Cowboy Cookies

These are some really good cookies if you like a lot of chips and bits- Personally, I find that they've got just the right amount of stuff going on without going overboard. They're definitely easy to make and homey (ideal with a glass of milk!) but the sheer amount of chocolate, nuts and coconuts accentuated with the hint of spice and oaty backdrop makes them special. 

Surprisingly, despite the relatively large amount of leavener, these turned out thin and chewy, the way I like 'em. I think that using pastry flour, which is lower in gluten, helped me get them this way, though I'd need to try with all purpose and pastry flour for comparison. 

Possible adaptations that I would try include adding instant coffee granules, using chocolate covered peanuts instead of chips, or using milk chocolate chips. While I can't say why they're called "cowboy" cookies, I can say that these are definitely worth making.

Cowboy Cookies

1 C. Flour (I used pastry flour, all purpose is fine too)
1 Tsp. Baking powder
1 Tsp. Baking soda
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1 Tsp. Cinnamon (I used mixed cake spice)
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1/2 C. (113 g.) Butter, room temperature
1/2 C. Brown sugar
1/2 C. Sugar
1 Egg
1 C. Rolled oats (not instant)
1 C. Chocolate chips (I used bittersweet)
1 C. Walnut or pecan pieces
1 C. Unsweetened desiccated coconut

Preheat oven to 180℃.

Beat together the butter, sugar, brown sugar, salt and cinnamon until fluffy and homogenous. Add the vanilla and egg and beat until incorporated.

Add the baking powder and soda and beat in, then add the flour and beat until just combined. Using a big spoon, spatula, or you hands, mix in the oats, chocolate, nuts and coconut.

Divide into 12-18 balls and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies are just slightly browned. Let cool on the tray.

Chewy Fudge Brownies sans Chocolate, Butter, and Leavening Agent...

I'm really amazed these brownies work. There's no chocolate, no butter, no melting together of the ingredients in a bain-marie... there's not even any leavening, but they work!

I love a fudgy, chewy, dense brownie. I also love recipes that require very little planning ahead to get the ingredients ready (at least, when I'm working with the limited storage space of my tiny apartment-kitchen rather than the spacious home-kitchen where I can comfortably keep a huge arsenal of rarely-used substances) so this was a very nice recipe for me to find.

I didn't use any chocolate chips and instead doubled up on walnuts, because I love walnuts in almost everything and didn't feel like going out to buy chocolate. I add a bit of Kahlua instead of coffee to the liquid components, which is not necessary but it's really hard to go wrong with a touch of booze in any baked good.

When you have a limited variety of ingredients and/or equipment, this is an amazing way to still get your brownie fix. One important note: since there's no butter contributing flavour, it's extra important to use good cocoa powder.

Chewy Fudge Brownies

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

2/3 C. Cocoa
1 1/4 C. Sugar, or 1 C. sugar and 1/4 C. brown sugar
1/2 C. Powder sugar
1 Tsp. Salt
1 C. All purpose flour
2 TBSP Instant coffee powder or 1 TBSP espresso powder (optional)
1-2 C. Walnut, pecan and/or chocolate pieces
1/2 C. Neutral flavoured oil (I used canola)
3 TBSP Kahlua (or strong coffee)
3 Tsp. Vanilla extract
3 Eggs

Preheat oven to 180℃. Grease and line an 8'' x 8'' pan with baking parchment.

Whisk together the eggs, oil and normal sugar until relatively smooth (sugar will still be grainy). Add Kahlua/coffee, vanilla, and instant coffee/espresso powder (if using).

Separately, sift or whisk together the flour, powder sugar, salt and cocoa. Add the liquid ingredients and mix until homogeneous with a large spoon. Add nuts and/or chocolate.

Pour into pan and spread evenly, and bake for 45-55 minutes. Remove and let cool at least an hour before removing from the pan and cutting.

Peanut Butter Coconut Honey Cookies

Not very good-looking, but very delicious- especially with a glass of milk. The flavour of coconut and peanut go extremely well together, plus the classic pairing of peanut butter and honey, makes for a soft, chewy, moist, very sweet cookie. The generous amount of peanut butter ensures that they really do taste mostly like peanut, and if you fear that using shortening instead of butter will make them less tasty, keep in mind that the shortening is what allows them to be so soft and tender. With all the other stuff going on, you won't miss the butter.

If you use extra-fine shredded coconut and smooth peanut butter, you can make your cookies prettier, as they'll better hold the criss-cross pattern on after baking. Nonetheless, they'll taste good even if you don't bother. The dough is really easy to work with and freeze for later, as are the finished cookies. 

Peanut Butter Coconut Honey Cookies
Makes 24-30 cookies
Adapted from King Arthur Flour

1/3 C. Vegetable shortening
1/2 C. White sugar
1/4 C. Brown sugar
1/4 C. Honey
1 Egg, lightly beaten with a fork
3/4 C. Peanut butter, American style (made with roasted peanuts, not raw) (I used 'Earth Balance coconut and peanut spread')
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1 1/2 C. All purpose flour
1 Tsp. Baking soda
1/2 C. Shredded dessicated coconut

Preheat oven to 180℃. Line 2 baking trays with baking parchment.

Beat together the shortening, both sugars and honey with a stand mixer or a wooden spoon. Mix the egg and salt separately, then mix in. Add the peanut butter and mix until smooth and homogeneous. Sift in the flour and baking soda and mix well. Stir in the dessicated coconut at the end.

Refrigerate for around 20 minutes if the dough is too soft. Roll into 24-30 balls by hand and spread evenly on the baking pan. push them down with your palm until they are about 1 cm thick and use a fork to score the tops both vertically and horizontally to create a cross-hatch pattern. Sprinkle with additional sugar if desired.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until just the edges begin to brown. Let cool for about 15 minutes before removing from the trays.

Coffee-Shop Blueberry Streusel Muffins

Back to another episode of "kitchenette baking"... I've been going through my repertoire of recipes looking for ones that don't require a stand mixer (surprisingly few) and of course, muffins being one of the simplest and easiest batters to prepare, I decided on my second favourite kind after lemon-cranberry.

Mostly my decision was made by dollar-each boxes of blueberries in Chinatown. It's been a while since I've made something fruity, and these are not unlike the overpriced but very delicious muffins sold at various chain coffee shops. The streusel on top gives it a little something extra, a crunchy contrast to the soft pillowy innards and gooey roasted berries, flavoured with cinnamon. I've been fixated on blueberry muffins for quite a long time (since learning that a certain Canadian coffee chain can't even be bothered to put real fruit in theirs) and this might be the champion of all muffins for me.

As I said before, it's really easy and fast to prepare. I did it while waiting for my laundry to be done, and within the hour I had a really good batch of 14 muffins to share amongst my peers in the lab (they liked them a lot, especially that they were not too sweet and had tons of berries) as well as for myself. I made a couple of modifications but including brown sugar and adding more blueberries, because why not? I also added some lemon juice to give some more lift to the baking powder through its acidity. Buttermilk would also work well.

I can't wait to make these muffins again back in Mississauga when I get my hands on some pick-your-own berries at the farm to take home. I've got a lot of ideas for modifications that could be good- for instance, using some cornmeal, a flavoured oil like olive oil, lemon zest, or replacing the streusel with a simple sprinkle of raw sugar for a little texture. However, no modifications are needed- these are good just as they are, and perfect with coffee or tea and the smug satisfaction of doing what coffee shops do yourself, and so much better.

Blueberry Streusel Muffins
Adapted from Edible Garden
Makes 8 large or 16 small muffins

1 1/2 C. All purpose flour
2 1/4 Tsp. Baking powder, preferably aluminium-free
Pinch of salt
3/4 C. Sugar
1/3 C. Neutral oil, such as canola
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract (optional, or use 1 Tsp. Cinnamon or the zest of 1 lemon)
1 Egg
1/3 -1/2 C. Milk, or buttermilk
 1 TBSP lemon juice
1 - 1 1/2  C. Fresh or frozen unthawed blueberries

For the Streusel:
1/4 C. (60 g.) Butter, softened
1/3 C. Flour
1/2 C. Light brown sugar (or white)
2 Tsp. Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 200.

Whisk together the flour, salt, sugar and baking powder (and cinnamon, if using here). Separately, mix 1/3 C. of the milk, oil and the egg, as well as vanilla or zest if using. Mix into the dry ingredients, adding more milk if the batter is too thick - you want it to be about as runny as toothpaste, thick enough to spoon but still smooth and paste-like.

Stir in the blueberries and distribute into paper-lined or greased and floured muffin pans, filling them up to the rim so that the "muffin-top" can form.

For the streusel, mix all well with your hands or a pastry cutter until very crumbly and well-mixed. Spread evenly over the surface of each muffin- there's a lot of streusel, but be generous, nobody's ever complained about too much streusel.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a fork poked inside comes out clean. Let cool before removing from the pan.

Fantastic Brownies

This will mark my first baked good in my temporary new home, a nice apartment not far from where I'll be torturing Caenorhabditis elegans with toxic molecules (for science!) for the next 4 months. As excited as I am about doing my first real research, I'm also looking forward to many baking projects.

Now, about the brownies. Holy crow. They're fantastic (as the name suggests). I was looking for a recipe that used a lot of dark chocolate, as I had a 90% Ritter Sport Extrafino Dark chocolate and I collect the wrappers of that brand. I also had some 70% dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate, all slightly mushy from the heat in my recent move with it. So I added tons of chocolate chunks, some walnuts, and a bit of espresso powder and vanilla to play up the flavours in the chocolate. I added a little baking soda that wasn't in the original recipe to make it puff up nicely, but you can omit it for a flatter, denser brownie.

My favourite parts are the crisp, crusty outer bits, giving you a nice handle with which to dunk them into milk. Make sure you whip the batter real good to develop that shiny crust!

Fantastic Brownies

Adapted from Technicolor Kitchen

100 g Extra dark chocolate (70-90%), in pieces

50 g Semisweet chocolate (50%), in pieces

5 TBSP (70g) Butter
3/4 cup (150g) sugar
2 Eggs, large
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract or paste

1/3 cup (47g) All purpose flour

1/2 Tsp. Espresso powder

1/4 Tsp. Salt

1/2 Tsp. Baking soda, optional

200 g. Mixed chocolate pieces and nuts (I used bittersweet, milk and white chocolate along with walnuts)

Preheat oven to 160ºC. Line a 8" square baking pan with foil and grease.

Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Melt the butter and add the dark and semisweet chocolate, mixing until completely melted.

Whisk in the sugar, followed by each egg one by one. Beat well at this stage to develop the trademark crinkly crust.

Remove from heat. Add the vanilla and sift in the flour, salt, baking soda and espresso powder. Mix in the nuts and chocolate pieces and immediately pour into the pan, spreading the top evenly with a spatula.

Bake the brownies for 30-35 minutes or until the top is dull and crackly. When cool, lift up the foil by the sides to remove. Cut into squares.

Retro Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

There's an interesting story behind this recipe. I had it once eating at a friend's residence dining hall at university, and somehow I got so hung up on it that I needed to get the recipe. However, I had no idea who to ask- so I asked one of the kitchen staff, who told me to contact the catering office, which eventually took me through a chain of e-mails to a creepy but cool basement kitchen where a very nice lady gave me a photocopy of the recipe for my beloved pineapple upside-down cake. Turns out it's an old one that used to be printed on the bags from Robin Hood flour, but their recipe has since changed and cannot be found online. It's lucky, then, that I found the source of the old version I liked so much.

Since the recipe given to me was in near-industrial proportions (think 10 cups of butter), I cut it down to a more manageable home-baking size. I also had to figure out the procedure for making it on my own, since no instructions were given. I found that crumbling the butter with the dry ingredients first made for a better texture, and that you had to bake it at a relatively high temperature for a long time for it to cook all the way through.

I made a couple of changes of my own- the rum extract, replacing some of the milk with sour cream for tenderness, and cake flour instead of all-purpose. This cake is even better if you use fresh pineapple, though the canned one is definitely more retro-Americana. Don't skip the cherries if you want the full '50s flair, not that the era had much going for it apart from cake if you ask me. Because it's so pretty, you might want to serve this as the centerpiece dessert for an all-American meal or with coffee when guests with a particularly sweet tooth (there's a lot of butterscotchy caramel in the topping) are over.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

1 3/4 C. Cake flour
1 C. Sugar
1/2 TBSP Baking powder
1/2 Tsp. Salt
1/2 C. (115 g.) Butter, softened
2 Eggs
1/2 C. Sour cream
1/4-1/3 C. Milk
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1 Tsp. Rum extract, optional

Topping:
1 3/4 C. Dark brown sugar
1/2 C. (115 g.) Butter, melted
1 Can pineapple rings, or 1 ripe pineapple cut into thin slices
9 Maraschino or glacé cherries, optional

Preheat oven to 190℃.

Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Work in butter until crumbly.

Mix the eggs, sour cream, milk and vanilla and pour into the dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

For the topping, blend the brown sugar and melted butter until well-combined. pour into a 9''x9'' square pan or 10" round pan. Arrange pineapple slices and cherries and pour the batter on top, spreading evenly.

Bake for 45-55 minutes. Let cool at least 10 minutes before inverting the pan onto the serving plate.

Gingerbread Trifecta- Croatian Medenjaci, German Lebkuchen and American Gingerbread

Medenjaci(top) and Lebkuchen (bottom) with royal icing.

My family has never made gingerbread cookies for Christmas traditionally, so I took it upon myself to try some recipes out and evade having to buy them for relatively high prices from local bakeries (or in the case of honey-based gingerbread, not being able to buy them at all). These cookies are great because they last ages without losing their flavour or texture, are easy to roll out and cut (provided you use enough flour and some baking parchment) and are great fun to decorate. We used two types of frosting, the regular decorative royal icing and also the more "American" icing made with shortening. Both work well for gluing sprinkles, candies, and other tidbits.

American gingerbread with the thicker, soft frosting.

Each kind has its distinct advantages. The medenjaci had a milder gingerbread flavour while still being well-spiced, and could easily be made any time of year (then again, there's no law against off-season Christmas baking...). Its ingredients are also more accessible than many other honey-gingerbreads for Canada. 

While the lebkuchen requires natron (hard to come by in Canada), lebkuchen spices (which one can make themselves using an online recipe- I used some from my grandmother) and white rye flour (available in Eastern European stores and some health foods stores), it's well worth the effort to gather the ingredients if you can- it's got a unique flavour and makes great ornamental cookies- and it's eggless, and can even be made vegan if shortening is used. 

The American gingerbread is also as good as any I've ever bought, and is different from the other two due to both the higher fat content and use of molasses. I would say that every one of the recipes was a keeper.

Medenjaci- Croatian Gingerbread
Adapted from Tara's Multicultural Table

3 C. All-purpose flour
1/4 Tsp. Salt
1/8 Tsp. Baking soda
2 Tsp. Cinnamon
1 Tsp. Ginger
1/4 Tsp. Cloves
1/4 Tsp. Nutmeg
1/8 Tsp. Mace
Pinch each of coriander, white pepper and cardamom
1/2 C. Butter
1/2 C. Sugar
2/3 C. Honey, preferably wildflower
1 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1 Egg

Sift together the flour, spices, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar until smooth. Add honey, vanilla and egg. Incorporate the dry ingredients in spoonfuls until all is added. Once smooth, wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 180℃. Roll out between sheets of baking parchment or plastic clingfilm until thin and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Bake for 10 minutes on parchment. Let cool for 15 minutes.

Lebkuchen
From Chefkoch.de

400 g. Honey, preferably wildflower
100 g. Water
100 g. Light brown sugar
60 g. Clarified butter, or shortening
300 g. All purpose or type 550 flour
300 g. White rye flour
6 g. Baking powder
1 Packet Lebkuchen spices
16 g. Natron

In a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl, heat together the honey, water and brown sugar until homogenous. Add butter/shortening and allow to dissolve. Let cool to room temperature.

Sift together dry ingredients and add the wet ones. Knead until a homogenous mass forms and refrigerate 6 hours, or overnight.

On a well-floured surface, roll out dough and cut into shapes. Bake at 180℃ about 15 minutes, or until just beginning to brown at the edges.

American Molasses Gingerbread
Adapted from Moje Wypieki

750 g. All purpose flour
15 g. Baking powder
5 g. Ginger
3 g. Nutmeg
2 g. Cloves
2 g. Cinnamon
2 g. Allspice
1 g. White pepper
113 g. Butter
113 g. Shortening
235 ml. Molasses
180 g. Brown sugar
120 ml. Water
1 Egg
2 Tsp. Vanilla
1/2 Tsp. Salt

Mix dry ingredients. Heat together the sugar, water, and molasses until dissolved in a small saucepan or microwave-safe bowl. Add the butter and shortening and allow to dissolve. Let cool.

Add to dry ingredients along with egg and vanilla, and mix until homogenous. Refrigerate 6 hours, or overnight.

Roll out on a well-floured surface and cut into shapes. Bake at 180℃ for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool and harden on sheets before removal.

Royal Icing:
1 Egg white
2/3 C. Powder sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tsp. Lemon juice

Beat all at high speed until smooth. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Soft Piped Icing:
1 1/3 C. Powdered sugar
3 TBSP Shortening
1 Tsp. Vanilla
About 1 TBSP milk

Beat all at high speed until smooth, adding just enough milk to achieve a pipable consistency.

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing

 Happy halloween, everyone! To those who a) are young enough to go trick-or-treating or b) don't have midterms to study for, have a blast. I'll be here facing the spookiest thing of all, which is my GPA. I even made this cookie dough in advance since I had so little spare time today- but hey, my siblings will probably share the candies they glean tonight with me. I love those miniature adorable chocolate bars.

A cookie-decorating station!

 My little sister is having a halloween party, and I wanted to make a homemade version of the classic soft sugar cookie one finds pre-iced in myriad colours at the grocery store, perhaps a little suspicious in their extended lifespan but still delicious and sweet. I've made some modifications to half the dough to try making it vegan, with the consequence of it being denser and chewier, but still tasty. I think it's the shortening that really makes them feel like the supermarket ones.

To the left are the non-vegan ones- they're more soft and pillowy. The vegan ones (right) are chewy and almost fudge-like in the chocolate version.

Cocoa variant, non-vegan

I added sprinkles to some of the vegan batters to give it a cool effect (and so I wouldn't forget which was which) and I like it! The dough wasn't really cuttable, except for the vegan chocolate cookie dough, which was firmer than the rest. I also made some icing to complete the experience, and got some candies with which to give a halloweeney decorating job.

I used licorice allsorts to make eyes, candy corns, jelly beans, jujubes and sprinkles- but any cool looking candies will do. The idea's that my sister and her guests can do some cookie decorating as an activity, which always makes them taste better. As for the flavour of the cookies, they're pillowy, sugar and soft- pretty much exactly what I wanted, the appeal of the nostalgic soft supermarket sugar cookie but without additives or an indefinite shelf life. They can be made for just about any holiday you want and customized, too. The icing also works really well- it's spreadable and sticky enough to hold on all the large toppings.

Soft Sugar Cookies with Icing
From Allrecipes.com

For the Cookies:
3 C. AP flour
1 Tsp. Baking soda
1 Tsp. Salt
1 C. Shortening
1 C. Sugar
2 Tsp. Vanilla (or vanillin, for that store-bought taste)
2 Eggs, or equivalent replacer (see notes)
1/4 C. Milk (or milk replacer- not a low-calorie, watery one!)

(Note: To make cocoa variation, I used 1/3 C.+ 1 TBSP  dark cocoa powder in the place of an equal volume of the flour, and half the vanilla. For a more exciting or seasonal look, you can also add sprinkles or food colouring to the dough. The recipe is easy to make successfully vegan, because there's no butter in the recipe to be missed, and the eggs are only really for structure- I tried batches of chocolate and vanilla both vegan and not. Just make sure that the sugar, et cetera, is also vegan in that case!)

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt (and cocoa, if using). Set aside.

Cream the shortening and sugar. Add the vanilla and eggs, one by one. Beat in the dry ingredients one third at a time, adding the milk in between additions in two halves. 

Refrigerate 30 minutes. Towards the end of that time, preheat the oven to 180℃.

Shape the dough into uniform balls and press down with your palm or a glass to make circles. You can try cutting the dough with cookie cutters, but this can be tricky as it's very soft.

Bake for about 10 minutes, and allow to set on the sheets. Let cool before frosting.

For the Icing:
3 C. Powder sugar
1/4 C. Butter, or shortening (grocery store cookies would use the latter, and make the recipe easier to veganize)
1 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla, or vanillin
Approx. 2 TBSP Milk, or milk replacer
Food colouring, if desired

Beat the ingredients together, adding just enough milk to give a spreadable consistency, until fluffy. Spread only only cool cookies.

White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies I

Although I usually prefer a completely different genre of cookies (namely butter biscuits, nut-based shortbreads and gingerbread- anything that resembles the Central European Christmas standbys) I still do like the occasional batch of American, chewy, sugary, almost fudgey cookies flavoured predominantly by vanilla, brown sugar and whatever mix-ins are added. Of all the varieties that entails, one of my all-time favourites is the white chocolate-macadamia cookie. I've always been a lover of white chocolate (whose rep is constantly being shredded by sugar-vegetable fat impostors used in glazes and cheaper baked goods) and it pairs well with the subtle, buttery flavour of macadamias, too. Embedded in a soft and tender dough casing and served with a glass of milk, it's not only delicious- it has a matching colour palette. I think it's fate.

However, to find a good version of that cookie is pretty elusive. Ultra-sweet by nature, it walks a fine line on the best of days- there's no dark or semisweet chocolate to balance out the inherently sugary dough. But you also can't just reduce the sugar- it's an integral part of the chewy texture that makes the perfect chip-type cookie, in my opinion (I'm not about the cakey kinds- though a cookie-like cake is fine). I remember eating some really good ones as a kid, but now it seems far harder to match the criteria of the perfect cookie, perhaps because I've become nitpicky and obsessive about the details. I want it sweet, but not too sweet! Made with butter! With lots of real white chocolate and a generous amount of nuts!

I chose this recipe due to the absence of shortening- I never have it around, and didn't want to be stuck with leftovers after using only a small amount for one recipe. While the texture was pretty spot-on with what I wanted, and the cookies themselves were delicious, it still wasn't the ideal white-choc macadamia cookie of my dreams. Had I only imagined such a thing in the sugar-gluttony of my childhood? Could a perfect balance of sweetness, texture, flavour and richness really have ever existed except for in my dreams?

I've come up with a few plans of action to modify my next batch- And I'm determined to succeed. The perfect cookie will evade me no longer! Until then, these ones will go down just fine. Mmmmm.

• Less sugar, or perhaps more butter; so far as chewy texture will remain
• A mixture of AP flour and vanilla pudding powder in place of the flour mix
• A little more salt
• Actual white chocolate chunks instead of chips, since they aren't stabilized for high temperatures and will melt better

White Chocolate Chip Macadamia Nut Cookies I
Adapted from The Chunky Chef

1 1/2 C. AP Flour
1/2 C. Pastry flour
1/4 Tsp. Salt
1/2 Tsp. Baking soda
3/4 C. Butter, cubed (170 g.)
3/4 C. Sugar
3/4 C. Dark brown sugar
1 Egg plus 1 yolk
2 Tsp. Vanilla extract
1 C. White chocolate chips
1 C. Toasted macadamia nuts, roughly chopped (toast 7 minutes at 180℃)

Cream butter and sugars using the paddle attachment of a stand mixer. Add vanilla, egg and yolk.

Sift together flours, salt, and baking soda. Incorporate 1/3 at a time into the wet ingredients with the motor on low.

Add nuts and chips. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 170℃. Form balls with an ice cream scoop or tablespoon and bake 8-10 minutes on parchment-lined sheets, until golden. Let set on sheets.