I'm Baaaack!

Yup, I took a little break. I got burned out on brownie mixes and got into a rut. From now on, there will be a new format. Mondays won't solely be dedicated to brownie mixes. Instead Monday will feature some kind of dessert... any kind of dessert. Another day during the week, I will post a recipe for something savory and there might be some other stuff thrown in there too.

I have a few things up my sleeve for this week, so stay tuned. For today's recipe, I decided to post about these amazing ginger cookies I made last week for a luncheon that I catered. My vision was to make ginger cookies and ice them with a creamy lime curd or make sandwiches with lime curd in the middle. It didn't work out that way because they were fabulous by themselves.

I used a recipe from King Arthur Flour's website (one of my fave websites for baking recipes). The first batch I baked tasted just like molasses. They were delicious, but I was hoping for more of a ginger flavor, so I ground up some crystallized ginger in the food processor until the biggest pieces were about the size of peas and I mixed that into the batter. They were much better after that. Here is the recipe. Sorry I don't have a pic. They got eaten too quick and I didn't put one aside.

Soft Ginger Molasses Cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup molasses
  
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2 large eggs
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons crystallized ginger, ground
  
• sugar, for coating; pearl sugar; sparkling white (coarse) sugar; or granulated sugar

Directions
1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until they're light and fluffy.
2) Beat in the molasses, baking soda, salt, and spices.
3) Add the eggs, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated.
4) Stir in the flour. When the flour is mixed in, gently stir in the crystallized ginger.
5) Scoop the soft dough into 1 ½" balls; a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here. Roll them in granulated sugar, coarse sugar, or pearl sugar.
6) Space the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 2 ½" between them.
7) Bake them for 10 minutes. The centers will look soft and puffy; that's OK. Remove the cookies from the oven, and cool them on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool completely.

Aaannnnd... We Have a Winner!

Remember when I thought that I had come up with the best chocolate chip cookie recipe? Well, in that post I mentioned that I wanted to try one more recipe before making the final decision that my cookie recipe was my favorite, and I made them last night. And guess what? My cookies are crap compared to them. I saw this recipe from America's Test Kitchens on a friends blog and they looked so good. Go there and read the recipe now. I'll wait... (insert elevator music here)... Back? Ok. Let's discuss. I was very intrigued by the method. It seemed so bizarre, but I know that they tested the recipe a billion times a billion different ways, and this one must have worked best because they published it. Because of this, I had faith and went with it. I was also a little skeptical of the measurements. It used only a little less butter than I normally use and a lot less of the other key ingredients (flour and brown sugar) but the same amount of eggs and vanilla. Weird, right? Then the mixing and waiting and mixing and waiting and mixing a waiting. I don't know what the point is in it, but I was scared not to do it, and rightfully so. Those test kitchen people know what they're doing.

The browned butter and the brown sugar made the batter have a caramel-ish taste and really made a flavor difference in the final product. So good. I wanted to get the full 16 cookies out of the batch, so I didn't try the dough until I was done scooping and you know what? It really did make 16 perfectly even cookies. There was only a little bit of dough stuck to the sides of the bowl that I got to taste (it also helped that I didn't tell anyone I was making cookies so they weren't hovering over me eating the dough). So very precise. Gotta love that.

One more thing... I didn't have dark brown sugar so I just used light brown sugar and they still turned out awesome. Oh, and I put some sea salt on them before I baked them too. Totally optional though. Go and make them. Now! The. Best. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Ever.

One more thing for real. They passed the morning after test. Yup... still good. I even had one 2 days after and it was still good.

They are so pretty. All shiny and chewy.

This is a portion size in our house. I ate them like a stack of pancakes. In my dreams.

I couldn't stop taking pictures of them.

Are you Scanning a Cookie?

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies? I haven't met anyone who doesn't yet. A couple of years ago I set out to find my perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I say my perfect cookie because I think everyone has their own perception of what a chocolate chip cookie should be. For me, it's a little crisp on the outside and extremely chewy, almost dense, inside. I tried lots of recipes and they were all good because really, I don't think there's such a thing as bad chocolate chip cookies. The thing that did it for me, was what I called "The morning after test". They all tasted good warm because, well... they were warm. The texture was great cause they were gooey, but the morning after they didn't do so well. The texture got all weird and crumbly. I finally combined a bunch of recipes and came up with my own version. There is still one recipe that I recently saw that I need to try. I'll make them next week and do a comparison. So far, this is my favorite recipe:

(Yes, I did scan this cookie using my desktop scanner/copier/printer)

Weezie's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients
2 Sticks (1 cup) Butter*
1/2 Cup White Sugar
1 Cup Brown Sugar
2 teaspoon Vanilla
1 Egg
1 Egg Yolk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
2 1/4 cups flour
1 package Ghiradelli 60% Cocoa Chocolate Chips**
Sea Salt, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
   
2. Beat butter and sugars in stand mixer until well incorporated and fluffy (about 2 minutes).
   
3. Add the vanilla, egg and egg yolk. Beat until well incorporated.
   
4. Add the baking soda and salt and beat until well mixed.
   
5. Add the flour and mix just until the flour is incorporated. Mix in the chocolate chips until evenly distributed throughout batter.
6. Scoop batter onto silpat or parchment lined baking sheets. The size of my cookies depend upon what I'm making the cookies for, so that is up to your own discretion. At this point you can sprinkle a small amount of sea salt on them. I really enjoy that little touch, but you don't have to do it.
   
7. Bake cookies in preheated oven for 9-13 minutes depending on the size of your cookies. Bake only until the edges are golden brown. They may not look done, but that's what gives them the good texture the next day.
   

*I have done this with cold butter straight from the fridge and room temp butter and the results are always the same delicious cookie. If you use cold butter, you might just have to beat it a little longer with the sugar, but no biggie.
**You can certainly use other kinds of chips, but these, I have found work best. I like the shape and size of them and they are really good quality. Also, Zak loves eating dark, dark chocolate (I'm talking 85% cocoa), so he prefers this chocolate too.