Category: Cookies

Peanut Butter Cookies Done Right

January 19, 2010

Cookie Collage

On a cookie plate, the first one I will go for is the chocolate chip and the last one is the peanut butter.  Why?  I don’t think I’ve ever had a good peanut butter cookie.  They tend to be dry and crumbly and the flavor is pretty one note.  I find at the end of eating one that my tongue kind of hurts.  Just not enough variety of flavor for me in that cookie.

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So why did I make these?  First of all, the milk chocolate chunk part of the recipe just screamed at me.  Then I noticed that they have a lot of peanut butter and not much flour which means that dry problem would most likely be taken care of.  Plus, in the header of the recipe, the authors say, “This is not your ordinary peanut butter cookie.  It is, in our humble opinion, the only peanut butter cookie.”  How could you not accept that challenge?  And so, I made them.  And so, now I have to deal with the temptation of having them in my house.  It’s not just the chocolate that makes these so much better than other peanut butter cookies I have had.  It is the cookie itself – moist but crisp in the right places and pure peanut butter flavor.

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Peanut Butter and Chocolate Together on Dana Treat: Holly B’s Peanut Butter Brownies, Peanut Butter Cup Brownies, Peanut Butter Candy Mini Brownie Cups

Peanut Butter Cookies with Milk Chocolate Chunks
Baked – New Frontiers in Baking
Makes about 24 cookies

Holy mistake Batman!  I just realized while typing in this recipe that I did not add the called for 1 cup of granulated sugar to the butter and brown sugar.  Yes, my cookies were missing a whole cup of sugar and are still delicious.  If you choose to leave out that cup of  granulated sugar, be sure to still use the cup of brown sugar.  Below is what you are supposed to do.

1¾ cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 cup granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 ounces good milk chocolate, coarsely chopped

Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars together until fluffy.  Scrape down the bowl and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated.  The mixture will look light and fluffy.  Add the vanilla and peanut butter and beat until just incorporated.

Add half the flour mixture and mix for 15 seconds.  Add the remaining flour mixture and mis until just incorporated.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, fold in the chocolate.  Cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375°F.  Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.  (DT: I skipped this step and the cookies did not stick.)

Drop the dough by rounded tablespoons onto the prepared sheets, at least 2 inches apart.  With the palm of your hand, very gently press each cookie down so it forms a very tall disk shape.  Do not press too hard and do not press it flat.

Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with granulated sugar and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through the baking time, until the tops of the cookies just begin to brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.  Use a spatula to transfer the individual cookies to the rack to cool completely (although they are delicious warm).

The cookies can be stored, in an airtight container, for up to 3 days


Category: Chocolate, Cookies, Dessert
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Chocolate Caramel Treasures

December 17, 2009

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If you are relatively new here, you might think that this is a baking only blog.  First there is the name.  Dana Treat implies, well, treats – right?  And then there would be the fact there have been an awful lot of cakes and cookies here as of late.  The last time I wrote about a main course was on November 20th.  (Peanut Curry.  It’s a good one.)

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The fact of the matter is that after I cooked for Thanksgiving, main courses have not been a big part of my life.  The things I have been making are not really worth writing about.  My husband has been traveling a lot so I’ve been eating a lot of scrounged leftovers and baked potatoes.  Yawn.

And then there is the fact that between the teachers, bus drivers, babysitters and speech therapists in our lives there are 13 gift bags to fill.   Don’t even get me started on family.  And so, I started baking.  And I just kept baking.  And actually, I have some more baking to do.  But I also have some big meals coming up so I hope to share a few more savory things in the next few weeks.  Until then, go make these cookies.

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This is yet another one of these delicious recipes that I made long ago and just lost track of.  As I was making out my Baking List 2009, I stumbled upon them.  This is a great bang for your buck recipe.  Yes, there is a bit of fussing but nothing about it is hard.  The dough is incredibly easy to make and you can do it a day or two ahead and let it sit in the refrigerator.  The caramel filling is nothing more than store-bought caramels melted down with some cream, so if making caramel scares you – no worrying necessary.  Gourmet?  Not really, but who cares?  And the chocolate drizzle requires nothing more complicated than a Ziploc bag.  At the end of it all you get this very fancy looking and incredibly delicious cookie.  Double the recipe because you will want lots.

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One Year Ago:  Ina Garten’s Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread

Chocolate Caramel Treasures
Adapted from Gourmet
Makes about 2 1/2 dozen

I really never grease my sheets when making cookies, but you will need to do so with this recipe.  Or you can use parchment paper.

For Cookies
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
2 tbsp. whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1/3 cup Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
1/2 cup finely chopped hazelnuts

For Caramel Filling
10 (1-by 1/2-inch) plain caramels, unwrapped
2 tbsp. heavy cream

For Chocolate Drizzle
3 oz. semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

Make cookies:
Beat together butter, sugar, yolk, milk, and vanilla with an electric mixer until blended well.  Sift in flour, cocoa, and salt and beat on low speed until mixture forms a dough.  Chill, wrapped in plastic wrap until firm, at least 30 minutes and up to 2 days.

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Roll scant tablespoons of dough into balls, then coat with egg white, letting excess drip off, and roll in nuts to coat.  Arrange balls, as coated, 1 1/2 inches apart on greased baking sheets and press your thumb into center of balls to flatten, leaving a depression.  Bake in batches in middle of oven until puffed slightly but centers are still soft, 10 to 12 minutes.  Remove from oven and immediately press centers of cookies again.  (Use the handle end of a wooden spoon.)  Transfer to racks to let cool.

Make filling while cookies are cooling:
Heat caramels and cream in a small saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and mixture is smooth.  Spoon into centers of cookies and cool completely.

Make chocolate drizzle:
Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of simmering water, stirring until smooth.  Cool to warm (this will take about 45 minutes) and pour into a sandwich size sealable plastic bag.  Seal bag, press chocolate to one corner and snip off a very small hole.  Drizzle chocolate over cookies and let stand until set, about 30 minutes.


Category: Chocolate, Cookies
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Holly B’s Rugelach

December 9, 2009

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Top three favorite smells coming out of my kitchen.  1) Any kind of brownies.  2) This granola.  3) Onions caramelizing.  And if I can extend the list to four, I would have to include this rugelach.  Jam, cinnamon, nuts, and cream cheese dough all doing magical things in the oven.

Up until today, I had never made a sweet rugelach before.  I have made savory ones as an appetizer (where is that recipe? ) but never the traditional kind.

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Shauna shared some amazing gluten-free rugelach with me last week and hers were filled with quince paste and bittersweet chocolate.  Hello yum.  Because this was my first time making this recipe, I needed to stick closer to the rules.  Holly calls these Raspberry Rugelach but I did have to bend the rules a bit and make Blackberry Rugelah because blackberry jam is all I have in my house.  A woman named Linda who lives on Lopez Island makes positively transcendent jam so we always stock up every summer.  The fact that Lopez jam lives in these Lopez cookies seems just right.

These little cookies are not the most beautiful things I have ever made but the smell matches the taste.  Delicious.  Buttery, flaky, sweet and spicy.  They are also really fun to make. If you are a person who is afraid of working with dough, this is a great one to start with.  It is very forgiving and does just what you want it to.

You can buy Holly B’s wonderful cookbook by visiting this site.

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Raspberry or Blackberry Rugelach
With Love & Butter
Makes 18 small pastries

Definitely keep these little treasures on the small side – they look much better that way.  I have large cookie sheets so I crammed them all onto one pan.  A lot of jam leaked out and I just transferred them immediately to a wire rack to cool.  I didn’t bother with the two fork option described below.

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
7 tbsp. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup flour
1/3 cup raspberry or blackberry jam
6 tbsp. raisins
6 tbsp. sliced almonds
6 tbsp. brown sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

Cream the butter with an electric mixer until smooth.  Add the cream cheese and combine until smooth.  Mix in 1 tablespoon of the granulated sugar and the vanilla.  Gradually stir in the flour, blending until just combined.

Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and wrap loosely.  Shape the dough into a disk about 6 inches across and 1-inch thick and refrigerate until firm, about 3 hours.  (DT: I refrigerated mine overnight.)

Preheat the oven to 375°F with the rack in the center position.  Line 1 large or two small baking sheets with parchment paper.

Unwrap the dough and place on a lightly floured surface.  Begin rolling the dough into a circle, keeping both sides lightly floured and free from sticking to th rolling pin and work surface.  Continue rolling the dough into a circle about 18 inches across and 1/8-inch thick.  (DT: Because I seemingly incapable of rolling dough into a circle, I just did the best I could and trimmed the edges to make it circular.)  Brush off the excess flour on both sides of the pastry.  Smear the jam over the dough, right up to the edges of the circle.

Combine the raisins, almonds, brown sugar, cinnamon, and remaining 6 tablespoons granulated sugar in a small bowl.  Distribute this mixture evenly over the jam.  Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, gently cut the wheel of dough into 18 wedges.

Starting at the wide base of each wedge, roll the dough into a little tube.  It will look like a tiny croissant without the curve.  Place the pastries 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet(s).  One pan at a time, bake 10 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake 5 to 10 minutes more.  The Rugelach will be done with light golden in color.  Remove the pan from the oven and use 2 forks to relocated each pastry to a clean place on the parchment for cooling.

Cool thoroughly, then dust lightly with powdered sugar if desired.  Store at room temperature for up to 2 days.  Rugelach dough can be frozen for up to 1 month without any adverse effects.


Category: Cookies, Holly B's
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Holly B’s Gingersnap Cookies

November 11, 2009

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So here is something I have not told you all yet.  I have stopped cooking for my clients.  I no longer describe myself as a personal chef.  It started this past summer when our schedules were not aligning well and I decided it made sense to take a break until the fall.  Truthfully, I was glad to have the break.  I started my business when Graham was 18 months old and I cooked for my clients through my second pregnancy, nursing, and sleepless nights.  I cooked reliably and without a break (except for vacation) through the three most exhausting and challenging years of my life.

I loved having my business.  I loved the creativity and loved feeding people.  I know there are many of you out there who dream of being able to do what I did and I have gotten emails telling me so.  I know I was very fortunate to be able to follow my passion in the way that I did.  I just got burnt out.  It wasn’t the cooking or the feeding people, it was the menu planning, shopping, and stressing about finding the time to cook to the standard that I held myself.  My boys have always napped reliably and I have spent almost every single nap of their lives rushing around my kitchen like a mad woman.

Not that much has changed.  There is always something I am cooking for.  My visions of sitting on the couch eating bon bons while reading War and Peace are just that – visions.  I figure I’ll spend another year attempting to relax and then will probably dive back into the world of personal cheffing when my big boy goes to kindergarten next fall.

Randy would tell you the downside to me not being a personal chef anymore is the lack of cookies in our house.  Once a week, when I brought my clients dinner, I would also bring them a treat (hence the name of this blog).  Often those treats were cookies and we always had the leftovers in our cookie jar.  I am still baking plenty but not as many cookies.  Randy complains regularly about this fact.  So, I chose to make one of his favorite kinds – this time from Holly B.

I find Gingersnaps and all the other cookies that fall into the spicy molasses world to be a bit elusive.  I want the perfect one and I have never found it.  Chewy but not gooey.  Crisp around the edges, soft in the middle.  Really spicy and not too sweet.  Rich molasses flavor but not bitter.  Does that cookie exist?

This cookie is pretty close.  Flavor-wise it’s exactly what I want.  Just the right amount of spice with a strong molasses tang coming through.  For me, the texture is a little off, maybe just a bit too cakey and with too much puff.  Still, it’s a good recipe until I find my dream one.  Do you have a perfect gingersnap?  Care to share?

You can buy Holly’s cookbook by visiting this site.

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One Year Ago:  Miso Carrot Sauce

Gingersnap Cookies
With Love & Butter
Makes a lot of cookies

3/4 stick butter, at room temperature
1/2 stick margarine, at room temperature
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar, plus more for coating
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. molasses
2 eggs plus 1 egg yolk
5 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. ground ginger
1 1/4 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. allspice

Preheat the oven to 375 F with the rack in the top position.  Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or grease lightly.

In the bowl of an electric mixer cream together the  butter, margarine, sugars, and molasses.  Add the eggs and egg yolk, mixing well.  Now add the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices and combine thoroughly, scraping the sides of the bowl several times with a rubber spatula.

Plop mounded teaspoonfuls of dough into a shallow bowl filled with about 1 cup of granulated sugar.  (DT: I made my cookies bigger and used a medium sized ice cream scoop.)  Roll the dough in the sugar until totally coated and shaped into a ball.  Space the balls 1 1/2 inches apart on the baking sheets, flattening the top of each cookie slightly with your fingers.

One pan at a time, bake the cookies for 5 minutes, rotate the pan, and bake for 5 to 9 minutes.  The cookies will be done when they settle after puffing up.  If you like your gingersnaps extra crisp, bake a little longer.  Cool, then store in a container with a tight-fitting lid.


Category: Cookies, Holly B's
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Holly B’s Cappucino Bars

October 14, 2009

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(Thank you to all of you who have entered my giveaway!  I will announce a winner tomorrow.)

Have you heard that expression “small but mighty”?  When I hear it, the first thing I think of is my younger son.  He is actually quite big for his age but considering that age is only 2 1/2 he is still small, all things considered.  But oh, is he mighty.  I wouldn’t say he has the terrible two’s though.  I would just say that he is a force to be reckoned with.  Most of the time he is very agreeable, cheerful and funny.  But if he doesn’t get, say, a lollipop like his brother because he didn’t finish his lunch…watch out.  He threw such a fit that I had to take him outside and even then people were staring across the street.  Small but mighty.

On a visit to Holly B’s Bakery, you will find lots of large treats.  The slices of pizza are huge, the cinnamon rolls are generous, even the cookies are big.  These Cappucino Bars are not.  They are slender and delicate looking but they pack a flavor punch.  The combination of coffee, chocolate, and just a bit of cinnamon here is intoxicating.  In spite of the title, the coffee flavor here is fairly subtle so even my coffee hating husband thinks they are delicious.

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To buy the Holly B’s cookbook, please visit this site.

One Year Ago:  Quick Olive and Cheese Bread and White Beans with Tomatoes and Sage

Cappucino Bars
With Love & Butter
32 bars

To get really flat bars, I find it works best to smooth them over with an offset spatula, using gentle pressure, just after they come out of the oven and before you apply the glaze.

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tbsp. instant coffee or espresso powder (not granules)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Glaze
2 tbsp. milk
1 tbsp. butter
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 F with the rack at the middle level.  Line a 10×15 inch pan with baking parchment or grease lightly.  (DT: This is also called a jelly roll pan.)

Cream together the butter, brown sugar, instant coffee, and vanilla.  Blend in the flour, baking poser, and salt.  Last, stir in the chocolate chips by hand.  The mixture will be very crumbly, with barely enough dough to hold together the chocolate chips.

Use your fingers, palms, and heels of your hands to press the dough evenly into the pan.  If necessary, cover the dough with wax or parchment paper and use a small rolling pin to flatten the lumps.  Bake 5 minutes, rotate the pan, and  bake 5 to 10 minutes more or until the edges are just starting to brown (watch carefully).  Cool in the pan 5 minutes before spreading with glaze.

Put all the ingredients for the glaze in a small saucepan on medium heat.  Don’t leave this stuff!  Find a whisk and stir until smooth and barely bubbly.  Drizzle the glaze evenly over the bars and smooth out to the edges and corners with a rubber spatula.

Cool until the pan is just warm to the touch and cut into bars with a sharp knife.  (Holly recommends cutting 8 on the 10-inch side and 4 on the 15-inch side, equaling 32 candy-bar sized cookies.  You can halve them too.)


Category: Bars, Cookies, Dessert, Holly B's
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