I think we can safely say that baking weather has begun. Maybe some of you in cooler climates or some of you with central A/C can bake year round, but this apartment dweller in hot and sweaty New York cannot. Pretty much from May until October, the warmth from making toast is the only heat I let my kitchen generate beyond that which comes from Mother Nature. But now as my pasty white legs get covered for the next six months and hibernation mode sets in, it is time to turn on the oven and add a little winter padding to my frame.

The lack of blogging has been half laziness and half lack of material. I cook and bake a lot less here for a lot of different reasons: space, culture, time, money, people. I know that I also forget to tell you about meals out. They’re happening still, and they’re enjoyable, so don’t worry about me only eating oatmeal and toast every night. This might be the first and last post for a while, but it’s a good one. Because it involves cookie butter.

Do you have a jar in your cupboard yet? I bought my first at Trader Joe’s last year and have not bought another since because I fear I might eat it all in one sitting. (The reason I never have ice cream in the freezer.) Biscoff/Speculoos cookie butter is a spread made of crushed up Biscoff/Speculoos cookies. Yes, crushed up cookies. Kind of a gingerbread, gingersnap, and oatmeal cookie mash-up. The best possible cookie mash-up. I think you’re supposed to put it on bread or use it for a fruit dip, but I can’t really see a better use than on a spoon and then in my mouth. But, as I’ve vowed not to engage in such behaviour, I went looking for recipes that employed it. I found a little doozy that is like the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookie you’ve ever had. The cookie butter enhances all of that classic’s best qualities and doesn’t take it over. This isn’t a recipe to make you bonkers for cookie butter. Like I said, that recipe only requires a spoon and open jar. This is to have everyone ask you for the recipe because they can’t quite figure out why your oatmeal chocolate chip cookies are the best.

Happy fall. Get baking.

P.s. Another way to use cookie butter? A couple of tablespoons whisked into heavy cream and then whipped. It’s Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend. I just told you how to top your pumpkin pie and have everyone fall in love with you.

Oatmeal chocolate-chip cookie butter cookies

Adapted from Two Peas and Their Pod

1 1/2 cups old fashioned oats
1/2 cup plus two tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup Biscoff/Speculoos spread (cookie butter)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup chocolate chips (I used a mix of milk and semi-sweet.)
Fleur de sel (Because I rarely top a cookie these days without it.)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter, cookie butter spread, sugar, and brown sugar and beat on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla extra and beat until smooth, ideally around 5 minutes. (Or beat well by hand if you don’t have a stand mixer.)

Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the dry ingredients and chocolate chips, beating only until blended. Chill the dough for at least 30 minutes in the refrigerator – the longer the better. I usually do overnight. Let the dough warm up about 15 minutes before scooping (you need to preheat the oven anyway). You can also pre-scoop your cookies to avoid the hassles of too-cold dough the next day. All you have to do is scoop onto a parchment-lined plate (the balls can be close together) and cover with plastic wrap. I also pre-scoop and freeze dough balls. Just put the plate into the freezer until the dough balls are firm, then place in a freezer-safe bag or container.

Form the cookie dough into rounded tablespoons and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. (Or place chilled or frozen dough balls on sheet.) Bake for 7-9 minutes or until cookies are *just* golden and firm around the edges. Bake an extra minute or two if your cookies came out of the freezer. Pull out of oven and sprinkle cookies immediately with fleur de sel. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes and then remove with a spatula onto a cooling rack.

I cannot for the life of me remember the last time I ate a bowl of corn flakes. Who ever pledged their morning cereal love to boring old corn flakes? I mean, perhaps you only ate them when they were the most attractive item on a Super 8’s continental breakfast spread. Because clearly they were more exciting than the mini box of Raisin Bran. Despite trying to argue that I’ve never poured myself a bowl, I know exactly what they taste like. You never come right out and say, “corn” because it seems too obvious, but… that’s exactly what they taste like. So, when Christina Tosi of the Momofuku clan turned the world upside down with her cereal milk soft-serve ice cream, we all went weak at the knees for the nostalgia of that boring bowl of corn flakes. Every time I have it, I can’t help but smile. Again, despite not ever remembering favouring that box with the rooster, it reminds me of Saturday mornings watching the Smurfs.

Because we don’t all have easy access to a Milk Bar for the soft serve, Tosi’s corn cookies are the perfect substitute for when you want to be reminded of how good corn can taste when it’s not on the cob and liberally sweetened. And forget cornbread. Yes, it’s delicious and can burst with sunshine-y corn flavour, but these corn cookies are on a whole different level: crisp edges, chewy middles, and that crave-inducing mix of salty and sweet. Corn’s easy lean to savoury means they could be dipped in sriracha (seriously) as easily as milk. Tosi even makes grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with them!

Getting the ingredients is not easy, and they’ll be a workout to make if you don’t have a stand mixer, but believe me when I tell you that the effort will be worth it. And if it’s not, I’ll walk down the block to my local Milk Bar and pick one up for you. Just don’t let Azrael steal it away!

Corn Cookies

• You can find the recipe here.
• Living in New York, I can easily go to a Momofuku Milk Bar location and buy the required corn powder that they so nicely prepare. You might have to take the extra step of going online to order freeze-dried corn and then turning it into a powder in your food processor.
• In addition to the corn powder, you also have to use corn flour. And note that corn flour is different than cornmeal. Bob’s Red Mill makes some.
• As per the recipe, do beat the sugar, butter, and egg for 7-8 minutes as directed. Tosi states in the cookbook that this is an important step.
• Get used to refrigerating your dough for flavour and texture. You should be doing it for all your cookies. For at least 24 hours. (Although the nerds over at America’s Test Kitchen think you only need 10 minutes.) I like resting the dough because it makes the task of baking less onerous. One day, I mix and clean all the bowls. The next day, I bake.
• I’m now in the serious habit of freezing a portion of the dough from a cookie recipe to save and bake for later. So, instead of putting all my little scooped doughs in the fridge, I put many of them on a parchment paper-lined plate in the freezer. After about 30 minutes, they’re hard. Pop them in a freezer bag, and you’re good to go for small-batch baking. Friend coming over for coffee? In 10 minutes, you can serve freshly baked cookies. Living alone, I find this especially handy. Instead of always taking baking to work the next day, I can slowly make my way through a haul myself!

I’m a fan of Dorie Greenspan. I’ll never forget the first time I heard her speak on NPR. The energy and love she had for baking oozed from my speakers, and I was completely smitten. So, I was really excited to hear that her and her son were taking their pop-up cookie shop, Beurre & Sel, and translating it into not one, but two, bricks and mortar locations here in New York. Dorie Greenspan cookies available all the time? Sign me up!

But, uh, this happened last year, and I… just went. To a week-long specialty pop-up. That signing up part didn’t really happen I’m ashamed to say. The point is, I made it to the pop-up (read: It was a two-minute walk from the office), and I bought some cookies. FROM DORIE GREENSPAN HERSELF. I’ve had some awesome celebrity sightings this past year (Woody Allen, Ricky Gervais, Michael Caine), but having the chance to speak to one of my baking idols for a few minutes really made my week.

And then I went back to the office, removed my classic jammer from its plastic bag, and ate one of the best cookies of recent memory. I’m not a crispy cookie girl, and I was a little bit afraid that each bite would bring a downpour of crumbs. Not even close. The cookie yielded softly to my bite, filling my mouth with butter, sugar, and salt. It was magical.

The cherry on the top for you is that this is not solely a New Yorker treat. Dorie Greenspan goodness is within your reach through the power of mail order! I recently took some tubes of the sesame sea salt and sables to California, and based on the groans of pleasure from my Californians, they do just fine after a plane ride. The only dilemma is if you should order one of each kind, or two.

Beurre & Sel

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.