Banana Chocolate Chunk Cookies

For the week of January 11th, I made a Banana Chocolate Chunk Cookie. A recipe I found in the Martha Stewart Cookies book. I was looking for something simple and when I flipped to this recipe, it called for 1 ripe banana, which I just happened to have. In fact just minuted before finding the recipe, I was thinking the banana looked like it was getting a little too ripe and I needed to find something to do with it - so this seemed like a perfect match.

The cookies only call for 1 banana in about 3 dozen cookies, so it didn't seem like there would be much banana flavor, but boy was I wrong! These cookies were amazing. I made them at 1pm in the afternoon and they didn't last through the evening. They definitely didn't make it to work or any remote taste testers.

Unfortunately, with the quick disappearance of the cookies, I didn't get any photos. So a few days later, I decided to make another batch to take to work. Once again these cookies were very popular at the office.

I would definitely suggest this recipe. It has a surprising amount of banana flavor, it's an oatmeal based cookie (even though you can barely tell there is oatmeal inside) and it calls for chocolate chunks. However, if your store is like mine, they don't always keep the chunks in stock, so I just substituted regular chocolate chips. The baking time is wrong in the recipe (at least for my oven) which produced a few overcooked ones in the first batch. Even the overcooked ones were delicious, as they had a little bit of a crunchy outside.

The cookies are cakelike and soft. I am more of a chewy cookie girl, but honestly, I couldn't stop eating these. The recipe says they're only good to store for 3 days, but they won't last that long - so make extra!

With all the busy holidays, my light box is still not complete. I wanted to get pictures of these, but there was a very small window before they were all gone. Maybe I will make them a third time and post up some photos for you to see.

Christmas Time Cookies - Cherry Cheesecake

Ok, I didn't post in a timely manner. I'm catching up now. I will admit that for the week of December 21st, I did not bake anything for this blog. The reason being, my website had a ton of Christmas orders and I literally spent the entire week prior to Christmas mixing, baking and packaging every night. I could have never gotten it all done without the help of my sweetie, Keith, who learned how to use the sealer and packaged over 15 dozen cookies for me in one sitting.

Other than Christmas cookies, I have been trying to formulate a new recipe for Cherry Cheesecake cookies, which hasn't been going so well. I have made about 5 attempts over the last several weeks and they have nearly all come out either too gooey or too sweet (tasting more like a sugar cookie than cheesecake). I have a great recipe for a lemony cheesecake cookie, which is a slice cookie and comes out with a shortbread texture. The taste is good, but I was looking to create a drop cookie with a hint of some kind of fruit topping.

For my first idea, I thought I would use cherry pie filling, which I had pureed in the blender as my fruit topping. I wanted to make a cookie dough, which just had ribbons of fruit topping mixed in. I made up my dough and gently folded in about 1/4C of the pureed fruit just a couple of times. Here's what the cookies looked like when they were baked:



Although they had the look of a cookie with a ribbon of cherry filling running throughout, the consistency was very moist and not at all cookie like. So I went back to the drawing board, trying to work out the moisture issues with the recipe. The first problem is that cream cheese, which is essential to making a cheesecake tasting cookie has more water than butter. Second problem is a little of the moisture from the cherry puree was also getting into the cookies - all this equals too much moisture and not good cookies.

So I adjusted my recipe, tweaking the amount of butter and cream cheese to try to get a desirable moisture level. I also decided to try making them in to thumbprint cookies, so the cherry puree wouldn't actually be added to dough mixture.



Although these cookies came out less moist. They had lost the cheesecake flavor from reducing the amount of cream cheese. The cherry puree thumbprint idea worked well. I may use this in my next attempt. Alas, after several tries, we grew tired of eating bad cherry cheesecake cookies, so I decided to put these on the back burner and move on to something else.

There will be more cherry cheesecake posts to come.

No, I haven't been cheating on my plan...

Okay, so I haven't posted in more than a month. I know, I'm a slacker. The holidays were busy and I was sick for a while. I did do some baking, I have just failed to write about it here.

So here goes:

For the week of December 14th, I prepared Rolled Sugar Cookies from the Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies magazine (circa something like 2003). I've had this magazine around for years and this has been my go to sugar cookie recipe, when I have the time to mix and chill and roll and chill and cut and chill, etc....it does take a tremendous amount of time to prepare these cookies. However, if you carefully follow the steps outlined in Martha's recipe, you will prepare a perfect sugar cookie in any shape you desire.

For all the years I have prepared these cookies, I have been told they were the best sugar cookies ever. For a few years I put them into Christmas cookie baskets that were given away to friends and family. One year, I asked my dad if he enjoyed the snowflake shape sugar cookies from his basket and he said he hadn't seen any cookies like that. Turns out my step mom ate them all before he got home from work. I've also had people tell me they hate sugar cookies, try these and change their tune.

This year, I decide to bake these cookies not only for the purpose of blogging about them, but also as a activity for Keith and his kids. So, I spent an evening preparing and chilling and baking cookies in various holiday shapes.



As you can see, the shapes came out great! That's all thanks to Martha's tip of rolling the dough out flat and putting it in the freezer before hitting it with the cookie cutters. The colder the dough is when you put it on the sheet, the better the shape will hold.

Well, Keith and the kids came over and we outfitted several bags of colored icing. Everyone had fun learning how to ice cookies. Unfortunately, I beat the icing a little too much and it was a little stiff. The kids had a little trouble squeezing the bag hard enough to get the icing out at first, but once we got them started they were having a great time.





Everyone made their own little pile of decorated cookies to enjoy. Here is my finished product.

Mint Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Every Sunday I go bowling with a friend of mine, Rick. Rick is also a faithful taste tester. A few days ago, he asked me if I could spare a few cookies for him this weekend. So I decided to go ahead and bake my cookies for the week on Saturday night.

About a month ago I created a dark chocolate and chili cookie, which I named "Spicy Mayan Cocoa" - one of my testers suggested that I make a companion cookie with mint chocolate as a cool alternative to the spicy flavor.

Last night I threw together a milk chocolate and mint flavored cookie. I am so pleased with the results. Usually, I go through multiple steps and trials to come up with a great recipe. This one turned out perfect on the first try. It taste almost like a Thin Mint cookie with the chewy texture of a chocolate chip cookie.
So, I decided to name is Mint Chocolate Chunk because I used chunks of Ghiradelli Milk Chocolate bars instead of chocolate chips.

I'll be bringing the remaining cookies to additional testers tomorrow - so I will report back the results.

Well, the results are in. The cookie is a hit! Several people have said "PERFECT". The only suggestion I have been given is to add some sort of mint candy - like crushed candy canes, Andies candies, etc. I may consider that as a variation. Overall, I think the base recipe is perfect just the way it is.

Sorry there are no photos this week. I've been in the process of constructing a light box for getting better cookie pictures. Hopefully it will be done in time for next week's cookies.

Can't wait to get on to next week's baking.

Pat's Blue Ribbon Cookies

I work with a man named Pat. He has been with the company for years and years. He enjoys a good cookie. In fact, he often has several when I bring them in.

When Pat realized I was a baker, he told me about his favorite cookie recipe. He found an oatmeal cookie recipe in the paper years and years ago. It was a blue ribbon winner. He clipped the recipe and he has made it every year since. It's a holiday tradition.

A few weeks ago, Pat confided in me that he was nervous about bringing his cookies in this year. He said he was worried that I would be judgemental, that the cookies wouldn't measure up. I assured him I was excited about trying his cookie recipe and that I wouldn't bring in any cookies this week so everyone could savor his holiday cookies.

Well, today was the day. The cookies arrived. Pat also brought me the recipe. So, since I didn't make cookies this week - here it is:

3/4C Shortening
1C Brown Sugar
1/2C Sugar
1 Egg
1/4C Water
1tsp Vanilla
1C Self-Rising Flour
1tsp Cinnamon
1/2tsp Cloves
1C Raisins
1C Chopped Nuts
3C Quick Cooking Oats

Grease baking sheet. 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Remove immediately to cool.

After trying the cookies, I have to say that they had a really good flavor. However, the cookie was very dense and very thick (didn't spread much). After baking many hundreds of cookies, I see several things about this recipe that are unusual and wonder if this is an actual reproduction of the original recipe - as most cookies don't use self-rising flour or water.

I think I will work on this recipe to try to turn it into a thinner chewy cookie. Check back for the updates.

Inspired by Pumpkin Pie

Finally, after weeks and weeks of trying. I have created a pumpkin cookie that is actually a cookie. Pumkpin is a difficult medium to work with. There is so much moisture, no matter how much you drain off the cookies always turn into little cakes. I have attempted this cookie nearly 15 times.

I was beginning to feel the pumpkin cookie had beaten me. Here's the results from today's baking - this is version 12, 13 and 14.

Version 12 came out a little greasy, with a very buttery flavor and was very chewy. It spread out a lot and was very very flat. The flavor was good, but it wasn't quite the right texture.

I am thinking perhaps I need to add a little baking soda. Leavening is a tricky thing. Baking soda can reduce spread in an acidic cookie (pumpkin is acidic, as well as most other cookie ingredients), it can also add better color/more browning. Baking soda makes its own bubbles by reacting with moisture. Baking powder does not make new bubbles. After seeing the flat deflated cookies, it seems like some bubbles are just what the doctor called for - the cookie doctor that is...

Well, baking soda was not the answer. As you can see from the picture above, this batch is going straight to the garbage. There wasn't a lot of flour in the recipe, so even though I only added a little baking soda it was over-leavened. The cookies puffed up so large that they ran together and then deflated like a balloon, producing one huge cookie. The texture still isn't right, so I am going to retry.

Version number 14. I have lessened the sugar to reduce the spread and also increased the amount of flour. Unfortunately, it may be too much flour as they have barely spread at all. The texture is very close to what I want - a chewy cookie. On the second pan of dough, I decided to flatten them a little by hand. This time, they produced what looks like a real cookie. I still think too much flour was used as the cookies are a little tough and they are really sweet, so I may also cut the sugar some more.

These are good enough to eat, so off to the taste testers they go.

First to test - Keith. He is surprised I have actually managed to make a pumpkin "cookie". He has been subjected to all of the previous batches, some of which were just disgusting. One batch was so wet that they mildewed in the container overnight. Gross. After trying tonight's version, he confided that he actually was beginning to think I would never master the pumpkin cookie. He thinks these are really good. They taste just like little pumpkin pies. He is very pleased. Must eat more to be sure...He is very proud that I am the first known to make a pumpkin cookie that is not cake like. We have tried others being sold in bakeries around town, as I was trying to figure out what needed to be adjusted. I am officially the only one with a chewy pumpkin cookie!

Now, to take some to the crew at work. I brought in about 2 dozen pumpkin pie cookies for my coworkers and left them in the breakroom with a note reading "New recipe inspired by pumpkin pie. Please let me know what you think."

First reviews come in email form in less than 10 minutes. Paige says "Yeah baby! You nailed it, yum." Joanne calls to tell me, she agrees, I nailed it this time and when she opened the container it smelled just like pumpkin pie.

At 11, (less than two hours after leaving the cookies in the breakroom) I walk by and see there are only three remaining cookies. I look at the note, someone has written below my comment "I think I'll have another" - anonymous. Pat tells me he thinks that he will need a larger sample to do a full taste test. If I could provide him with 8 or 9 cookies of his very own, he could give me a true opinion.

Seems like this one is a crowd pleaser. I made another batch without the white chips, to try and cut the sweetness, but decided it didn't taste as much like pie without them. Here is a picture of the final product.

Inspiration

Six months ago I began working at a book distributing company. This is a dream job and a curse all in one. I love books! More than books, I love baking! The bad part is my company distributes cookbooks, which is now where all my kitchen space and money is going.

For the past year, I have become more and more serious with my baking. I've created several recipes, sold quite a few cookies, and entered the Pillsbury Bake Off contest. There are a few dedicated individuals who sacrifice their time and their waistlines in order to be a taste tester for all my recipes. These people work tirelessly tasting cookies, both good and bad, in the hopes of getting more of the goodies as a reward.

In the past several months I have acquired several new cookbooks, mostly referencing baking. Most recently, I purchased All Cakes Considered. For those of you unfamiliar with this book, it's written by Melissa Gray, a producer at the radio show All Things Considered. She has spent a year baking cakes and bringing them in to her co-workers and followed this experience with a cookbook/humor book. After reading the book, I was inspired. Essentially, I do the same thing, but with cookies. She mostly focuses on recipes found in books and collected from friends, while I have a few trusty cookbooks and really enjoy making up my own recipes.

As a person who planned on becoming a Chemical Engineer, the chemistry of baking is fascinating to me. There are so few ingredients in a cookie, usually in a small quantity, so that each ingredient and portion plays a large roll in the outcome.

So, that's the story. For the past year I have been making and testing cookies on friends, family, and coworkers. Now, after being inspired by All Cakes Considered, I have decided to get serious - For the next year, I will bake a new cookie each week. Some that I've concocted and some from cookbooks. I will share them, collect feedback, and share the results with you through my blog.

Together we will learn what goes right and what goes wrong in a recipe. And perhaps, if you love baking, you'll be inspired to do something similar.