Christies Cookie Exchange

Happy Holidays everyone! Its peanut butter cookie time! Okay, I admit it, Im pretty excited about cookies recently. Christie had the brilliant idea to host a Cookie exchange just prior to xmas this holiday season, and it was alot of fun. The concept was simple, bake up five dozen cookies (which sounds like alot, but really, its only 2 batches or so of cookies) and exchange said cookies at a gathering over home brewed coffee, a warming bowl of homemade soup, and some great conversation. Its a really great time of year to have a cookie exchange, everyone is settling into holiday mode, and who doesnt need overflowing cookie tins?



It all sounds so simple, so cozy. That is until it dawned upon me that in attending, I needed to actually bake cookies(P.s Id never baked a cookie from scratch,ever). Uh oh. I could have ridden Christies coatails and said "Christie and Ians cookies" but as i wasnt helping her make hers, I decided to suck it up and learn how to make some cookies.



The only thing going in to this that I knew, was that I did not want to make chocolate chip cookies. Dont get me wrong, I love chocolate chip cookies, but I wanted to try something a little different, something that I could be proud of. I think a scenario played through my head while deciding this that kind of went something like this

-Ian enters room. Places cookie tin on table.
-Christie opens tin, looks inside, slowly takes out mystery cookie, turns it over in her hand, looks one over. Gives a quick smell, looks again, looks at me, bites cookie.
-Empty moment of impossible strain on Ians face, clock ticking in backround out of focus comes into focus. Ian sweats and fidgets.
-Christie chews, closes eyes, softly says,
"mmmm, this is a good cookie, congratulations on baking your first cookies honey!"

-VICTORY SCENE (required props list below)
Fireworks
explosions
wind machine
dudes giving Ian high fives
Ian giving dudes high fives
cool google earth camera zoom in from space
squirels in partly hats



So....back to my cookie decision. The mystery cookie, I needed to figure it out, this was the key to my glorious victory scene. But where, who? I typed "cookie recipes" into google and got 15,700,000 results, I needed some narrowing down. Then Anna Olson saved the day. I went to the Canadian Food Network website (check it out on the link at the bottom of this post, it really is a neat and really well made site) where a picture of Anna Olson was displayed for an ad of some sort, and I remembered her show "Sugar", as well as practicaly drooling on Christies floor watching the cookies and deserts she was making. Using the fancy new website, I was able to sort through her recipes and find first timer cookie magic, the Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie (beams of light came down from parting clouds and cleared up all the bad things in the world for me at the very moment I found that recipe. Ok no, not that dramatic)



The recipe was really simple, straighforward, though time consuming for a first time cookie baker. I of course cut my cookie a little too thick for my first batch, so they all grew quite large and touched the edges of the sheet, though after that setback I figured out the right size and placement on the sheet to avoid that again. The step that was the most time consuming was spreading the filling, as I was worried about using too much at first, got 1/4 through my cookies, and realized I had barely used any spread, so I had to go back and put more in each. It didnt help that I was nervous at each step and took extra time to make sure each step was done properly.



On to the big unveiling. I had so many questions, were my cookies good enough? was anyone going to eat any? Or were they destined to sit on a plate, lonely and neglected like a gifted storebought holiday fruitcake? I had Christie try one right away, and she actually liked it! Hooray, (insert bad man dance victory dance). The rest of the cookie party was okay, but really, the highlight was my cookies, since all the other cookies ran away when they saw how awesome mine were. Okay, no they didnt.



The party was alot of fun, Christie made some fresh squash soup for everyone, and handed out cookie tins for everyones efforts. If you have a chance, and are looking to plan a little holiday something, think about a cookie exchange amongst friends, or at work even. If I can bake cookies, anyone can.



Anna Olsons Peanut Butter Sandwhich Cookies

Food Network Canada

Chocolate Dipped Cherry Almond Biscotti for Mother's Day

So if you didn’t know, this Sunday is Mother's Day and I thought that I would send out a little reminder to everyone to buy or bake something for your mommy.

I love my mom, and even though we live in different Provinces, I call her all the time and talk to her for hours. She is always there for me, no matter what is going on. Seriously, there are a million things I could tell you about her but she doesn’t like all that sappy stuff so I will just say that she is THE BEST!

I wanted to send something special for Mother's Day and usually I would send a drawing, but this year she is getting the most amazing biscotti that I have ever tried. You know those delicious chocolate cherry Kashi bars that are incredibly addictive? Well imagine those in cookie form. Yes. So good. I have to send them in the mail tomorrow so look out for Canada Post on Friday mom. Hopefully the mailman won’t eat them before they get delivered.

So Happy Mother's Day, I Love you Mom!
Ian also loves his mommy and we will be having dinner with her on Saturday, where he can tell her in person.


Chocolate Dipped Cherry Almond Biscotti
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies Book


1 1/4 cup dried cherries
1/2 cup amaretto
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. Baking powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
4 tbsp. Unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs, (3 whole, and 1 lightly beaten)
2 tsp. vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole blanched almonds
4 oz. good quality chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Heat cherries with amaretto in a saucepan over medium-low heat,stirring some, for 8 minutes. Drain, and keep 2 tbsp. liquid.Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk butter and granulated sugar together. Mix in 3 eggs then mix in cherry liquid and vanilla. Gradually add in flour mixture. Stir in cherries and nuts. On a lightly floured surface, divide dough in half. Shape each half into 12 x 2 or so logs. Flatten logs to 1/2 inch thick. Transfer to two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Brush logs with the beaten egg; sprinkle with sugar if desired. Bake 35 minutes and let cook for 20 minutes. Cut each log on the diagonal into about 3/4 inch slices. Transfer pieces to baking sheet, standing them up. Bake at 300 degrees, for 14 min. Let cool until crisp. Dip into melted, tempered chocolate and let dry overnight at room temperature.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time...umm.. I mean Bars

Before I met Ian I was a real wild child. Eccentric to the bone. No one could stop me. OK, really, how much trouble could one little molecular biologist in training get herself into. So I wasn't as much of a renegade as I like to think I was. BUT, I did enjoy running around (at 23 years of age) singing 'peanut butter jelly time... peanut butter jelly time' (sing it Jen!!!) to anyone and anything that would listen. I have no clue why, I guess I am just 6 years old at heart and my roommate was totally into the childish song too. Now three years later, I am a tame and mature woman who still finds herself singing 'peanut butter jelly time!'

So even though I was in a baking stupor yesterday and did not want to go near the kitchen I was pulled in once again by "The Cookie of the Day" on the Martha Stewart website. It didn’t help that there was an 8x8 glossy photo staring back at me when I went searching for the recipe in my Martha Stewart Cookie’s Book. And the kicker that really did me in was that I know one of Ian's favorite things in the whole wild world is Peanut butter and Jelly Sammie's.

So girls, if there is one easy way to a man's heart, it is to make their favourite dish into a dessert (not that I don’t already have the key to Ian’s).

As one of Ian's best friends put it "they are like eating the PERFECT toasted and buttered peanut butter sandwich." Actually, I didn't totally make these just for Ian; I made them so that I could sing Peanut Butter Jelly Time.....


Peanut Butter Jelly Time Bars
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookie's Book

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter
1-1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups raspberry jam
2/3 cup salted peanuts, roughly chopped
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-by-13-inch pan with parchment paper. Whisk butter and sugar in a bowl until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and peanut butter; beat until combined. Mix in salt, baking powder, and flour till combined, then add vanilla. Transfer two-thirds of mixture to prepared pan; spread evenly with offset spatula or fingers. Spread jam on top of peanut-butter mixture. Drop pieces of remaining third of peanut-butter mixture on top of jam. Sprinkle with peanuts. Bake until golden, about 45-55 minutes, turning half way through. Cut into about thirty-six 1 1/2-by-2-inch pieces and refrigerate for 30 min.

Rum-soaked Current Coconut Cookies

I just got this wonderful call from my grandma all the way from Victoria BC. Yesterday I sent her a bunch of these cookies through the mail, all perfectly wrapped in super cute paper with little pink polka-dot bows and placed gently in a tiny square box.

I wasn't sure if it was worth the trouble to send 20 cookies all the way across Canada ( they wanted 30 dollars at first for the tiny box but I haggled them down in price and crammed them into a flimsy ugly brown envelope) but when I got that phone call I knew it was worth it.

I blindly assumed that I wouldn’t like this cookie mainly because the only food on this planet that I hate is coconut. Also I am not a big fan of the taste of booze in my sweets, but these scrumptious cookies didn't taste like either.

They did however have so many different depths of flavour that I couldn't stop eating them and I really did not think that there would be enough left for the picture.

The cookies in the picture that you see here were the last ones, and at the time of this post...well... they are gone.


Rum-soaked Current Coconut Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cookie’s Book

1/2 cup dark rum
1 cup dried currants
16 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup confectioners' sugar
finely grated orange zest from one orange
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup finely shredded (powder)unsweetened coconut
1 teaspoon coarse salt

Combine rum and currants; cover, and let stand at room temperature overnight. Drain, reserving 2 tablespoons rum. Whisk butter, sugar, and orange zest until white, creamy and smooth. Add vanilla and reserved rum, and beat until combined. Add flour, coconut, and salt, and stir to combine. Stir in currants. Form dough into 2-3 logs, each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter; wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour Preheat oven to 300. Remove plastic. Slice logs into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, and space about 1 inch apart on baking sheets lined with parchment. Bake until pale golden, about 12-14 minutes

St. Paddy's Day Lemon Vanilla Cookies

In Montreal we all celebrate St.Paddy's Day the Sunday after the actual day because that is when the whole city shuts down for the giant parade. These are a homage to that wonderful time when we drink on the streets right along side the cops.

P.s. One of these cookies is for Jen, her first St.Paddy's away from the big M.


St. Paddy's Day Lemon Vanilla Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies Book

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
6 tbsp.unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, split, seeds scraped and reserved
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon
1 large egg
Icing
2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar
7 1/2 teaspoons meringue powder
2-3 drops of green food colouring

Preheat oven to 375. Put butter, granulated and confectioners' sugars, vanilla seeds, and zest into a bowl, whisk until pale and fluffy. Mix in egg. Add flour, baking powder, and salt in 3 batches; mix until combined. Roll out dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper to 1/8 inch thick. Cut cookies with clover cookie cutter then refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes. Remove shapes from dough. Re roll scraps, and cut out. Space cookies 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until pale golden, 5 to 6 minutes. For the royal icing: Put confectioners' sugar, meringue powder,a couple drops of green colouring, and 1/4 cup water into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment; whisk for 10 minutes. Transfer to a pastry bag fitted with a small plain round tip. Decorate each cookie with icing.

Itty Bitty Chocolate Persian Sable's with Cherry Filling

And now for the best cookies ever! Well, maybe not the best, there is still something missing if you compare them to those perfect little cookies from Nocochi. But these are extremely close. (Please do not judge me on the horror that was yesterday’s events.)

I tried to remember what I loved about the cookies and realized my favourite part is the extremely short dough that they use. It’s so light; it literally melts in your mouth. So I pulled out the big guns, well actually the tiny ones. I found this book by Flo Braker called 'Sweet Miniatures' at Winners for seven bucks (steal!). It seems that she has her finger in every pie because I also noticed that she made a large contribution to the ultimate "Baking with Julia" cookbook.

She says that rice flour is the key to a distinguished shortbread. I had come across this ingredient in many of the Persian cookie recipes and gave it a try with the addition of cardamom and rose water to keep that Persian taste.

They came out so, so, so good. Although cutting out each tiny cookie, cooling the dough, punching a hole in the cookie, cooling them...again, baking them, cooling them...a third time, powdering a million little tops, then finally filling them with cherry jam and squishing them together(pheeeeewwphhh) took four hours.

So I think next time I will just spend the money on the real ones and save the time. I am still going to use this recipe, just not on such a teeny tiny cookie.

Itty Bitty Chocolate Persian Sable's with Cherry Filling
adapted from Flo Braker

1 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup rice flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup dark cocoa powder
1 stick plus 6 tbsp. unsalted room temp. butter
1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1 tbsp. rose water
1 cup cherry jam

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Whisk butter for one minute, and then add sugar and whisk until light coloured and fluffy. Add vanilla, cardamom, and rose water. Mix until blended. Add both flours, cocoa, and salt in three increments, mixing between each addition. When dough is combined, lay out on a plastic sheet and roll until 1/8 inch thick. Cut out tiny shapes with cookie cutter, punching a hole in half of them. Cool the rolled out dough with the cut shapes for 10 minutes so that the pieces lift easily from the plastic sheet. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper and place pieces on it. Cool for another 10 minutes. Bake for 9 minutes. In the mean time strain 1 cup of cherry jam into a small pot, boil for 7 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes. When the shapes with the hole are cool dust with powdered sugar. Place 1/8 tsp. of jam on bottom piece of cookies and squish together.

Worst Cookies Ever

Well, as you might have guessed from the title, I just made the WORST cookies on the face of this earth. They looked so pretty and I spent three hours making them, but one bite and I threw the whole batch out.

You see, I had the best little sable cookies at this place downtown called Nocochi. On my way home I ate all the cookies that I bought and vowed to find out how they got them to melt the second they touched your tongue.

It turns out that they are Persian cookies made with clarified butter, chickpea flour, powdered sugar, rose water, and cardamon. I should have known better with the clarified butter( I hate the smell of it) but I pressed on.

Arg, I'm so disappointed. Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow. By the way here is a nice photo that Ian was playing around with. It's much better than stinkin cookies.

Mocha Orange Wafers

Yes... I am still on my chocolate binge
Yes... I have added coffee to this binge
Yes... I made these the second the last of the other chocolate cookies were eatten (by me)
Yes... they are a deep dark chocolate shortbread.
Yes... I practically doubled the cocoa that the recipe called for.
Yes... I ate these as a meal today.
Yes... they will satisfy your chocolate craving, for the moment.


Mocha Orange Wafers
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookies book

1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. finely ground espresso
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Coarse sanding sugar, for sprinkling

Beat together butter, confectioners' sugar, orange zest, and vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add flour, cocoa, salt, and espresso until just combined. Transfer dough to a 12-by-16-inch piece of plastic wrap; shape into a log. Roll the wrap around the log, and twist the ends. Chill at least ½ an hour to overnight. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Cut log into 1/4-inch-thick slices; transfer to baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Brush tops with water; sprinkle with sanding sugar. Bake until set, 9-11 minutes.

Cocoa Charms

So pretend you are on a chocolate binge. Just pretend. And, for names sake we will call you... umm… Christie. Now pretend you go on a mad search for the deepest darkest and most intense chocolate shortbread cookie. Say you found it. Imagine sprinkling 100% cocoa powder on top of those deep dark charms. Now imagine how many cookies you, as hypothetical Christie would eat.

Now do me one favour. Do not imagine the scale the next day.

Cocoa Charms
adapted from Martha Stewart's Cookie's Book

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Whisk butter until very light and fluffy, about 5-7 minutes. Add sugar and beat into butter until the mixture is a very light colour. Add vanilla and mix in. Sift in flour, salt, 1/4 cup cocoa powder and mix together until uniform. Form into 1 inch balls and place on a lined baking sheet. Place baking sheet in the fridge for 10 minutes. Transfer baking sheet to oven and bake for 12-17 minutes (depending on your oven). Once cooled dust with reserved 1/4 cup dark cocoa powder.

Whoopie Pies with Peanut Butter Buttercream Filling

I know you are drooling right now because seriously, these taste even better than they look. These cake like cookies are number 7 of 175 different cookies in my Martha Stewart Cookie Book that I have made. I was going over to Ian's on Saturday to watch the Habs game (Toronto won? Seriously?) and all of his sweaty hockey buddies from the ball hockey game they played earlier were gathered around the TV. I wanted to bring some kind of cookie, so I started to put together a list of ingredients that I knew men loved:
1. Peanut butter
2. Chocolate
3. Peanut butter and Chocolate together

And that is how I picked the whoopie pies for the Saturday night Habs game. I prepared half a batch which made 9 massive cream filled cookies, and boy oh boy did those men love them. I think Ian is now considered the luckiest man alive. Even the bus driver tried to get one off of me when I was heading over there. Listen up women, the way to a man's heart is through cookies. A lesson for us all. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies
adapted from Martha Stewart Cookie Book

3 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp baking soda
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 sticks (1cup) unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 cups butter milk, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract

Filling
1 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
salt

Cookies
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift together flour, salt, cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside. In the bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Slowly add dry ingredients. Mix until combined. Drop 1-1/2 tbsp of batter onto lined baking pans, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake for 9 minutes. Remove to a rack to cool. Repeat with remaining batter. Spread 2 tablespoons of frosting onto half of the cookies. Sandwich together with remaining cookies. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Filling
Cream peanut butter and butter a bowl. Mix in sugar until combined, then beat mixture on high speed until fluffy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Add salt to taste, if desired. Use immediately.

Nutella Linzer Cookies

WORLD NUTELLA DAY

WORLD NUTELLA DAY

WORLD NUTELLA DAY

If you really couldn't figure it out, today, Feb 5, is world nutella day. Actually every Feb 5 is nutella day, and bless them for creating such a holiday.

Each nutella holiday, we as happy followers of the nutella religion are supposed to create some sort of dish with the nutty chocolate spread in it. I made cookies, but usually I just eat it off the biggest spoon I can find to commemorate the anniversary.

These cookies were originally raspberry linzer almond cookies, but due to such a joyous holiday, I switched the almonds for hazelnuts, which are the nut element in nutella, and then filled them with as much nutella as I could. When I pushed the two sides of the cookie together glorious nutella squeezed out of the cutout top. They are as good as they sound, trust me.

The people that started this holiday are Ms.Adventures in Italy and Bleeding Espresso. You can see the official site here. Happy Nutella Day!



Nutella Linzer Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart
makes 2 dozen cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup hazelnuts, toasted
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup nutella

Sift flour and baking powder into a bowl; set aside. Pulse hazelnuts, confectioners' sugar, salt, and cinnamon in a food processor until finely ground (but not wet); transfer to a bowl. Add butter and granulated sugar; mix until fluffy. Mix in vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture; mix until combined. Halve dough; shape into disks. Wrap in plastic; refrigerate until firm.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/8 inch thick. Refrigerate 20 minutes. Cut out circles with a 2-inch fluted cutter. Cut out centers of half the circles with a 1/2-inch cutter; reroll scraps. Space 2 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake circles until pale golden, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool.
Sprinkle cutout cookies with confectioners' sugar. Spread nutella onto uncut squares; top with cutout ones.

GUEST BLOG DAY! Alex's Chocolate Pecan Cookies

Hello there, today Coco Bean has it's first guest blogger. Ian and I are very busy this Tuesday and don't really have the time to cook so Alex has been very kind to share his cookie baking experience. So, without due, here he is...

Alex Goldberg
So I’m supposed to be guest blogging on this strange Coco Bean site. My name’s Alex, and I’ve started to bake cookies like mad, mostly due to Christie’s influence. My latest creations were these pecan chocolate chip cookies, a recipe I can thank Martha Stewart for (Christie always advised me that you can NEVER go wrong with a Martha recipe). I decided to make these because my last batch of cookies, a delicious recipe of white chocolate,dark chocolate, and butterscotch chip mixed with vanilla dough, came out slightly too sugary and overdone. While they looked, in all respects, perfect, their taste was not half of what I was capable of, leaving the horrible taste of failure in my mouth. Such circumstances called for a rebuttal, and I was ready to provide one as soon as possible.

The recipe was a simple one, consisting of mixing lots of creamy butter with a lower than normal amount of sugar, vanilla, egg, and flour. I also made the addition of chopped pecans and chocolate (both dark and white). I had decided that I wouldn’t put the extra whole pecan on top of the cookies, but after much deliberation, I changed my mind and put it on top. Of course, Martha is never wrong, and the extra pecan not only added flavour to the cookie, but also made it look almost professional. And my oh my, these cookies did all but fail! Even prior to tasting, my mouth was watering.

WAIT! While I may have tasted one cookie, I was premature in my assessment of cookie greatness. While the dough is extremely soft and tasty mixed with pecans and chocolate, there are two minor flaws keeping me from cookie perfection:
1. The outside of the cookie is slightly drier than I would have liked and,
2. There are not enough chocolate chips in the dough to make them ultra rich.

Well... this is simply disappointing. I can’t even... no. This is awful. OK, not THAT awful. But it’s not perfect. And that’s unacceptable. If I hadn’t achieved such euphoria watching the Superbowl last night (I’m a rabid Steelers fan since 2004), I’d surely give up on life.


But perhaps I’m being too harsh on myself. The third taste attempt made me realize that they are, indeed, good cookies. And so long as others enjoy eating them, I suppose I should be happy, especially when I can’t possibly eat even more than 4 of any batch of cookies that I bake (my stomach is the size of a peanut).

Soooo.... keep eating, and uhm, if you don’t like them, then file a complaint. Or make your own... but you’ll never make as good a cookie as me or Christie! Well you might... if you do, give them to me, because well, I like cookies.
–the end-

Thanks to Alex for his cookies and writing.


Chocolate Pecan Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
12 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
8 ounces pecans, chopped (2 cups)
6 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped
30 perfect pecan halves

Preheat oven to 375 degrees, with two racks centered. Line two baking sheets with Silpat non-stick baking mats or parchment paper.
In bowl, cream butter and both sugars until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add salt and vanilla, and mix to combine. Add egg, and continue beating until well combined.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda. Slowly add dry ingredients to butter mixture. Mix until just combined. Stir in chopped pecans and chocolate.
Using a tablespoon, scoop out dough, and place about six balls on each baking sheet, about 3 inches apart. Flatten each ball slightly, and gently press a pecan half in the center.
Bake 7 minutes, rotate pans between oven shelves, and bake until just brown around the edges, 6 to 8 minutes more. Remove from oven, and let cool slightly before removing cookies from baking sheets to cool on wire racks. Repeat process with remaining dough.

Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies

Nom nom nom.... nom nom nom.... nom nom.... ohh.. Excuse me; I will put the plate of cookies down... for now. Yes, they are that good, and I got them to taste that good on the first try. Thank you very much, I know, I am a cookie star.

OK, so I didn't come up with the recipe, nor did I test it a million times to create that perfect soft, chewy, nutty, chocolaty-banana texture and taste that is so irresistible. It was Martha, all Martha and her housewife army, I admit it. But just think; now you too can have this little taste of heaven, without the fuss.

I finally caved in on Saturday and found myself in Chapters, huddled on the floor of the baking section, completely enthralled with the new Martha Stewart "Cookies" book. Even though Martha has a 'Cookie of the Day' on her website, I still had to have this book. Each recipe has a full page glossy photo of the cookie, delicious looking enough that I am constantly tempted to lick the page. And now it is mine, all mine! (Insert evil laugh.) But you don't have to go out and buy it, because I will be posting all of them on this very blog over the span of however long it takes me to make 175 types of cookies( along with gaining about 30 pounds in butter weight).

So I’m ask you to just think about making these, you could soon be eating a cookie that tastes like banana bread dotted liberally with dark chocolate chunks and crunchy walnut pieces all rolled up into a tiny bite sized treat. OK, I am now going back to my plate of cookies, or what is left of it. Enjoy!


Banana-Walnut Chocolate-Chunk Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart "Cookies"

Makes 3 Dozen
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup mashed, very ripe banana (about 1 large)
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
8 oz. (1 cup) semisweet chocolate chunks
1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Whisk together flours, salt, and baking soda in a small bowl; set aside. Put butter and sugars into a bowl; mix with whisk until pale and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla; mix until combined. Mix in banana. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in oats, chocolate chunks, and walnuts.
I like bitesized cookies so this is how I made them: Roll dough with hands untill just smaller than a golf ball, place onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake cookies until golden brown and just set, 10-12 minutes. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers up to 2 days.