cookies | one cake two cake

face cookie

January 11, 2011 § 5 Comments

Whenever there are catered events in my department, inevitably they feature platters of gigantic cookies the size of my face. Because I am a very creative person, I naturally started calling them ‘face cookies’. I’m not sure whether they actually taste any better, or it’s just my attraction their sheer size, but they’re completely irresistible, and I always seem to be capable of eating an entire face cookie myself.

Then, in a flash of brilliance, I realized that I could make cookies at home that were also giant, and thereby also more delicious! And here I think bigger really does taste better, because the size makes for a high proportion of gooey center, which we all know is the best part. This recipe is pretty perfect for giant cookies: it’s a sturdy dough that manages to bake fairly even across the gigantic cookie, yielding crispy-chewy texture that’s incredibly addictive. Also, the strategic placement of a bittersweet ganache both balances out the sweetness and increases the adorable quotient.

I gave this cookie to a great friend for her birthday, and I recommend you all do the same! Firstly, because it’s even cuter when you use candles for hair. And secondly, because you will otherwise eat the whole thing at once. After all, it’s only one cookie.

Giant Cookie – Adapted from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients and set aside.

In a medium/large bowl, cream the butter and both sugars. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and mix well. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Line a large (11X17-inch) baking pan, preferably unrimmed, with foil or parchment and press the cookie into a circle. I pressed my cookie into a 9-inch circle, about 1/4 to 3/8-inch thick. When it bakes, it spreads to about 11 inches (Mel points out that this fits perfectly onto a 12-inch round cardboard circle you can find at most craft stores, if that makes transportation easier.)

Bake for 13-16 minutes until the cookie is lightly golden brown. Let the cookie cool completely on the baking pan – this helps the cookie stabilize and set so it can be easily lifted off the pan. Once cool, gently use the foil to lift the cookie off the pan.

Ganache

Combine chocolate and cream in a bowl and microwave on low in short intervals (30-60 seconds). In between microwaving, whisk the mixture, and stop microwaving as soon as it becomes smooth. Pipe onto cookie in happy faces.

korova cookies

September 27, 2010 § 10 Comments

I think these cookies may have been one of the early reasons I started baking. I didn’t start because I loved the process of cooking – I had barely been in our kitchen and was pretty oblivious to what goes into making food. I did, however, love eating. And these cookies were startlingly good: dark chocolate and fleur de sel, leading to a long-lasting love affair with salty-sweet desserts (see how seriously I take food?). My stepfather gave me the recipe and, it being near Christmas, a few weeks later I dug through my Christmas stocking to find a jar of fleur de sel. I was thrilled. I guess I was a weird kid.

Anyhow, I thought this was my secret ultra-amazing cookie recipe until I discovered food blogs and realized that pretty much everyone has made these cookies. But if you haven’t yet, now’s your chance! They’re a bit crumbly but somehow still so buttery that they melt in your mouth, and have a strong dark chocolate flavour with just a hint of salt. I would hate to have to choose a favourite, but these might be it, and given the quantities of cookies I have eaten that’s pretty high praise.

A little part of me wants to hate this recipe, because the dough is insufferably difficult to work with and the unbaked cookies fall apart all over the place. But the instructions are full of encouraging remarks about how one shouldn’t worry over these things, and more importantly, the cookies are so very worth it. You just stick the crumbled bits back on, and everything comes together in the end. Could this be a metaphor for life? Um, probably somehow, I am not feeling particularly poetic today but I’m just going to go with it.

Korova Cookies – from Paris Sweets

Yield: Supposedly 36 cookies, but I somehow only ever get 24…

Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together. Stir to combine and set aside.

Beat butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add brown sugar, white sugar, fleur de sel (or salt), and vanilla. Beat for another 2-3 minutes, until fluffy and light.

With a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula, mix in the dry ingredients until just combined. The dough will look crumbly, and for the best texture you should work it as little as possible. Add the chocolate pieces and mix only until incorporated.

Turn out the dough onto a smooth work surface and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, press the dough together and roll into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Lots of little bits will fall off, just press them back on and roll it all together. Try to make sure to press firmly or flatten the log in order to make sure there aren’t any air channels left. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour. (Wrapped airtight, the logs can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for 1 month.)

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Working with a sharp thin-bladed knife, slice rounds that are 1/2-inch thick. Some of them will break, but don’t worry, they will still be delicious! Just stick the broken bits back on. Place the cookies on the prepared sheets leaving about 1 inch of space between each cookie.

Bake only one sheet of cookies at a time and bake each sheet for only 12 minutes. The cookies will not look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Let the cookies cool on the sheet until they’re only just warm, then transfer to a wire rack. The cookies will keep at room temperature, packed airtight, for up to 3 days.

crispy oatmeal cookies

September 7, 2010 § 4 Comments

Have you heard? There was a hurricane in my part of town, and I survived. A hurricane! Okay, maybe it wasn’t my town, or even my county, but still, my general area. I am so hardcore.

I prepared for this apocalyptic event as I always do (for those many apocalypses), by baking something impractical. At least if I’m going to be trapped inside all day with the rain, I will have something delicious to munch on. The other requirement was that I had to already have all the ingredients in the house, because I’m not going outside in any hurricane. The solution was crispy salted white chocolate oatmeal cookies – despite the exceedingly long name, the ingredient list was short! I even had a fancy bar of white chocolate to use, but I opened it to find a weensy little worm crawling around, and I wish I had a photo if only to document the look of extreme horror on my face.

Luckily I also had white chocolate disks, and cookies were promptly baking. These cookies are both delicious and unusual – they’re a departure from the typical soft and chewy oatmeal cookie, but instead are thin and crisp and nearly hollow, and they fall neatly in line with my love of all things salty. In the end, the hurricane only managed a bit of rain and then lots of sun the next day, rendering my cookies unnecessary, but somehow no one minded having them around.

Crispy Salted White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies – from Smitten Kitchen
The dough here isn’t very salty, so don’t skip the sprinkling of salt on top. Also, use good white chocolate! The chips are usually artificial and kinda weird tasting.

Yield: 24 cookies

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and table salt in a medium bowl.

Beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Scrape down bowl with rubber spatula, then add egg and vanilla and beat until incorporated. Scrape down bowl again. Add flour mixture gradually and mix until just incorporated and smooth. Gradually add oats and white chocolate and mix until well incorporated.

Divide dough into 24 equal portions, each about 2 tablespoons. Roll between palms into balls, then place on lined baking sheets about 2 1/2 inches apart. Using fingertips, gently press down each ball to about 3/4-inch thickness.

Sprinkle a few flakes of sea salt on each cookie. Bake until cookies are deep golden brown, about 13 to 16 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to wire rack to cool.

rainy day cookies

August 25, 2010 § 8 Comments

Oh my, what a weekend. It was my first back home after lots of travelling, and my roommates were all out of town, leaving a big, echo-y house to settle back into. So I slept. Did the laundry. Mopped the floors. Made molasses spice cookies. That last one was probably the highlight.

I was a little reluctant to make these at first, as they just seem like a very fall-appropriate recipe, and I refuse to give up on summer any earlier than I have to. But it was rainy and I wanted something toasty, and it turns out that these cookies are perfect. They’re soft and chewy with a slightly crisp outside, and even though the molasses makes the dough taste pretty iffy, once they’re baked it all balances out and they end up spicy and sweet and wonderful. The icky dough is probably actually a good thing, since this may be the first time I managed to get as many cookies out of the recipe as I was meant to. They definitely evoke fall, but in a comforting way, and it’s only August so I don’t even really need to worry yet – I have months of summer left! Months! Please don’t tell me otherwise.

Molasses Spice Cookies – adapted from Simply Recipes
Yield: about 20 large cookies.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and allspice and set aside.

Beat the butter with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar, and 1/2 cup granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes with mixer set at medium speed. Add egg, vanilla extract, and molasses. Beat until combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula. Add dry ingredients and beat at low speed until just combined, about 30 seconds.

Place remaining 1/3 cup of granulated sugar in a shallow bowl. Scoop out dough in 2 tablespoon clumps and roll into 1 3/4 inch-wide balls. Roll balls in sugar and place on prepared sheets, spacing them 1 1/2 to 2 inches apart.

Bake until the outer edges of the cookies begin to set and centers are soft and puffy (the inside of the cracks will still look raw), about 11 to 13 minutes. Don’t overbake these cookies! Cool cookies on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks. These cookies stay nicely chewy for a few days if kept in an airtight container.

salty scotchies

June 19, 2010 § 7 Comments

I feel slightly silly when I change one minor thing about a recipe, and then have to write that I’ve “adapted” it. Switching brown sugar for white, adjusting a baking temperature – these are hardly revolutionary concepts. But yesterday I made a recipe literally a million times better (literally!) with one of these tiny changes, which can be summarized in one word: salt. I know, I’m so brilliant.

I had a bag of butterscotch chips lying around, which I had never tasted before let alone baked with, so I decided to start with the recipe on the back of the bag. Oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips sounded like a pretty decent combination. This recipe was incredibly easy, but when I tasted the dough I already knew there was going to be a problem. I guess I’m new to butterscotch, and wasn’t prepared for the cloyingly sweet taste. But after doubling the salt, and then sprinkling with fleur de sel (taking this back-of-the-bag recipe decidedly upmarket), the result was incredible: sweet but salty, nutty from the oats, kinda sticky, generally delicious.

Oatmeal Scotchies – adapted from the back of the Nestle bag
Be warned – these cookies are fairly hideous. People at my barbecue thought they were veggie burgers (to be fair, it was dark out!). But so easy, and so delicious!

Preheat oven to 375° F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in small bowl. In a large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla extract. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer (optional, but helps the cookies keep their shape).

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle cookies with fleur de sel.

Bake for 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9 to 10 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool for a couple minutes on baking sheets; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Note: okay, now that I type this out, I realize that I didn’t just adjust the salt – all my instructions are different too. But it’s better this way!