Stop reading now if you’re on some crazy New Year cleanse or avoiding carbs, sugar, fat and all things fun. Just stop reading because the next sentence is going to tempt you. I’ve come across one of the best cookies I’ve ever made or eaten in all my 32 years. Please meet the Gooey Butter Cookie.

I am a cookie dough girl. I love tracing my tongue along the beaters, scraping my finger across the spoon and pinching off little morsels from oddly shaped unbaked cookies. I remember eating more refrigerated English Bay cookie dough than English Bay cookies as a teenager. The next person to open the tub would come upon finger tracks that revealed many a chocolate chip, but not enough dough to surround it. Pure, unadorned dough of sugar, fat, flour and eggs is all I wanted. No nuts or chips or raisins or whatever. I love the dough. And that is what these cookies taste like. Dough dough dough.

But they’re fully cooked, of course, and the high amount of butter and sugar means they are reminiscent of shortbread. But then the cream cheese gives a toothsomeness that shortbread never has. Oh, and then there’s the vanilla seeds and the vanilla extract that add both a heavenly perfume and flavour. And how could I forget that you’re to eat them cold? Yes, cold. Just like cookie dough from the fridge. As I’ve suggested before, cold cookies are a thrill worth seeking out.

I am sorry that I had to share these with you post-holidays. As I made them only two days before Christmas, there would have been little time for you to shop for and make them—because you really must shop for and make them—and then whoooooosh, January. It’s the time to work off other people’s cookies so that you can now try these.

Gooey Butter Cookies
adapted from Lottie + Doof

I got about two dozen of the size shown and another dozen and a half wee ones.

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
250 g cream cheese
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 vanilla bean, scraped
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Icing sugar for rolling and dusting

Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.  With your hands, with a hand-held mixer or in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese, butter, vanilla bean seeds, and sugar together until fluffy.  Add the egg and vanilla extract.

Incorporate the flour mixture.  Chill for at least 30 minutes.  Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Half fill a small bowl with icing sugar. When the dough is chilled enough to be formed, scoop balls that are about 1-2 tablespoons (I used a cookie scoop over an inch in diameter) and toss in the icing sugar.  Place on a baking sheet, lined with parchment, a couple of inches apart.  Bake until they spread and puff slightly, about 12-16 minutes.  (In my oven they were ready at 12 minutes.) They will be really soft in the center.  If they start to brown, they’ve gone too far.  Cool to room temperature.

It is suggested that at this point you can refrigerate them on the tray because as the cream cheese and butter get cold, they’re easier to pick up. It is a good tip.  These cookies are best served straight out of the fridge.

These will keep for up to a week in the fridge or can be frozen for longer (and then thawed in fridge).

It took five years and four trips to New York City for me to finally find the time to make it up to the Upper West Side to visit the famous Levain Bakery. There are few “best of” type shows on the Food Network or “best of” NYC lists that don’t mention how amazing and how unique these seemingly ordinary cookies are. The recipe is a secret, of course, and so the frenzy only grows for these softball-sized treasures.

The famous Levain Bakery chocolate chip walnut cookie.

Why do people flock to this shoebox of a bakery opened by two friends who aren’t even trained pastry chefs? No cookie I’ve ever tasted has been able to achieve the holy grail of cookie texture the way Levain does: a perfect crisp crust that protects a gooey, chewy middle. When I broke apart my cookie to see if it was true, it was a moment of shock and awe. How did they do this? How can I be eating this entire giant cookie? What will I do without access to the best cookie I’ve ever eaten, hands down?!?!

I do the next best thing. I scour the Internet for a copycat recipe and make do. As you can see, my copycats look nothing like the original. So…yeah, not much of a copycat in the looks department. The taste? Also not the same. BUT, they were pretty darn alright for a chocolate chip cookie. They did have a little of the crisp outside, gooey inside thing going on but nowhere near the perfect crust that Levain achieves. I must also say that I think I preferred Nigella’s cookies. And now I’m really wanting to try to make the also famous New York Times ultimate chocolate chip cookie. In time, in time.

Within the same few days, I had the pleasure of trying the excellent chocolate chip cookies of both Balthazar and Chikalicious, and Levain was definitely the best. (Have I told you yet that it was the best cookie I’ve ever eaten?) So, if you ever find yourself in New York City, don’t be silly and wait like I did. GO. Yes, there’s nothing really around to see except the Museum of Natural History and The Dakota, but it’s worth the trip.  You could also spend a fortune ordering them online, but that wouldn’t be as much fun, now, would it?

Copycat Levain Bakery Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Parsley, Sage, Dessert and Line Drives

I halved the recipe below and got four large (roughly a half cup each) and three medium-sized cookies. I also used half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate, which I got by chopping up chocolate bars, not chocolate chips. You might notice that there is no vanilla in this recipe. Strange, but true. I also have learned from cookie-powers-that-be that you should let your dough rest so that the ingredients fully integrate. So, I did that.

1 cups cold and cubed unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1  1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 to 3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon table or fine sea salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 cups good quality semisweet chocolate chips or chunks

In bowl of electric mixer fitted with paddle, cream together butter and sugars until well blended and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until well incorporated. (I did this in a food processor, you could also do by hand.)
Add flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cornstarch, and mix until just combined. Gently fold in chocolate. Transfer dough to clean work surface and gently mix dough by hand to ensure even distribution of ingredients. Divide into 10-12 equal portions on a parchment-lined plate or cutting board. Cover with plastic wrap and put in fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Place each on sheet pan lined with parchment paper and flatten slightly (a step I forgot). Bake in the preheated oven 15-20 minutes depending on how gooey and raw-ish you like the interior, until very lightly browned, taking care not to overbake. Let cool on rack and store what you don’t immediately eat in an airtight container.

These are best eaten on the day they are made. To freshen them at a later time, give them a quick nuke in the microwave for 5-10 seconds or a few minutes in a warm oven.

Image courtesy of www.zoomyummy.com

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

Don’t balk at these “oven-fried” onion rings. They’re made with potato chips!

Tired of grilled cheese? How about some new-fangled cheese on toast?

I have no interest in trying to be like Heston Blumenthal at home. But, the idea of serving pumpkin soup in a bowl glistening with brown butter might get me thinking about trying.

Why wait for Halloween? You should totally make these homemade peanut butter cups this weekend.

And hooray! It’s time to eat all things pumpkin. Start with soft’n'spicy pumpkin snickerdoodles.

Photo courtesy of www.joythebaker.com

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

I’ve made rice pudding with brown sugar a few times, but this recipe makes me want to do it again, risotto-style.

Ahhhhhhhhh…monster cookies! These remind me SO much of the 80s. I want some. Now.

This sandwich seems to make good use of the often overlooked nectarine.

More drool-worthy pudding. With millet? Go figure. (Still in Turkey pudding obsession mode.)

Candied jalapenos. I’m totally intrigued.

Nigella Lawson is my biggest girl chef crush. I gaze lovingly from afar (my chair is not very close to the television) and both wish to be her, dipping into the leftovers past midnight, and to be sitting across the table from her, staring at her brown locks and eating her gorgeous food. The fact that she’s married to my favourite contemporary art magnate, Charles Saatchi, pushes me over the edge.

But, despite my brown locks, I am nothing like her in the kitchen. And so it was with trepidation that I cracked the spine of Kitchen, her latest cookbook. There are many recipes that sound wonderful, but for solitary, regularly meatless me, a little taxing. A dinner party will have to be centred around a savoury Nigella endeavour one day. In the meantime, I can certainly do cookies. Yes, cookies. A minor cop out. When a superstar like Nigella, however, claims to have an ultimate chocolate chip cookie, I take notice. A cold egg? Interesting. Extra large in size? Keep going. Milk chocolate chips? Let’s go.

I’ve read quite a few posts and articles about how an extra large cookie is the best for exemplifying a cookie’s taste and texture. I had to buy a large scoop especially for this recipe. It was totally worth it. Having a cookie look like you picked it up at a bakery is a nice touch, but having it taste like it too? Extra nice. As you can see, I did make three different sizes because I know that not everyone will eat a giant cookie. I’m pretty sure that those few that got to taste the giant cookies (me included) much preferred them, extra calories and all.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen

Yes, British measurements. Could make for interesting conversions, so use a kitchen scale if possible. Your cookies might look too underbaked when you pull them out of the oven, but the extra 5 minutes on the pan really makes a difference.

150 g soft unsalted butter
125 g light brown sugar
100 g white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 egg, fridge-cold
1 egg yolk, fridge-cold
300 g flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
300 g milk chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3 — I went with slightly below 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Melt the butter and let it cool a bit. Put the brown and white sugars into a bowl, pour the slightly cooled, melted butter over them and beat together. Beat in the vanilla, the cold egg and cold egg yolk until your mixture is light and creamy. Slowly mix in the flour and the baking soda until just blended, then fold in the chocolate chips.

Scoop the cookie dough into large rounds (about ¼ cup) and drop onto the prepared baking sheet, plopping the cookies down about 3 inches apart. You will need to make these in at least two batches, keeping the bowl of cookie dough in the fridge between batches.

Bake for 15-17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are lightly golden. If you decide to make a smaller cookie, they will take less time, you’ll have to watch closely. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.

Photo: Alexandra's Kitchen

The internet is a great source for all things foodie, and we’re constantly bookmarking, starring, and emailing intriguing recipes, food porn, and inspiration. Here’s a selection of clippings we think are worth checking out.

These buttermilk scones have me all hot and bothered.

DIY brown sugar? Here’s how.

Sometimes, non-alcoholic beverages are needed and wanted. This list of DIY sodas (no high-fructose corn syrup!) looks like a good place to start.

Next time you make guacamole, don’t just mix all the ingredients at once. Try this technique, which involves letting the garlic hang out in the lime juice for a bit.

How do chefs cook everything in butter (rendering them delicious) but never worry about it burning? Clarified butter. Make some!

If I inspired you to make your own ricotta, perhaps you should use it to make these lemon ricotta cookies?

There was a time in my life where I made the same batch of cookies almost weekly. They were my specialty and became a staple in lunch bags and the fingers of those seeking an evening treat. The recipe was from the milk chocolate Chipits bag and was marked by its use of melted butter and only brown sugar. Underbaked, they were my ultimate homemade chocolate chip cookie.

As my interest in food has grown, I’ve moved beyond my standby. Although I’ll likely be the last person in the blogosphere to make David Leite’s famous recipe, I have plans to attack it soon. And an upcoming post will show a cookie dance I had with Nigella.

But first things first. Meet The Handshake Cookie.
I brought these to a friend’s soiree one night.  White chocolate oatmeal cookies. Not very exciting, right? Wrong. They’re thick, yet not soft. Crisp, but they don’t rain crumbs because there’s enough chew to stay together. They have that grandmotherly oat flavour but are slightly rich from the white chocolate and balanced from the sprinkling of salt.

I’m conditioned to believe that people-pleaser cookies are soft and gooey (mostly because those please me). These cookies taught me that this is not so. Even I liked their crispness! Like a good biscotti, they call out for a pairing with a rich cup of coffee… or a glass of vin santo.

Oh yeah, and the important part about their presence at the party? A guest actually came over to me and shook my hand because the cookies were so good.

Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies

I followed Smitten Kitchen’s recipe exactly except on one point. Based on comments she received, I used 12 tablespoons of butter instead of 14. Other than that, my only other comment is to always slightly underbake your cookies by at least one minute. I did that with these and they still came out with the intended texture.

It turns out I did do some baking during the merriest time of the year.  Some fancy-pants palmiers.
Pastries have never beckoned me to eat or to bake.  But after Mr. Gordon Ramsay made some on the latest season of The F-Word that aired in Canada, they looked too easy and tasty to pass up.

Gordon Ramsay. *Shaking my head.* Every show he’s done at home is entertaining and informative.  I’ve greatly enjoyed the seasons of The F-Word I’ve watched, as well as Kitchen Nightmares.  Once he crossed the pond, however, and fell under the spell of American producers (and I suspect, dollars), he became a raging, sensational buffoon.  In Britain, his programs showcase food.  In the U.S., his programs showcase… the lowest common denominator that pervades all American reality T.V.?

Taking inspiration from British Gordon, I felt safe in my choice.  Frozen puff pastry as the main ingredient also told me that they would be as easy as they looked.  I first saw the marvels of puff pastry a few years ago when some friends and I, funnily enough, made Gordon’s Beef Wellington from the first season of The F-Word.

Much less intimidating to work with than phyllo dough (and better tasting, too), the most effort comes with sprinkling some flour on your work surface and rolling out the defrosted dough.  The only problem was that Gordon’s Christmas palmiers were mincemeat palmiers.  Nothing shouts awkward Christmas party moment louder than the girl who brings mincemeat.  I like mincemeat, you might like mincemeat, but a treat with dried fruit is not the one that everyone goes running for.  Even me, the unapologetic “I’m not crazy about chocolate” person, would choose oatmeal chocolate chip cookies over oatmeal raisin.  Raisins and the like can only be used when you really know your audience.  For this party, I didn’t.  So where did I go instead?  Fig jam and chocolate chips.  Fig = trendy, chocolate = crowd pleaser.  Good strategy, huh?

I don’t know why so many backs of my little palmiers broke.  I may have caused tears while cutting them.  Which reminds me to tell you that it’s important that you do freeze the dough for at least 30 minutes before cutting.  All the icing sugar is also necessary because there is no sugar in the dough.  The possibilities for fillings are endless.  Cinnamon and sugar would be perfect, as I’m sure something like Nutella would also be.  Hmmmm…savoury ones too.  Pesto.  Jalapeno jelly.   And one day, yes, mincemeat.

Chocolate-Fig Palmiers
Adapted from Christmas Mincemeat Palmiers
Makes about two dozen.

375 g puff pastry
4 tablespoons fig jam
2 1/2 tablespoons mini chocolate chips
icing sugar for dusting
all-purpose flour for dusting

Defrost puff pastry in fridge overnight.

Roll out dough on floured surface until it’s about 9 or 10 inches wide and about 12 inches long.  If your pastry already comes as a sheet, you may not have to roll at all.  Spread the jam all over the dough, leaving about a 1-centimetre border around.  Sprinkle chips evenly and then sift icing sugar over until the surface is completely dusted.

Roll the pastry from both ends to make two concentric circles that meet in the middle.  Place dough in freezer for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Slice dough into 1-centimetre slices and place on parchment-lined baking sheet.  Dust again with icing sugar.  Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.  Remove from oven and dust a third time with icing sugar.  Cool completely.

I had a vague notion of what a whoopie pie was when I started seeing more recipes pop up.  Like candy bars and soda, whoopie pies seem distinctly American to me.  I didn’t grow up hearing about or seeing any whoopie pies.  They weren’t at specialty bakeries or brought out at birthday parties.  From what I could tell, they were essentially a homemade sandwich cookie. I’ll always choose Chips Ahoy over Oreo, so the attraction was minimal.  But when I saw the enticing variations that cropped up via Lucy Waverman’s recipe in The Globe and Mail and Jeremy’s over at The Kitchen Front, I felt these were waters beyond chocolate and vanilla that I wanted to wade into.  After deciding to make a sweet treat for a Halloween gathering, I set my sights on Martha Stewart’s chocolate-pumpkin version as I had some leftover canned pumpkin at the ready.

All was going fine until I was ready to ice my pies.  I thought nothing of the puff my cookies held when coming out of the oven.  They would deflate upon cooling and I would have perfect little pies.  Not so.  No deflation.  No cooperative pies that would lay flat and look pretty. Oh, the science of baking.  There was some slight mismeasurement in my chemistry (baking) project, and my cookies rose too much.  A friend at the party was very excited to try one of my “pods.”  Alien-like or not, they were still pretty tasty.  And… when I saw that these tasty looking whoopie pies also came out as pods, I didn’t feel so bad.

Two bites in...

One bite in and you know you’re not dealing with just a sandwich cookie.  The texture of the cookies is very cake-like, and Martha’s batter did not disappoint with its rich, chocolate flavour.  The tang of the cream cheese in the icing was an appropriate complement to the rich cookies, and the pumpkin made you wonder why the chocolate-pumpkin combination has not been exploited further.  Black bottom pumpkin pie anyone?  My overarching thought on the pie, however, was that it was not a homemade sandwich cookie.  It is a reconfigured cupcake — a homemade cupcake sandwich.  A traditional cookie batter would likely just crumble with each bite.  Cake, not so much.  Does this mean we’ll soon see a whoopie pie shop on every corner?!

And yes, we are very happy to be celebrating our second birthday as Cream & Sugar.  Thank you very much for reading.

Chocolate-Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.
Beat butter and sugars with a handheld mixer in a large bowl. Mix on high speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add egg; mix until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in half the flour mixture, then the milk and vanilla. Mix in remaining flour mixture.
Drop about 1 tablespoon amounts of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until cookies spring back when lightly touched, 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer baking sheets to wire racks and let cool 10 minutes. Remove cookies from baking sheets and transfer to wire racks using a spatula; let cool completely.
Whip together cream cheese, butter and icing sugar on medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg; whip until smooth, scraping down the bowl as necessary. Spoon about 2 teaspoons filling on the flat sides of half the cookies. Sandwich with remaining cookies.  Makes about 15-18.

I’ve always leaned toward the whipped shortbread side of the fence.  For nostalgia, for looks and for texture.  But when I came across this post for rosemary shortbread, I immediately had a pre-Christmas itch to bake.  Why?  The mention of salt.  Yes, I’m still attracted to the sweet-salty trend.  I’m beginning to think it might be a permanent thing, or rather, that it’s been longstanding with me.  I remember in the mid-80s when Abercrombie & Fitch had a store in West Edmonton Mall and was still the purveyor of prep luxury.  Their tins of chocolate-covered pretzels would puzzle little me:  sweet AND salty?  One Christmas I got a taste and it seems I didn’t let go.  Only now am I fully articulating my attraction in the kitchen.

I went in search of Melissa Clark’s original recipe and was excited to read all of her variations.  Rosemary was enticing, but as the pan would be for workmates, I decided to play it a little safer.  With Thanksgiving on our doorstep and pumpkin pie on my mind… you get the picture.

A breeze to cut when warm and enough butter that parchment is not necessary, these little squares were bites of pure shortbread heaven.  The basic simplicity of sugar, flour and butter means they melt in your mouth upon contact.  The salt means you want to pop them in your mouth like you’re eating a bag of potato chips.  And the spices?  Well, they remind you that a meal of gluttony is nearing.  A meal that usually ends with a similarly spiced pie.  Indeed.  So why did I just eat 7 shortbread cookies??

Spiced Shortbread
adapted from Melissa Clark

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon plus 1 pinch kosher salt
1 cup unsalted cold butter, cut into 1-inch chunks

Heat oven to 325 degrees. With your hands, mix together flour, butter, sugar, spices and salt.  Work butter in quickly until fine crumbs form.  This will not form a smooth dough.  Once the crumbs start to come together, press dough into an ungreased 8- or 9-inch-square baking pan or 9-inch pie pan. Prick dough all over with a fork. Bake until golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes for 9-inch pan, 45 to 50 minutes for 8-inch. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Cut into squares, bars or wedges while still warm.

The dough can also be made in a food processor.