Nothing revolutionary here except these have some lime juice and zest as well as lemon. And they’re certainly citrus-potent, sweet, acidic, textural from the shortbread type base and delicate all at the same time. Worth making.

Recently I met my friend Gwen for lunch. She, who still works in the big-mad-crazy 70+ hour a week corporate world, and always has oodles of fascinating stories to share about her work life. She flies back and forth to Chicago, meets with corporate attorneys, leads meetings, does long-term strategic planning, guides her staff, smooths CEO feathers and all those kinds of things. I keep telling her she needs to write a book. One of her rare down-time activities is baking, and she makes mounds of Christmas cookies each year, so when she mentioned these lemon-lime coconut macaroon bars she’d made recently, I knew I’d want to try them.

The recipe was in a very recent Sunset Magazine. And as I mentioned above, they’re similar to many lemon bar recipes, except there is toasted coconut in the pastry/cookie base part, and the filling is loaded with lemon and lime juices and zest from both.

What’s GOOD: well, the citrus-centric flavor, of course. These are very tart and sweet and loaded with flavor. I liked the coconut addition in the pastry base – it gave a nice – and different flavor to the bars that I enjoyed. The bars are on the wet side, so the powdered sugar dissolves onto the top – at least it did for me – within 10 minutes or so. Just sprinkle the sugar on before serving.
What’s NOT: nothing, really. Easy to make.

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Are you a cookie-dough eater as I am? Well, the almond flavoring in the dough was just spot-on, pungent but not overpowering, and I expected the cookies to take on more of an almond flavor. Alas, it faded during baking. But biting into these little morsels almost tastes like a sandy, but not quite. Oh, but these are delicious no matter what you call them!

When I think about baking cookies, chocolate chip are never far from the forefront of my mind. But I decided I’ve made enough of those – there was a bag of them in our Palm Desert house freezer, and when we sold the house in March, well, those came home with us. Most of them haven’t been eaten (because they weren’t my favorite-est recipe). Maybe that’s a good thing since I don’t hanker for one every day.

Anyway, I looked around at a variety of recipes and was going to make a different cardamom cookie than this one, but when I went online I couldn’t find anyone who had commented on that particular recipe. I’ve come to rely on other people’s reviews of printed or cookbook recipes. But as I looked, I found this one that sounded even better because it contained walnuts and almond extract. It didn’t contain any leavening, either. No soda or baking powder. And no eggs. I wondered how they would rise, assuming they would be flat-flat coins.

Making the dough was a cinch – flour, butter, walnuts, almond extract, ground cardamom, salt and powdered sugar. That’s it. Oh, that’s how – they’re like Russian tea cakes, the ones that are rolled in powdered sugar after they’re baked. They stay in that mound shape. So something about the chemistry of these (like shortbread) helps them retain their round form.

This recipe did suggest rolling them in more powdered sugar. I didn’t do that as I thought they were amply sweet already. Besides, the powdered sugar always ends up on my clothes and/or chin. The dough is rolled into 1-inch balls and baked in a 350° oven for 20 minutes (longer than many cookies) until they’re just beginning to get golden brown on the bottom.

What’s GOOD: the buttery taste, like shortbread. Easy – VERY – to make. No hassle at all. Yes, I’d make them again. Would be nice for Christmas cookies too. The cardamom is subtle (I added more than the original recipe indicated) as is the almond flavor. I liked the walnuts in these too.

What’s NOT: gee, nothing. Great cookie.

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If you’re a chocoholic like I am, then you’ll understand when I say that the other day I just had to – yes, just HAD TO make brownies. I needed that mouth-feel of chocolate with the light texture of cake. Maybe you can tell by looking at the photo that they were super-moist.

Rather than make any of the other brownies (that I’ve already made) in my repertoire, I turned to my to-try file, and this recipe from Smitten Kitchen many years ago was what spoke to me. A brownie that’s not only rich in chocolate, but also with spices added. I can’t say that I’d ever had brownies with cinnamon, cardamom and some heat (either ground chipotle or smoky paprika) in it.

You’ve heard, naturally, about the affinity of chocolate and coffee, right? That whenever you’re baking with chocolate, if you add a little bit of coffee somehow (in this case it was instant espresso powder), it enhances the chocolate flavor. Experts have done taste-tests and our palates like the marriage of chocolate and coffee (like mocha!).

The original brownie recipe came from a cookbook called Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. I’d not heard of the cookbook, either. But the story is long . . . Deb knew someone who worked at Baked, the bakery (from hence the cookbook came) and she had a scribbled list of ingredients for Chipotle Brownies. Deb lost the recipe. Meanwhile the cookbook came out and there was a  brownie recipe in there but it didn’t have the spices and heat. Then she found the older recipe, so she kind of combined it all. Whew! Does all that make sense?

The batter was easy enough to put together – the usual kind of brownie baking stuff – but with the addition of instant espresso powder and the spices. Deb used chipotle chile in her cookies, but she also suggested using smoky paprika instead. I had some of the dry-type chipotle chile powder (not the wet type in adobo sauce), but it was marked “hot.” I was a bit concerned it would be too much heat, so I used the smoked paprika and added in a little tiny bit of the hot chipotle powder. These are to be baked in a glass 9×13 pan, or a very light colored metal pan – I used the glass.

The recipe indicated baking for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with only a few crumbs attached. Well, at 25 minutes I used my tester and it came out clean, so I was concerned I’d over-baked them. I couldn’t really tell by looking at them – they “looked” done from the top, but I wouldn’t know until I cut into them, which took a couple of hours for them to cool completely. I think they were a tad on the under-done side – the ones I cut from the outside edges were perfect, but the interior bars were really moist. If you like solid brownies with almost a fudgy texture to them, this is your recipe! I think I should have baked them an additional 5 minutes. Since I baked these I found a notation on the ‘net indicating brownies are to be baked to 214°. Most baked goods are done at about 205°, so this is different. Must have to do with the density of the batter.

The spices? Well, when I ate my first bite, I could tell there was something else IN there, but I could not discern the cinnamon, or the cardamom. But once I swallowed that bite, oh-la-la! Heat. Yes, a very light heat on the way down and afterwards. I could not tell it was smoked paprika – in fact I don’t know that I could discern the smoked aspect of it at all. I suppose the chocolate – which this recipe contains in spades – masks those spicy flavors somewhat.

What’s GOOD: if you want extra-chocolaty brownies, these fill the bill. Lots of chocolate flavor; good texture, a perfect balance of sweet to chocolate and spice. Would I make them again? Yes. They were different, that’s for sure. The spices add a big boost of flavor and I liked the little residual heat at the back of the throat as you swallowed them and the heat lingered for several minutes. They certainly satisfied my I-need-brownies-now. The recipe makes a lot – I gave away some and stuck a couple of foil-wrapped packages in the freezer for some day, down the road, when I’m hankering for some chocolate. Everyone who tried this (including my DH who almost never eats sweets) raved about them.
What’s NOT: really nothing. I liked them.  If you like experimenting with heat, do try them!

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Ah, chocolate. White chocolate, dark chocolate and cocoa bound together into a light-textured cookie with some slivered almonds. Perfect with a fresh cup of coffee. Or for any chocoholic.

How many times have you made something, from a recipe on the ‘net, from a major site on the ‘net, and had it go wrong? After I mixed up this batch of cookies and had the first tray in the oven, I went about entering it into MasterCook, so I ended up at the Barefoot Contessa site on the Food Network. Saw 5 stars. Good. I copied all the ingredients and directions over, then thought I’d glance at the reviews. Oh my.

Well, there was a bunch of stuff there. Good and bad. Some people thought no wonder it failed because it’s not Ina’s recipe. It’s from Kathleen King. Some people watched the segment on TV and said that absolutely she used 2 1/2 POUNDS of butter, not 2 1/2 CUBES of butter. Big difference, obviously! Some people who made these actually put IN 2 1/2 pounds of butter and thought the cookies were just fine. Really? Others thought the dough was dry (mine was). Too dry. Still others had added in an extra egg yolk (I put in a 2nd egg). Others added some oil. Others reduced the amount of flour. My cookies were already mixed up completely, so I didn’t have a lot of options. I tasted a cookie from the first tray, and although it hadn’t completely cooled yet, I thought they might be a tad dry. So that’s when I added in the extra egg, assuming it could still be mixed up in my stand mixer. Yes, that worked. The motor was barely able to keep the beater moving and mix in. The batter was much more like a typical cookie dough. It was far too late to add in more butter – others who tried this a 2nd time added in 3 cubes of butter instead of the 2 1/2 and thought that was perfect. Others felt that using unsalted butter was just off, but I only had unsalted, and I thought the cookies were salted sufficiently. And, just so you know, some people made the recipe exactly as printed and thought it was fine, even though the cookies were slightly dry.

What surprises me, after reading about 50+ reviews, is that people at the Food Network should have double-checked the recipe and put a disclaimer or something ON the recipe, if not from the beginning, or at least after all these people have commented that there’s something wrong with the recipe. If the recipe IS correct, then put a statement there stating so. Or state that there was an error during the taping of the show, that 2 1/2 cubes is correct.  Or, is it really 2 1/2 pounds? It has been my experience that once a recipe goes up on the Food Network, it’s there and there it stays forever, without change or correction. They never (seem to) alter anything. Ever.

Fortunately, most cookies are a flexible medium. The science of them isn’t as exact as, say, a cake, or even a muffin or scone. Plus, what tastes good to one person may be awful to someone else. It could be the type of chocolate. It could be the texture. It could be the addition of nuts. It could be the sweetness. I prefer less-sweet cookies. Others think cookies need to be more like candy to suit them. So I guess you could say that cookies can be quite forgiving.

So when all was said and done, really all I did was add in another egg. The texture was much better – it had just a hint of crispy on the outside, and lovely, decadent softness on the inside. I happened to have some extra bitter chocolate chips on hand, so decided to use them here.  I used Valrhona white chocolate and chopped the pieces myself from a small block. I’m not usually a fan of white chocolate – to me, if I’m going to eat chocolate, I want real CHOCOLATE – the dark stuff, not this by-product that is called chocolate. To me it isn’t chocolate at all.

As I was making these cookies I was already writing up this post in my head. Already starting to tell the story about why I made them. That day (last Sunday) we were going to Pasadena to go out to dinner with friends there (that’s about an hour’s drive north of us). Wayne and Lucy, when they come to our house, always come bearing gifts – flowers, or some homemade basil oil Lucy’s made, or some candied nuts she’s whipped up. Something. So not having anything in my larder that would qualify, I decided to make cookies. I also have some of the wonderful Lindy’s Cheesecake left over, so I’ll probably take a couple of slices to them. It’s over a week old, and needs to be eaten or be thrown out!

What’s GOOD: oh, well, the chocolate, first and foremost. I enjoyed the extra bitter in these cookies, but regular chocolate chips would be just fine. I liked the texture from chocolate chips, the white chocolate chunks, and mainly the almonds. If you like white chocolate, this will float your boat. You could even interchange the volume of white to dark. In fact, you could put in other nuts, or peanut butter chips instead of the white. The add-ins are quite flexible. Do note that I’ve changed the recipe slightly (added an extra egg for some extra moisture).
What’s NOT: really nothing as long as you make the necessary changes to the recipe (which are in the recipe below). A good all-around chocolate cookie with lots of extras in it.

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Salt is in. In everything. On top of everything. In pinks, and grays and Kosher and flake. In and on (these cookies) in this case. You might wonder if there is anything anyone could possibly try to make a different chocolate chip cookie. Read on.

Well, I seem to be a sucker for any such new CC cookie. I still go back to my favorites in between trying any new one I come across. My DH brought home the new bag (3.5 pounds) of chocolate chips from Costco. I was dismayed because it wasn’t Nestle’s Tollhouse. Costco no longer carries those gigantic bags of CCs. They’ve come out with their own Kirkland brand of them. And I was prepared to be very upset – since I just plain LIKE the flavor of those Nestle’s chips. Sometimes I use Ghiradelli for some cookies, but mostly I resort back to the Nestle’s because they seem to have the best balance of sweet to chocolate. At least that’s what I thought. I must say, though, these new Kirkland ones are semisweet (just like Nestle’s), 51% cacao (I don’t know what Nestle’s is), contain real vanilla, and they’re from “responsibly sourced cacao.”  My best test was to eat some of the chips straight – to see what I thought of the flavor. I liked them. Wow, I actually liked them a lot. So, I guess it’s “move over Nestle’s, Kirkland/Costco has displaced you!” They are not Nestle’s chips in disguise – as I can tell these are a bit more dark chocolate than Nestle’s. They have a good balance of sugar to chocolate (that’s one of my beefs with some of the other premium chocolates – they contain too much sugar – to me).

So, back to the recipe. It was in the January 2013 Bon Appetit issue, and on the surface it didn’t look all that unusual from most other recipes – white and brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder, soda, the chips and SALT.  The recipe makes a small batch – that’s good since it was a new recipe – why make a lot if you’re not sure you’ll like them?

There’s nothing unusual about the preparation either. I scooped the batter onto parchment lined baking sheets and baked them as directed. The first tray was slightly overcooked. One minute made a huge difference. The next sheet I cut down the baking time, turning the sheet at 5 1/2 minutes. If I look at the photo in the magazine, the cookie looks thicker, more dense, whereas mine were quite thin. Not too thin by any means, just thin. I sprinkled the salt (I used flake salt) on top of each cookie before it baked, but changed that because the first batch absorbed the salt. After that I sprinkled the salt on the cookies when I took them out of the oven, while still hot. That worked fine.

A few days later, as they sat, uneaten, in the freezer, I served them to my 2 Scrabble friends, and they both went absolutely NUTS over them. I mean to tell you, they could hardly stay out of the plate of cookies. I sent both home with a bag of them.

What’s good: well, this cookie is different. To me it has a flavor of salty caramel – it’s the brown sugar as it bakes, I suppose, since there is more brown sugar than white in this recipe. I liked the salt, and so did my friends. In fact, they LOVED the salt on top. They also loved the intense crispiness of the cookie. It really IS crispy, and it’s almost candy-like. When you sink your teeth into a bite, you have to bite clear through and almost tear with your teeth to separate the bite – the cookie holds on. Does that make sense? It doesn’t break off gently as in a buttery, more shortbread style. Nothing like traditional CC cookies. I also think these cookies are too sweet, but my 2 friends disagreed. So, I’ve put a note in the recipe below – use your own judgment.
What’s not: what’s there not to like about any CC cookie? I wish I didn’t like them as much as I do! I try NOT to bake them because if they’re around, I eat them. Not so much with this recipe, but that’s only because this particular version was a bit too sweet for me (see above). I also didn’t care for the candy-like texture, but I don’t eat candy. Hardly ever. If you love candy, you might go nuts for this cookie.

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Cutting to the chase? Make these. They’re ever-so easy. And oh, are they good!

A week or so ago a choir friend brought these little puppies to church, which we got to nibble on in between services/singing. I almost passed them by, as I try to eat just ONE glazed doughnut hole, an every week offering on the snack table. But somebody was raving about these. And they were cut into little tiny bite-sized pieces. Okay, I said to self, just one. And indeed, I did just have one – they all disappeared within about a minute as the choir members swarmed like bears to a honeypot.

Quickly I found out who made them and joined the parade asking Donnell for the recipe, which she brought to choir practice the following week. Oh joy! I’d gone online and looked up many, many other recipes for these. None had a maple drizzle on top so I couldn’t be sure it was the same thing.

The very next morning I was in the kitchen making these. My best friend Cherrie (the one who has breast cancer and just had surgery) and I usually do a bake-a-thon of Christmas cookies during the first week of December. That’s not happening this year as she doesn’t have much arm power or stamina yet. So I’ve been sharing some cookies with her as I’ve made any. During the 10 days or so after her surgery many friends signed up to deliver dinner to them, and I’m sure a cookie was in order after some of those meals. I made Cranberry Noels a couple of weeks ago. I gave her almost all of them. This week I gave her all but about 10 pieces of this. I think I’ll have to make these again. Soon. My GF cousin Gary is coming down for Christmas – he arrives in a few days – maybe I’ll make the crust layer with almond meal, which would likely work well! I’ll let you know.

The only thing that’s unusual in these is MAPLE EXTRACT. Not every grocery store has it. Fortunately I had just enough to make this batch, and have already purchased another bottle of it. I’m going to find some pure extract, rather than the imitation, which is all that’s available in grocery stores. I went online and read lots of reviews of maple extract. I’d have ordered some from amazon (since I have a prime account, so no extra shipping), but they don’t offer any extract that qualifies for prime. I’ll check out Whole Foods. They might have it. Meanwhile, I’ll make do with the imitation!

So, back to the bars themselves. First you make a crumbly pastry base (I used my stand mixer). It is pressed into the bottom of a greased 9×12 dish/ or pan. I recommend using a quarter sheet pan if you have one – it’s a little bit smaller (8 1/2 x 12 interior measure, not 9×13 as most rectangular cake pans measure). I thought the base layer was a little bit sparse – I had trouble getting every smidge of the pan bottom covered because I was using a rectangular cake pan. If you use the quarter sheet pan you may be able to press a bit of the pastry up the edges (a good thing).

While it baked I made the filling, which is not difficult. Fold the chopped walnuts in last, though. The filling is easily poured on top of the pastry crust and it’s baked for 20-30 minutes. Usually my ovens runs a bit hot, but at 20 minutes the filling wasn’t “set,” as the directions suggested. I put it back in for another 10 minutes. I think that was just a bit too long as the filling around the edges (where it came in contact with the metal pan) had turned to candy. So, with my oven anyway, probably 25 minutes is just about right. Be watchful of the batch as you bake it.

Once baked the pan needs to rest until it’s completely cool. Then you mix up a simple powdered sugar, maple extract and milk drizzle that gets dripped all over the mixture. Let that set and cut and serve. As I mentioned above, Donnell made her batch in a quarter sheet pan, which is what I will use next time. The filling resembles pecan pie filling, but with walnuts, not pecans. The recipe does indicate the cookies should be stored in the refrigerator.

What’s good: the delish maple flavor. We don’t eat much of anything that uses maple syrup, so it was a taste treat for me. It’s easy to make too.
What’s not: I can’t think of a single thing I didn’t like about these!

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It’s the season for ginger snaps. Yet there was a special reason I made something with ginger . . .

My best friend has breast cancer. It’s been several months and she’s been through chemo hell. Her surgery is this week, then she’ll have radiation next year. After she had her first chemo infusion she felt great for the first couple of days, other than a bit of fatigue. But then she got really sick. The doctors have ways to help the nausea – everyone is different – so what happens for one person may not happen for the next. Let’s just say she was awfully sick. She said a neighbor had mentioned eating ginger in different forms helped with the nausea (tea, cookies, candy or even nibbling on crystallized ginger). Ginger has that property – it helps with seasickness too. So I told her right away that I would make some ginger cookies for her. (That’s the link to the original ginger cookies.) Her only request was that they needed to be crisp. No problem – I had just the recipe. My friend ate them all. I did make some other cookies too – for her husband – because I knew if he knew there were cookies in the freezer – he’d eat them. He was forbidden to eat her ginger cookies. During the most difficult part of her chemo (4 times, 3 weeks apart) she was down hard for almost a week. Couldn’t eat. She ate some spoons of vanilla instant pudding, which seems to keep the metallic taste out of her mouth (caused by the chemicals), and every day she tried to get down something – and some days it was just a cookie and some hot tea or iced tea.

It was nice to dig out the Kitchen Aid from the cupboard and cream some butter and sugar since I hadn’t made any cookies in quite awhile!  I turned to the crispest ginger cookies I know, from a good friend – Ann N – and thought I’d tweak the recipe just a little bit – to make it more gingery. It’s a very simple, straight-forward recipe as it is – some brown and white sugar, molasses, powdered ginger plus the usual butter, flour, leavening, etc. I knew right away what I would do to make it even more gingery. I had a jar of Trader Joe’s Ginger Spread in the refrigerator, with just about a tablespoon of the jam left. That went into the batter. It’s a delish jam – very spicy, gingery if you eat it straight away. It’s thick – it’s not like the Sainsbury’s ginger preserves I buy in England every time we visit – that has a thick syrupy quality and chunks of ginger. This Trader Joe’s stuff is smooth and thick – sort of soft homogenous peanut butter. You need but a thin layer on a piece of toast to give it a lovely covering. But I also wanted to add some crystallized ginger to it too – it’s so perfect in cookies. So, I poured out about 3 T. of crystallized ginger onto my cutting board, sprinkled about a T. of sugar on top and chopped and minced and minced some more until it was about as tiny as I could make it (see photo at left). I used the sugar because otherwise the sticky ginger pieces cling to any knife you’d use, and the pieces stick to each other too. If you add the sugar IT sticks to those sticky edges and it’s ever so much easier to chop. You can remove a T. of sugar from the creaming batter if you want. I didn’t, but am sure it would be fine if you’d like to make it less sweet.

Anyway, the dough is shaped into small balls, rolled in granulated sugar and you can press them down with the a fork, or the bottom of a glass if you want – I just used my hand – or you can skip that step since the cookies spread out in the oven anyway. They’re very very thin cookies – I like them this way. If you’re expecting some chewy consistency – well, there is a little bit. But I freeze all of my cookies and when eaten from a frozen state they’re very crispy. If you defrost them, they have a little bit of chewiness rather than so much of the crispy.

What I liked: well, I like – no, love – these cookies already – and adding the ginger spread and the minced crystallized ginger just made them better yet! They’re very spicy (I like that part). And very, very crisp.

What I didn’t like: nothing at all.

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If you’re new to my blog (I have a lot more readers these days – maybe because I’m posting some of my food pictures on Pinterest), you don’t know that over the course of my life I’ve collected thousands of recipes. Oh my goodness, have I! It’s almost a sickness, and yet I can’t seem to stop! My mother, back in 1997, when she was within a few months of passing away (and in really good health at that moment) actually handed me a recipe she’d clipped out of a magazine – she said she couldn’t seem to help herself. She didn’t cook at all then (she was 89 and lived in a retirement home), but she thought I might like it. I put it in my purse and it went into the trash later. It didn’t appeal to me at all. I feel guilty about that now! I wish I had that recipe – I’d make it just because it was something she gave me so near to the end of her life. Anyway, on to this recipe.

What I have in a hallway in our house (about 15 steps from the kitchen) is a 3-tier storage container (rattan baskets in a stand) that contain the recipes I collected from about 1965-2003. There you can see it at left. In our former house I had a huge – HUGE – set of drawers that housed Pentaflex racks and my recipe files lived there, right in the kitchen. In the house we’re in now, I didn’t have the space for such a thing in the kitchen (prior to the remodeling we did), so I bought this contraption and jamb-packed it with file folders by recipe type. When we did remodel, these just stayed where they are, sitting in a little alcove, out of the way, but there if I need them!

In the ensuing years I’ve really tried to limit the recipes I clip out of magazines and newspapers. I say to myself “Am I really going to make this? Really?” I try to not clip more than 1-3 in any one magazine. Those that make the cut go into 3-ring binders. So yes, I’m still collecting recipes. Occasionally I go to the archives (the baskets) to find something. Some years ago I actually went through the entire thing and got rid of about half of the recipes in there – things I knew I wouldn’t make – like home made phyllo dough, or real croissants, pickling my own sauerkraut, and lots of canning recipes. You know, those kinds of things.

So anyway, I was scouring the files for some old recipe; can’t even remember what it was now, but it was something in the cookie folder. And out flitted a recipe onto the floor. I reached for it. Yes, a cookie recipe. But hmmm, this looked good. Not what I needed that day, but I took it out and put it on my to-make-soon cookbook stand I have right next to this computer. It’s sat there for several weeks, then one day it just said “make me.”

Where this recipe clipping came from, I’m not sure, but when I went searching online for this recipe (only a couple of sources had it, and only one person had written a story about it) someone wrote that it was in the brochure for Jessica’s Biscuit, then a place to order cookbooks (and I did at one time). Nancy Silverton’s book Desserts is called a classic, and it’s popular enough that it’s been reprinted. Anyway, the recipe clip said it’s Nancy Silverton’s recipe – and her comment was that if she ever had to be limited to one slice and bake cookie, this would be it. That’s good enough testimony for me.

The cookie is easy to mix up. My only difficulty was that I thought I had pecans. I didn’t. So I used walnuts instead. I think pecans would have a bit more flavor, but walnuts were great, don’t get me wrong here! It’s a kind of very tender shortbread cookie and not overly sweet. Love the maple syrup in it, and just one egg yolk. But half a pound of butter. No, not low fat! Ha! The dough is chilled, then formed into cylinders and frozen solid. The next day I baked them, and found that if the rolls sat out for about 10 minutes they were a lot easier to slice. With large walnut pieces in the dough, if my knife hit the nut just so, it broke the slice altogether. But I was able to piece them back together mostly. The recipe said it made 72 – obviously I sliced the cookies a little thicker than 3/8”, so I got about 42 or so. The cookies don’t spread at all (there’s no leavening in the cookie, remember) so you can pack the cookie sheet well. The only caution in the recipe is that the cookie must be baked completely to be tender. If you under bake them, they’re tough, apparently. I didn’t have that difficulty, but I did have to bake my cookies (possibly thicker ones) for 18 minutes to get them just barely golden brown around the edges. I cooled them – promptly ate two (yum) with a cup of tea – and put the remainder in the freezer.

What I liked: the batter was easy-peasy to mix up and chill. Really easy to roll into cylinders too. And relatively easy to slice and bake. Taste: yum. Tender, buttery, and absolutely perfect with a cup of tea I made this afternoon! And these would be wonderful for Christmas. Make them up ahead and keep on hand to bake when needed. Or they’d work great for a cookie exchange too.
What I didn’t like: absolutely nothing. The frozen dough was a little finicky to slice, but not a deterrent to making them!

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Oh my, oh my. Chocolate decadence. Chocolate heaven. Sugar overload. Chocolate overload. These are slightly crunchy on the very delicate outside and soft and meltingly tender on the inside. I don’t know how that chemistry works, but it does!

Can you tell by looking at these that there’s just a little hint of crispiness to those edges? The whole cookie top is shiny – I think that means there’s lots of wicked butterfat in it and sugar. Yep to both. But when your teeth sink into them, the cookie almost melts before it sort-of sinks and collapses (not crumbles) in your mouth. When I read the recipe in the latest issue of Food & Wine I was smitten with the description of these – brownies in cookie form. I mean the mag is just hot off the press – it’s still October and I’m reading the November issue. You know how that is – all the food mags seem to compete on how early they can publish before the true publish-by date. But anyway, the cookie is from Belinda Leong (obviously she’s the B) of B. Patisserie in San Francisco.

What makes these cookies all craggy-like on top is the folding in of chocolate chips after you’ve smoothed together  the cookie batter. Chocolate chips don’t quite melt into the cookie, but once cooled, they are still intact inside. These taste nothing like a box-mix brownie – it’s not cake like. It’s almost soufflé-like – puffy and soft. They’re not like fudge either – they’re not dense at all, yet there is a ton of chocolate in this recipe (a pound of semisweet that’s melted into the batter and 12 ounces of chips folded in at the end).

The other thing that’s truly unique about these is the method – once you’ve folded in the last of the chips, the batter is spread into a baking dish and FROZEN for an hour or so. Yes, that’s what I said. Then you use a sharp scooping implement (I have cookie scoops from King Arthur Flour that I use all the time – one for cookies and one for muffin size). The scoops of batter are placed on a parchment-lined baking sheet and baked at 400° for 10 minutes. Allow them to cool slightly on the sheet afterwards, then use a small spatula to put them onto a rack to cool completely. I used one sheet of parchment for all the cookies (I made the cookies smaller than the recipe indicated, so I got 48 instead of 36), but I did scrape off the still-warm crumbs that stuck to the parchment. The first batch were pretty hard to scoop out of the dish (because it was frozen), but as the batter sat out at room temp, it was easier and easier.

The only adjustment I made to the recipe was to add a bit less sugar. I’m glad I did, and I think you probably could add even less. I don’t love overly sweet cookies – so use your own judgment. I’ve made a note in the recipe about it.

What I liked: well, the rich, over-the-top chocolate flavor, the texture altogether (crispy outside, melty soft inside). They’re also very delicate, but wickedly chocolate.
What I didn’t like: nothing, really. It’s a very rich cookie – know that before you start!

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These little guys are really a cake with a very thin icing on them. But they’re called cookies. Maybe they’re a cross between a cookie and a snack cake. Whatever, they’re delicious.

I’d forgotten all about this recipe. I dug into my very old recipes and found the 3×5 index card I’d written back in the 1960’s. I’m almost positive these came from Sunset Magazine, but I went to their website and couldn’t find it there. So I don’t really know where it’s origin . . . , but these things are so good. And they’re EASY. They do contain some coffee (I used espresso), but I swear, if you serve them to people they’ll never discern the coffee in them. It’s very subtle. I needed something for my DH’s Bible Study Group to nibble on at 7:00 am, and all I could think of was some kind of bar cookie. This fit the bill perfectly.

The cake batter is cinchy easy – brown sugar, butter, egg – mixed together, then you add the dry ingredients (flour, soda, B.P. and cinnamon) – then you add in some raisins and walnuts. Pour into the pan and bake. When you’ve removed the cookie from the oven, mix up the icing – melted butter, powdered sugar and a little hot water or hot coffee. It is a thin frosting – hardly could be called a frosting – and drizzle it all over the warm pan of cookie/cake and spread it around. Wait until the cake is completely cooled before you cut it – I used a soft plastic spatula to cut the squares.

Just an admonition – if you are sensitive to caffeine, either don’t eat these at night – or use decaf coffee in the recipe. The original recipe called for shortening, but I used butter instead. And I used walnuts, but I suppose any kind of nuts would be fine.

What I liked: they’re simple; they’re tasty; they’re addictive, I swear! Beware: they’re tender, though. Be careful when you cut and try to remove the squares. I actually eat them upside down because the icing provides a more solid surface (flat). Holding them normally, they sometimes will crumble.

What I didn’t like: nothing really – just know they’re a terribly tender cookie – a little hard to handle. I mentioned above that I eat these upside down (icing side down) because they’re sturdier that way. I wouldn’t make these for a cookie exchange – they’re hard to stack or store without breaking apart.

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