Posts Tagged ‘cookies’
milanos
Time to take a stroll down memory lane.
It’s always fun to try and remember your earliest food memories. My third birthday cake is probably the earliest I have, but it’s more the candles and party than the eating of the actual cake. Eating Pepperidge Farm Milanos at around age 4 on the other hand – now that’s something I can picture with perfect clarity. The bag appearing in the pantry, the fancy fluted wrappers, the first taste of chocolate that wasn’t sweetened milk. I could easily eat the whole bag but knew they were expensive and special and had to make them last. My nostalgia still makes me feel that way anytime I buy them.
They are special cookies. Delicate and delicious with that perfect crunchy cookie and semi-sweet chocolate filling. I rarely buy Milanos these days since I usually have my own baked goods around 24/7, but I came across this recipe while hunting for new cookie ideas and stopped dead. Why hadn’t I ever made my own Milanos before? Upon seeing just how easy the recipe was, I knew I’d rectify that situation tout de suite.
I strayed from Gale Gand’s recipe to make the flavor more akin to how I think of milanos: vanilla cookie + semi-sweet filling. No citrus, no mint, nothing else. Just perfectly combined chocolate and vanilla. And that’s what these are. Perfect. Just how I remember them.
whole wheat white chocolate chip cookies
Ohhhh, white chocolate. You are one of my few culinary enemies I have yet to defeat. I will admit, you’re delicious in peppermint dark chocolate bark, and occasionally drizzled on chocolate cake. Otherwise, your flavor is sickly sweet and takes over anything it touches. Yet I try to make my relationship with you work. Tirelessly.
These cookies were an attempt to try and use up some white chocolate morsels I had lying around and I figured whole wheat flour, some pecans, and an equal ratio of semi-sweet morsels to white would balance out. It pretty much didn’t. If you like white chocolate, you’ll adore these cookies. They’re super moist and chewy, have fantastic texture, and the white chocolate flavor is right there in your face. For me, these are cookies to be handed out to others. If I ever make them again I’ll change the ratio of semi-sweet chocolate to white to at least 2 to 1 (maybe 3 to 1) but hey, my loss can be your gain.
chocolate hazelnut thumbprints
Alright, let’s get back on the chocolate train, shall we? Welcome, #5 on the Christmas cookie list.
I’m a strong supporter of the “Just-add-Nutella-and-everything-gets-better” party, so when I saw this recipe for a classic thumbprint cookie that was rolled in toasted hazelnuts, I knew my beliefs would come in handy. The original recipe had you filling them with jam — the boring traditional way. But the hazelnuts immediately got Nutella on my brain and I knew right away what I’d replace that jam with.
Speaking of hazelnuts – they are, quite frankly, a huge pain in the ass to work with. Roasting and skinning them takes ages since getting their skins off is pretty tricky even if you use the old method of rubbing them between a towel. Thankfully, I found a new method which makes it unbelievably easy, and also lets you roast the nuts after they’ve been skinned, giving them even more flavor. These cookies are toasty and crunchy on the outside with a thick, ooey-gooey rich center of chocolate-hazelnut goodness and my God why haven’t you made them already?? Get to it!
lemon glazed wreaths
Time for cookie #4 in the Christmas cookie list. No, those aren’t mini bagels. And no, they’re not mini donuts either! They’re cookies!
This is a simple cookie with a lot of frills and froufrou to dress it up. It’s a nice simple lemon cookie with lemon glaze, but it’s just so pretty. And sometimes (let’s face it), that’s what holiday baking is all about.
I strayed from Martha’s recipe a bit because my dough came out incredibly sticky when I was done, so I added a bit more flour, chilled it overnight, and did a double glaze to get that great bright white color on top. I love the little white nonpareils on top since they look like snow (and add great texture), but if you really wanted to push the wreath idea, green and red would also be super fun.
cocoa coffee shortbread
Time for cookie #2 in the holiday baking extravaganza! Moving on from a spin on the classic oatmeal raisin to something a little more elegant, a little more refined. Something to take delicate bites from while sipping espresso con panna.
I’ve had these cookies bookmarked for ages and wanted to make them last year for my mom’s cookie exchange but was (sadly) vetoed. Oh well! More for me, just a year later.
I’ll be honest in saying the big thing that drew me to this cookie (besides the idea of coffee-flavored shortbread) was the shape. It was dainty and cute and a simple way to make a traditional cookie a little more special. But why have a coffee-flavored shortbread cookie be a pale yellow color? Why not oomph up the color and flavor by making it cocoa-based? Plus, every good baker knows that coffee brings out chocolate flavor in anything, so it was a revision made in heaven.
I changed the recipe a bit by adding a little more sugar, replacing a bit of the flour with unsweetened cocoa powder, and adding some vanilla extract. The flavor isn’t overly sweet, but pungent and almost bitter in that great coffee way. It has that perfect dissolve-on-your-tongue shortbread texture and the size is just right to sit on a saucer next to a great cup of coffee or whatever you fancy.
