I’ve had a cookie pan similar to the one pictured below for a couple of years and used it only a few times. You can purchase it from Amazon by clicking on it. Today, I thought, what if I try to make madeleines in these molds? They’re about the same size as a madeleine pan. Since it’s Christmas, I’m in the mood for chocolate, so how about chocolate madeleines? I have combined several madeleine recipe sources to create this version. These are relatively simple and quick and make a great holiday gift.
I’ve been making Nestle® Toll House® Cookies for Christmas for 35 years. I’m almost 42, so you do the math. We always sprinkled colored sugar on top. There is no way I know how to improve on the Toll House recipe, except perhaps to add an extra dash of the vanilla extract. And of course, the quality of the chips matters. You can step up to Ghirardelli, or dare I say, Sharffen Berger, but when it comes down to it, Nestlé Semi Sweet Baking Chips really do the trick, and I bought a HUGE bag of them at Costco at the beginning of December, so we’re sticking to the old favorite.
What’s your favorite Christmas Cookie?
Nestlé Toll House Cookies
Nestle® Toll House® Chocolate Chip Cookies for Christmas
COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
May 15 is National Chocolate Chip Day. What better way to celebrate than to enjoy classic drop chocolate chip cookies with a peanut butter twist.
Tips and tricks for getting great chocolate chip cookies
1) Make them large. When they are large, the edge can be crispy while the center is still soft. That’s how I like them.
2) Don’t forget the vanilla. It seems like an ingredient of little importance, but vanilla adds depth to chocolate chip cookies (peanut butter otherwise) and without it, they seem flat
3) Don’t open the oven door while they’re cooking, but check on them through the window. You don’t want the temperature in the oven to drop, but near the end, you’ve got to watch so that they don’t over-brown.
4) For these cookies: Creamy peanut butter or chunky peanut butter. It’s up to you!
5) Use big, disc-shaped chocolate chips, like the ones made by Ghiradelli:
Remember that 80’s commercial for Reese’s Peanut Butter cups?
In an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars until fluffy. Add peanut butter and beat until fully incorporated.
Add the eggs, one at a time and beat until each is well blended.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, mixing with a spoon until fully incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chips and vanilla.
Drop in large tablespoons onto a cookie sheet. I was able to fit about 8 cookies on each cookie sheet.
Spoon a little bit of the crushed nuts onto the top of each cookies and press gently with your fingers.
Bake for 10-12 minutes. Watch closely near the end. The edges should just be browning and the middle will appear a little soft.
Remove and let cool for a couple of minutes before transferring to a plate or cooling rack.
Notes
Makes 4 batches of 8 cookies. Takes 40 minutes if you cook the batches one after the other.
Today is National Oatmeal Cookie Day, so I thought it would be perfect to celebrate with these fudgy, chocolate, peanut butter oatmeal cookies that can be made with ingredients typically found in your pantry and cooked (from start to finish) in about 10 minutes. This video below, from the Food Network doesn’t demonstrate the proper technique for making these cookies at all. It’s funny to watch if you know how they’re really made. Read on for the proper technique!
I first learned this recipe in my 7th grade home economics class at Wicomico Junior High School in Maryland in 1983. I remember distinctly our teacher stressing two important factors in the preparation of these cookies. First, you must boil the mixture for exactly one minute. If you boil it for under a minute, the cookies won’t harden. If you boil it for longer than a minute, they will come out dry.
Well, to boil something for exactly one minute requires that you know exactly when to start counting. You need to know what “boiling” looks like. Is it when the bubbles to start to appear around the edge the pan? No. In this case, boiling means that there are bubbles all the way across the surface. Start your stopwatch then.
Once it’s boiled for one minute, then you add the oats, peanut butter and vanilla. It’s important to work quickly, because as it cools, it starts to harden into fudge and you want to have all of your spoonfuls onto the wax paper before it gets too hard.
In a medium saucepan stir add the sugar, cocoa, butter and milk. Over medium-high heat, bring it to a boil, stirring to help the butter melt. Boiling means that there are bubbles all the way across the top of the liquid. Start your stopwatch now and boil it for exactly 1 minute. Remove from heat and quickly add the peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal and stir to combine.
Working quickly, drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a sheet of waxed paper. They will cool and harden within a few minutes. Voila. You're done!
October is my favorite month. Halloween is my favorite holiday and today is the one year anniversary of my recipe blog, StreamingGourmet – The Blog and my culinary videosharing website StreamingGourmet. To celebrate, I’m kicking off a month of daily pumpkin recipe posts. Follow StreamingGourmet on facebook (look to your right) and you won’t miss a single recipe.
Today’s recipe is for a fluffy pumpkin cookie with semi-sweet chocolate chips. Since the recipe contains both baking powder and baking soda, the cookie dough dough puffs up to make a soft, cakey cookie. The interplay between pumpkin pie flavors and the chocolate chips is surprisingly yummy. I think you’ll be seeing a lot of chocolate/pumpkin pairings this month.
A fluffy, cakey cookie perfect for a Halloween party.
Author: StreamingGourmet/Amy
Recipe type: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Serves: 36
Ingredients
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
¾ brown sugar
¾ granulated sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 egg, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2½ cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp ginger
¼ tsp ground cloves
pinch freshly ground nutmeg
pinch mace
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350˚F.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add pumpkin and beat well. Then add eggs and beat well. Finally add vanilla and beat well.
Mix together dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture, about ⅓ at a time and mix well after each addition. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spoon or spatula.
Spoon batter onto cookie sheets that have been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray or lightly buttered. Bake for 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Let sit for one minute after removing from oven. Then cool on wire racks.
