Chocolate Cookies with Dried Cherries and Toasted Pecans

My work schedule in the summer is a lot different than the rest of the year. I work in an academic library and our summer hours are a lot shorter, so I work fewer hours. The rest of the year, when I think about my work schedule, the summer seems like it will be so nice and I will have all this extra free time. Summer comes and where does the time go? I do manage to fit in an extra ballet and pointe class per week, but other than that I don’t really feel like I get things done as much as I would hope.

In the summer I don’t have to be at work until a bit later in the morning and one day I actually took advantage of this extra time and got some housework done. I had picked this recipe and even got all the ingredients out and ready on the counter so that I could bake them up when I got home from work. I never do this but I should try to do it more often since it made baking so much easier. I’m really an organized person, but for some reason I just don’t usually take that extra step.

So this is actually a cookie from a Christmas cookie book, but I figure I adapted it enough to make it less like a holiday cookie. It’s supposed to be a pistachio, dried cranberry chocolate cookie, but I changed to dried cherries and pecans. I toggled between using pecans or hazelnuts, and I decided to use pecans. I’m sure they would have been good with hazelnuts, too. The original recipe didn’t have any salt (maybe they assumed you would use salted pistachios) and the chocolate really needs salt to bring out the flavor. These were easy to make and at first I didn’t think I would add the glaze. They were quite bland without the glaze. The glaze added the something extra that it needed. I had a jar of maraschino cherries in the refrigerator and I used the cherry juice (syrup?) for the glaze. That gave the glaze a nice color and a little extra flavor.

1 cup butter, softened
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup toasted pecans, chopped
1 cup dried cherries

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
4-5 tablespoons cherry juice/syrup (or milk)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, combine butter, sugar, and brown sugar and beat at medium speed until creamy. Add the melted chocolate, eggs and vanilla; continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add the flour, baking soda and salt. Beat until well mixed. Stir in the pecans and dried cherries by hand.

Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until set. Cool completely on a wire rack.

In a small bowl, combine the powdered sugar and cherry juice. Stir until smooth; if the glaze is too thick, add additional cherry juice. Drizzle glaze over cooled cookies.

Recipe adapted from Land O Lakes

Chewy Chunky Blondies

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by me! It was my turn to pick this week and I think I picked a great recipe. I couldn’t believe it was my turn to pick and I was ecstatic when I got the email asking for my pick. What to pick? I knew right away that I wanted to pick cookies, because they are my favorite. I poured over the book and came up with these. I love bar cookies. I love quick recipes. I love cookies with lots of add-ins. This recipe was winner on all levels.

All the add-ins, ready to go!

When I first started baking, bar cookies were my favorite to make. You can really do a lot with a bar cookie: multiple layers, interesting combinations, the limits are really endless. I baked a lot and often took what I made to work (that hasn’t changed!) and my boss at the time asked me to bake for an upcoming company meeting. I was really excited since it was my first paying gig. For that meeting I made three different types of bar cookies. I’ve made a couple of those cookies for this blog (here and here), since they remain sentimental favorites.

These blondies are great since you can adapt them to your taste. I used chocolate chips, toffee chips, pecans (since I don’t really like walnuts), and coconut. You could use different chips if you wanted, and I know many of the other Tuesdays with Dorie bloggers made some really interesting variations. I took these to several different people and everyone loved them. The complexity and the different layers of flavor were really wonderful. I think I made a great pick and thanks to everyone for baking with me this week!

2 cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups (packed) light brown sugar
½ cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped into chips or 1 cup store bought chocolate chips
1 cup butterscotch chips or Heath Toffee Bits
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter a 9” x 13” baking pan and put it on a baking sheet.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy. Add both sugars and beat for another 3 minutes, or until well incorporated. Add the eggs one by one, beating for 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing just until they disappear into the batter. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chips, nuts, and coconut. Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and use the spatula to even the top as best as you can.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center of the blondies comes out clean. The blondies should pull away from the sides of the pan a little and the top should be a nice honey brown. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for about 15 minutes before turning the blondies out onto another rack. Invert onto a rack and cool the blondies to room temperature right side up.

Cut into 32 bars, roughly 2-1/4” x 1-1/2”

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 109

Coconut Sandwich Cookies

I put off making these cookies last week, and I’m sorry that I did because they were so good! This week I rushed home to make them so that I wouldn’t put it off again. They came together quite easily. The only challenge that I had was grinding the coconut in the food processor. My coconut didn’t grind down all that much after quite a bit of time in the processor. I figured that it was good enough, plus my cat Heidi was getting mad at me for running such a loud appliance. She’s not a fan of the food processor!

Heidi was not pleased with the noise I was making!

I did sandwich my cookies together, but I didn’t roll them in the extra coconut. I made the mistake of trying to sandwich some the cookies together when they were still warm, which didn’t really work. I had a couple of abstract sandwiches (but they still tasted good). I took these to work and I don’t know if my coworkers were especially eager due to no cookies last week, but they were gone by lunchtime. I felt so bad for my colleague who worked in the afternoon and missed out. They were so good, nice and soft with a great coconut flavor. The cookies stood on their own, and I think that they would have been fine as single cookies, maybe with a simple vanilla glaze. Any way you look at it, they were great! (Direct coworker quote!)

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 ounces shredded coconut
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla

Creamy Vanilla Filling
½ cup butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
Milk, if needed

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. Place 1/2 cup coconut into a small bowl; set aside. Place remaining coconut in a food processor; pulse until coarsely ground. Set aside.

In a large mixer bowl, beat butter with sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture and ground coconut; mix just until combined.

Drop dough by level teaspoons onto prepared baking sheets, 1 to 2 inches apart. Bake until lightly golden around the edges, 10 to 12 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter until light and fluffy. With mixer on medium, beat in powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, scraping down bowl as necessary. Add vanilla extract and beat until filling is light and fluffy, 5 minutes. Add milk to adjust the spreading consistency if needed.

Sandwich the cookies together in pairs with the vanilla filling. Roll edges in the ½ cup reserved coconut and chill until ready to serve.

Recipe from Erin Cooks, who found the recipe in Everyday Food

Lots of Ways Banana Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was picked by Kimberly of Only Creative Opportunities. She picked the Lots of Ways of Banana Cake, which really lives up to its name! You can make many variations of this cake: layer cake, filled and frosted. Single cake covered with ganache. Coconut milk or regular milk. Coconut rum or not. Add coconut or other addition like raisins, nuts, etc. Take your pick. It was really nice since I just used what was on hand and didn’t have to get anything at the store. You can get the complete recipe for this cake on Kimberly's blog.

Now, I don’t like bananas very much but I’m ok with banana bread and this looked fairly similar. I actually remembered to get bananas well in advance so they were nice and ripe by the time I made the cake. I opted to make a single layer cake and just dusted it with powdered sugar. I did use the coconut rum and did include coconut. I didn’t have any coconut milk on hand so I just used regular milk. I had a little problem with my cake sticking to the pan, so this is one that you really have to butter the pan within an inch of its life if you want the cake to come out cleanly.

I baked this up and then kind of forgot about it, so I didn’t taste it until a few days later. It was still quite fresh and tasted pretty good. It is somewhat similar to banana bread, but I thought it was a lot sweeter than I expected, and that was nice. This would have been interesting as a regular filled and frosted cake. Dorie suggests filling it with whipped cream or chocolate whipped cream; I think it would also be good with cream cheese icing.

Next week, I get to choose the recipe. I can’t wait!

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 204 and 205

Chocolate Ganache-Stuffed Cookies

On the weeks when I am organized, I usually try to pick out the recipes I will make well in advance. It seems like when it is time to actually make the recipe, I want to make something else. This week I had planned to make some coconut sandwich cookies, but by the time I got home and was getting ready to make them I just wasn’t into it. So instead of just making them, I decided to waste some time and check out all of the food blogs that I follow.

My husband is always asking me to make chocolate chip cookies. I know he loves them but I want to have more exciting things to post to my blog. In my blog listing I came across these cookies on Sing for Your Supper. They’re very much like a chocolate chip cookie except all of the chocolate is stuffed inside the cookie. Wow, what a great idea I decided to make these instead. I’m really glad that I did.

To make these, just make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and omit the chocolate chips. I’ve had different luck with different recipes and I ended up pulling the recipe for Big Fat Chocolate Chip Cookies off of All Recipes. I knew that this probably wouldn’t make that many cookies, but that was ok. Make sure that the dough and the ganache has plenty of time to chill or these will be really difficult to put together. It was pretty warm in the house when I made these and that made it a bit challenging. It’s kind of tricky to get these sealed and some of mine leaked while baking, but they taste really good. They spread a little so don’t put too many cookies on the sheet while baking. My husband was really happy that I made these since they are pretty close to his beloved chocolate chip cookies.

2 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar, packed
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 egg
1 egg yolk

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup chocolate chips

Salt for sprinkling

Prepare the dough: in a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, combine butter, brown sugar, and sugar. Mix until combined. Stir in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk. Add the flour mixture and stir until combined. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for several hours.

Prepare the ganache: place the chocolate chips in a medium heat-proof bowl. Bring the cream to a boil and then pour over the chocolate chips. Allow to stand for 3 minutes and then whisk until smooth. Refrigerate ganache for several hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Scoop out small amounts of dough with a cookie scoop. Flatten the dough with your hand and spoon about ½ teaspoon of ganache on the flattened dough. Cover with another flattened disk of dough and seal the edges. Gently roll into a ball and place on prepared cookie sheet. Sprinkle with salt. Bake for 10-13 minutes or until lightly browned.

Recipe from Sing for Your Supper. Cookie dough recipe from All Recipes

Brrrr-ownies

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Karen of Welcome to our Crazy Blessed Life. She picked Brrrr-ownies, which are decedent brownies studded with chopped up York peppermint patties. Yum! You can get the recipe for these yummy cookies on Karen’s blog. My chance to pick the Dorie recipe is coming up soon and this is one of the recipes that I seriously considered. I’m glad that they were picked since I had been eyeing them for a while.

These brownies are basically a one bowl brownie and they were quick and easy to put together. They use a combination of unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate. I substituted some dark chocolate for some of the bittersweet, but I figure those two chocolate are interchangeable. The weather has been warm in Seattle (although a bit too much, going from 65 degrees to 95 in about 3 days—no air conditioning) so I kept the peppermint patties in the refrigerator in advance to making these. That made them easier to chop, too, so that was a bonus.

The other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers mentioned that the only problem with baking these brownies is that they are very sticky, and you have to be careful to butter the pan enough. Mine were indeed sticky, but I buttered the foil a lot and the foil came off with no problem. I had to bake mine a few extra minutes because they were too gooey after the specified baking time. They are very fudgy, so make sure that they are completely cool, even refrigerated, before cutting them. We had them with some vanilla ice cream and they were great. These were very refreshing in the middle of the summer, but they would be the perfect addition to a tray of Christmas cookies as well.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 103

Orange Almond Cake

I’ve mentioned this cake before, when I made Dorie’s Swedish Visiting Cake back in April. This cake is very similar to that cake, which you can see by the nearly identical photos. I thought that I had made this cake before to post here, but I realized I hadn’t. I knew that I would need to make it to post since it is such a good (and simple) cake.

I recently got together with a bunch of friends from high school. One of my good friends offered to host at her house, and they asked me to bring dessert. I asked what sort of dessert I should bring, and I since I had just recently made the Swedish Visiting Cake, she suggested that cake. Since the menu that night was tacos and salsa, I figured that this cake would fit right in. This cake uses orange zest rather than the lemon zest that the Swedish Visiting Cake uses.

In the cookbook where I found this recipe, it’s given the alternate title of Torta de Almendra. I’m not sure how authentically ethnic this recipe is, since it is from Betty Crocker’s International Cookbook from 1980. I’d imagine it isn’t authentic at all, but that’s ok since it’s so good. It’s very simple to put together, about as easy as a cake mix since you put everything in the mixer and mix. If you don’t have orange liqueur, you could also use orange juice. It was a big hit at the party, but we were honestly to busy catching up with one another and we didn’t eat too much dessert.

1-1/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
1/3 cup shortening
1 egg
2 teaspoons orange zest
¼ cup sliced almonds
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons orange liqueur

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 9-inch round pan. Set aside.

Beat all ingredients except almonds, 1 tablespoon sugar and orange liqueur in a large mixer bowl on low for 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium-high and beat for 3 minutes. Pour batter into pan and sprinkle with almonds.

Bake for 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Immediately sprinkle with the 1 tablespoon sugar and drizzle with the liqueur. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan. Cool completely before serving.

Recipe from Betty Crocker’s International Cookbook (1980)

Ancient Roman Honey Cookies with Sesame Seeds

So what did the Romans eat, so many years ago? This probably isn’t something that you think about too often! History books don’t always talk about the everyday lives of the people, which is too bad because we could probably learn a lot. I just finished reading The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England: A Handbook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century by Ian Mortimer. It’s written as though you were going to travel to 14th century England and it was absolutely fascinating. What would you expect to eat? What would you expect to see people wearing? If you’re into history at all, I recommend picking it up.

The book taught me a lot of things about not making assumptions. In 14th century England, fashion changed dramatically, mainly due to the invention of buttons. I would never have known that, making the assumption that people just wore what was available, that clothes weren’t a priority. I was very wrong. Having just read the book, I was interested in this cookie when my husband set me the recipe.

It’s a replica of cookies that the ancient Romans would have made. I didn’t know that Romans ate cookies, but they were a robust society and it makes sense that they would have sweets, too. There’s probably no way of knowing how authentic these are, but it’s nice to think about eating something that others may have made years ago. They are sweet and you can really taste the honey. They are kind of a cross between a cookie and pastry, and have a good texture. I had them with my morning coffee and they were a nice accompaniment.

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup honey
2 eggs
1/2 cup sesame seeds
Melted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a large mixer bowl, combine butter, honey and eggs and mix until well combined. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Cover and chill the dough about 1 hour or until firm.

Form chilled dough into 1-inch balls and place balls on prepared baking sheets. Flatten each ball slightly. Bake 10 minutes or until golden brown.

While warm, remove cookies from baking sheets and brush with melted butter and then roll in sesame seeds. Cool on a wire rack.

Recipe from http://eatingplaces.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/ancient_roman_cookie/

Tarte Noire

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Dharmagirl of bliss: towards a delicious life. She chose the Tarte Noire. Sounds mysterious, doesn’t it? In actuality it was not. It’s the most classic, streamlined chocolate tart. Crust and dark chocolate ganache. That’s it. This tart is proof positive that simple is good.

I wanted to mix this tart up a little bit, but I didn’t quite know how. I’m not that big of fan of dark chocolate, so I thought about using a different sort of chocolate. There are a lot of fancy different chocolates out there, but they all have bits and other things in it, which I didn’t think would work in making ganache. I thought about chai chocolate, since I thought that would make a very interesting tart, but I didn’t want to waste good chocolate on something that might not turn out. In the end I went with Callebaut dark chocolate, and it turned out fantastic.

I opted to make the regular pastry crust because I figured chocolate crust with the chocolate ganache would be too much. Since I was just using regular dark chocolate, I decided to spread the crust with a very thin layer of raspberry preserves. I thought that this would add a subtle bit of flavor. I’m glad that I did because it was a nice addition. I had the tart one day, when it had only set for about an hour and then the second day when it had been in the refrigerator for 24 hours. I quite liked it chilled; the filling had a nice fudgy flavor and texture. This tart was simple, but in no ways plain. It would be the perfect ending to a classy dinner.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 351

Vanilla Currant Cookies

I got this recipe from one of the cookbooks that I received as a gift one Christmas when we were in England. It’s quite a fun cookbook, with recipes that are quite a bit different than the ones in some of my American cookbooks. Of course, using a cookbook from another country poses its challenges! Some ingredients are just not available (Kingston biscuits?) and others I have to covert to measures I can understand. One of the most unusual things is that many of the recipes in this cookbook use self-rising flour. I suppose you can get that here, but I don’t have it. Luckily I found a conversion in another cookbook so I can handle that. Oh, this recipe calls for a “moderately hot” oven which I guess translates to 400 degrees according to Google.

When I have to translate weights and measures, I’m always a little worried that the final product won’t turn out right, but these came together with no problem. It seemed like a lot of leavening, but they are just fine. I didn’t flatten mine as much as I could have, so mine are a little puffier than the picture in the cookbook.

These are somewhat reminiscent of iced sugar cookies that you have at Christmas, and I wasn’t expecting that at all. It was nice to have a reminder of Christmas in July! The cookies aren’t super sweet, so they pair well with coffee or tea. I took them to work as I usually do, but I hadn’t photographed them yet. I left a couple at home to photograph later, but unfortunately my husband got home before I did and ate all but the last one. So behold the one lonely cookie that remained!

4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup shredded coconut
¼ cup currants

1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
About 2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat butter, vanilla, sugar and egg until light and fluffy. Stir in the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Once combined, add the coconut and currants and mix until combined.

Shape the dough into small, teaspoon-sized balls and place on the prepared cookie sheets. With the palm of your hand, flatten the balls slightly. Bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack before icing.

To make the icing, combine the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk. If the icing is to too thick, add additional milk. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies.

Recipe from The Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbooks: Biscuits and Slices