough is just basic stuff: flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, sugar all whisked together, and then add the butter and eggs to form a soft dough.


Next form the cookies dough into round balls and flatten. I used a small tablespoon size ice-cream scooper to get cookies of a uniform size, but this made the cookies too big. The guests at the party wouldn’t take a whole sandwich cookie, everyone cut it in half and took just one piece. BUT I did notice that within seconds of tasting the cookie everyone, and I mean everyone, came back and scooped up their second half.

Also be warned: during baking these cookies spread A LOT. Leave lots of space between the cookies. My first batch spread so much that the cookies had to be cut apart. They also come out very flat. When they first come out of the oven they are nice and puffy, but they soon deflate. I kinda like the look of the puffy cookies (I wish they would have stayed like that), but they look more like the real thing once they had flattened.


The cookie filling was easy too. Typical buttercream frosting. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to use a clear vanilla extract. The regular brown stuff gave the filling a slightly ecru, off-white color.



And I didn’t put enough filling in between the cookies. :(
I was afraid I would run out so I was a little consertative with my filling swirls.



I ended up with about half the filling left over. Next time I’ll really load them up with filling and make Double Stuff Homemade Oreo Cookies. Yummm…

---

Homemade Oreo Cookies

Ingredients:

For the chocolate wafers:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa (the special dark gives the cookies a very dark color)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar (sweetened to your liking)
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
• 1 large egg

For the filling:

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 cups sifted confectioners sugar
• 2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat to 375°F.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and sugar.
3. Add the butter, and then the egg. Continue mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
4. Take about 2 teaspoons of dough and roll into a ball. Place balls on parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. Important: the cookies spread a lot so make sure you separate them by 2 inches. With damp fingers, slightly flatten the dough ball into a disk. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
5. To make the filling: Cream together butter and shortening. At a low speed gradually add the sugar and then the vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
6. To assemble the cookies: Scoop the filling into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip. Pipe a circular swirl on one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream and press the two cookie together.
7. Enjoy with a tall glass of milk.
   

Geaux Saints - Graham Crackers

I needed to bake some graham crackers for a dessert I’m assembling and I decided to make Fleur de lis graham crackers instead of plain-Jane rectangle ones.

Geaux Saints!!



I also wanted to redeem my self for the color mix-up of last week. So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought some GOLD icing. Ohhh it’s sparkly too…



Now I’m not a big fan of graham crackers (I more of a shortbread kinda girl) but these things were tasty. Almost like thin shortbread cookies with a hint of cinnamon.

Delicious.

So....

So tomorrow is the big NFC Championship Game (January 24, 2010): New Orleans Saints vs Minnesota Vikings in the Superdome at 5:40 pm central time.

I hope the Saints win.

I pray that the Saints win.

I don’t want to be unsportsmanlike, but I want Brett Favre to get sacked 10 tens and throw 5 interceptions. I want the Vikings to lose, lose, lose.

Here is the Saints latest fight song: Stand Up and Get Crunk. It sure does get the blood pumping.

Geaux Saints!

Who Dat!

One more win and we are off to Miami.

Please, please, please, please…

Update:

Yahoooooo.....

We're going to the SUPER BOWL!!!!!

Saints: 31, Vikings: 28

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Graham Crackers

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup honey

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, and honey. Mix on medium speed until well combined, about 1 minute.

In two additions, add the dry ingredients, letting the first fully incorporate before you add the second.

Divide the dough in half. Place the first half between two sheets of parchment paper, and roll into a rectangular shape about 1/8 or 1/4" thick. Roll out the second half of dough between two additional sheets of parchment paper. Refrigerate the dough sheets for about 15 minutes until stiff. Note: The dough is much easier to cut if it is very cold and stiff.

Remove the dough sheets from the refrigerator and peel off the top sheet of parchment paper. Cut the graham cracker dough into the desired shape.

Using a fork, prick the top of the dough in several places.

In a preheated 350 degree F oven, bake the crackers for 12-15 minutes or until then are golden brown.

Cool on a wire rack.

Geaux Saints - Sugar Cookies

Geaux Saints !!!

I won a pair of tickets to the New Orleans Saints' Divisional Game in the Superdome, and in honor of the occasion I baked some Fleur De Lis Sugar Cookies. Don't tar and feather me, but I didn’t have any gold food color so I had to use orange. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'll get some gold for next week's game. (see my second attempt here)

I also didn’t realize (until I got to the Dome and saw the big Fleur De Lis on the playing field) that the Saint’s color scheme was actually Gold-White-Black and not White-Gold-Black like I made my cookies. Silly me.



The recipe I use for cut out sugar cookies is called "No Fail Sugar Cookies - NFSC" and is very similar to the recipe that Toba Garrett uses in her books and in her classes. The cookie dough has to be chilled before cutting out the shapes and again before baking, but that is a small price to pay for a sugar cookies that hold even the most intricate shapes. But the best part is... They taste really, really good.




No Fail Sugar Cookies – NFCS

Ingredients

3 cups sifted all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking power
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Instructions:

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Scrape down the bowl. Mix for another 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Beat until well combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together baking powder, salt and flour. Add the flour mixture 1 cup at a time to the butter mixture, blend at medium-low speed. Blend in the last cup of flour by hand. Do not overmix or the cookies will be tough.

Place about half the dough between two sheet of parchment or wax paper. Roll out the dough to the desired thickness (1/8 – 1/4"). Place in the refrigerator. Roll out the second half of the dough between more wax paper. Place in refrigerator. Chill both sheets of dough for 15 minutes or until it feels stiff. Note: the stiffer the dough is, the easier it is to cut out the intricate cookie shapes.

Remove one sheet of dough at a time and cut out the cookies. Placed the cutout cookies on an ungreased parchment lined cookie sheet. Put the cookie sheet into the refrigerator and chill for 10 minutes. This step is not absolutely necessary, but I found that the cookies hold their shape better if they are cold when they are place in the oven. Re-roll leftover dough scraps and repeat the processes.

Bake at 350 degrees F (preheated and stabilized) for 8-10 minutes or until the edges just start to turn brown.

---

Here are a few more pictures from the Saints vs the Cardinals in the Dome. I had a blast. Love ya guys. Deuuuuuuuce!! Reggieee, Reggieee, Reggieee! WHO DAT! WHO DAT!

Outside the Dome it was a sea of Black & Gold...


But there were a few Cardinals fans (just a few)...


The Saints are on the field...


The Half-Time Show...


A few of the fans...


Some fans showed their support for Deuce McAllister who is/was a favorite of the "Who Dat Nation". Deuce McAllister was released from the Saints' roster in February 2009, and re-signed on Friday January 15, 2010. Friday afternoon our office was abuzz with rumors that Deuce was coming back. A few hours later, when the news was confirmed, the offices halls were filled with the resonating call of “Deuuuuuuce”.


Game Over. Saint's - 45, Cardinals - 14. Bless you Boys.


Leaving the Dome..

See ya next week at the Dome.

Who Dat!!!

Geaux Saints!!!

See ya in Miami!!!

I hope...

TWD: Sables

I wanted to catch up on some TWD assignments that I had skipped for one reason or another, so yesterday I baked a batch of Sables (page 131-133 of Dorie Greenspan: Baking From My Home To Yours).

Can I say WOW!

Sables, oh Sables where have you been hiding all my life? Buttery, crumbly, and melt in your mouth good. These little gems were a cross between shortbread and sugar cookies and for added oomph they were encrusted in crunchy grains of coarse sugar. Delicious.

My pictures don't the cookies justice, but believe me they tasted amazing. I devoured/inhaled five cookies in less than two minutes. Yikes, a minute on the lips, a life time on the hips.

The cookies were really easy to mix. Just lightly blend the butter and sugars, and then add the egg yolks.


Next dump the flour in all at once, and mix just until incorporated. According to Dorie, the secret to light, crumbly Sables is not to over mix the flour.


Roll the dough into a log and refrigerate for at least 3 hours. I left mine in the refrigerator overnight and the log was as hard as a brick when I took it out. Brush the log with whisked egg yolk, which acts like glue, and then coat with coarse sugar.


Slice the log into 1/3 inch cookies and bake on a parchment or silicone lined baking sheets for 17-20 minutes at 350 degrees F.


I only baked my cookies for 14 minutes and I had a problem with the edges of the cookies browning too much.


I also noticed that on some of the cookies, the decorating sugar slid off as the cookies baked. I think I used too much egg wash, and, yuck, the pure yolk gule left a yellow film on the side of the cookies that was still visible even after baking. Next time I'll use a milk wash instead of yolks, and I'll squish the coarse sugar firmly into the side of the dough log. I'll also lower the oven temperature to 325, and bake on a baker's stone instead of a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Hopefully I can get the outside of the cookies to look as perfect as the inside tastes.

Brown Sugar Butter Buttons

A beautiful photo on FoodGawker lead me to a posting by Tongue-N-Cheeky for Brown Sugar Butter Buttons. The cookies looked so cute and cheeky that I decided to give them a try.

The dough came together beautifully…

And the cookies baked up without any problems.

Tongue-N-Cheeky said that the Butter Buttons baked up flakey and surprisingly hollow. I was dying to see the hollow center so as soon as they were out of the oven I cracked one open. But instead of a hollow center I found an ooey, gooey mess.


Sad and dejected (I wanted hollow cookies) I abandoned the baking sheet of failed Butter Buttons and went on to making my next holiday treat. A few hours later I picked up a Button, broke it open, and prepared to photo document my failure. But instead of a gooey mess, I found a perfectly hollow cookie. Amazing. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. Somehow in the cooling process the inside of the cookie shrank and a cavern formed in the center.


Isn’t baking a strange and wondrous thing? If anyone can explain the physics/chemistry of how the cavern forms in the cookie I would appreciate it.

As far as the taste, well honestly, I didn’t care for them much. The cookie was ultra sweet and very crisp. I don’t think I’ll make them again, but I sure would like to know how that hollow center formed.