Like this one that I came across on FoodGawker from The Girl Who Ate Everything.  The cookies looked so thick and delicious that I had to make them!

Okay, so my cookies didn’t turn out anywhere near as thick as Christy’s, but they were very delicious.  Also, as the butter in this recipe is required to be melted, I decided to brown the butter a bit, but that’s the only change I made to the ingredients.  Well, I also didn’t add all of the chocolate chips because there were just way too many after I started pouring them into the dough to mix in!

The original recipe for these cookies comes from Allrecipes, where you can read over 5000 reviews for these cookies!  Following some advice in the reviews, I decided to refrigerate the cookies (for 2 hours) before I baked them.  I didn’t bake all the dough at once, however.  I baked about 6 and put the rest of the dough balls in the freezer.

Here is where the magic comes in… the first 6 cookies were delicious, of course, but one week later, when I decided to bake the frozen dough, I discovered that these cookies that had been frozen tasted much better!  I guess it goes along the same lines as refrigerating cookie dough for 36 hours before baking to allow the flavors to develop.

These cookies are called “The Best, Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies” and they don’t disappoint.  However, I did think that the cookies were a little overly sweet.  Yes, I know they’re supposed to be sweet, but I think next time I’d cut down on the sugar a bit.

My only real disappointment was that the outsides of the cookies were crisp – they crunched when you bit into them.  The insides were well and truly chewy though.  I’m not very keen on crisp chocolate chip cookies, but they tasted good enough to overlook it just this once.

How do you prefer your chocolate chip cookies – crispy? cakey? chewy?  Do you have a favorite recipe?

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I actually made two different types of cupcakes this week, believe it or not.  You haven’t seen any photographic evidence on Flickr or Twitter because I considered them both failures.  The first one was a lavender cupcake with honey Swiss meringue buttercream.  Sounds nice, right?  Well, the cake, while it tasted alright, was way too dense.  The buttercream, while it also had a nice taste, had a strange texture to it, almost sort of… elastic?  Yeah, it was a little weird.

My second batch of cupcakes were vanilla on vanilla, a classic combination using real vanilla beans.  But the cakes started splitting on top (I *might* be a bit particular about how the tops of my cupcakes look) while baking and turned too brown too quickly.  They also tasted slightly eggy.  And the buttercream?  It was way too sweet.

After both of those failures, I had no butter left.  And yes, also, my son came home from preschool with conjunctivitis (A.K.A. “pink eye”).  And my daughter acquired a stomach bug.  This winter has been horrible for viruses; I don’t think the kids have been not sick for any length of time for the past few months.  It’s so terribly annoying!

But just hours before I realized that both of my kids would be coming home sick, I was searching the internet to find a recipe that I could bake that also did not have butter.  I didn’t have my hopes up.  Someone suggested hummingbird cake to me, but I didn’t have any carrots either.

Eventually, I started singling out cookies.  And I came across this one – peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies.  They looked easy and delicious.  But having a read over the comments and reviews of the recipe, I knew I had to change the original if I wanted to end up with something edible.

And end up with something edible I definitely did.  These were extremely indulgent and out-of-this-world delicious.

I don’t even need to continue this post with words; I could just show you more pictures of these incredible cookies and that would be enough.

But I do want to tell you what I did different with the recipe.  It is a butterless and flourless recipe.  But, after reading over the comments on the recipe page, so many people had problems with it and said it was sickly to eat.  Too much peanut butter, too much sugar.  So following the advice of others, I reduced the peanut butter (I used smooth and not chunky) and brown sugar down from 1 cup to 3/4 cup.  Others added 1/2 cup of self-raising flour, but I didn’t have any, so I added 1/2 cup of plain flour + 1 teaspoon of baking powder.  Finally, I reduce the amount of chocolate down from 1 cup to about 3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon or so.  Oh, and I also used chocolate chunks instead of chocolate chips.

The dough was stiff and difficult to mix by hand.  The chunks were difficult to stir in and I ended up chucking the spoon and using my hands to incorporate the chunks.  I used about a tablespoon of dough per cookie, and flatten them slightly before baking.

Again differing from the original recipe, I reduced the oven temperature from 200C to 180C and my cookies were done in 9-10 minutes.

I’ll note as well that the recipe I am including below is the exact recipe that I, myself, used.

As with most cookies, I want to remind you that it is very important not to overbake these.  You’ll only need a slightly golden outside to keep them soft and chewy.   Straight from the oven, they are very soft, so let them cool on the tray for a bit before removing them.

There is no crunch to these cookies, they are just all over soft and chewy (and remain so on the next day).  And they stick to the roof of your mouth, just like peanut butter does.  You will need a glass of milk with these, no doubt about it.

I never expected to end up with such a delicious cookie without any butter.  I am highly impressed and proud to say that these are now one of my most favorite ever cookies!  If you love the combination of peanut butter and chocolate, I guarantee you will love these as well!

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Alright, first of all, last Saturday was election day here in New South Wales, Australia.  As I’m not a citizen of Australia (I’m a permanent resident), I am not allowed to vote.  I’ve never been to the polling places or participated in any way during any election day.  This time, however, my daughter’s school was sending home notices that they wanted donations for their election day cake stall to raise money for the school - they wanted cakes, slices, biscuits, etc.  My eyes literally lit up when I read this (I’m pretty sure they did, anyway!) and immediately I ran through dozens of things in my head that I could make.  I wanted to make something that would blow the customers away, something that they just couldn’t resist buying, something that would help the school’s fundraising efforts.

Eventually I decided on something I had seen a while ago on Not Quite Nigella and Bubble and Sweet.  Tim Tam cookie pops.  Just like an Oreo truffle, actually – with the crumbed Oreos and cream cheese.  Except with Tim Tams.  If you’re not in Australia, you may be asking, “What are Tim Tams?”.  Wikipedia explains:

Tim Tams are chocolate biscuits made by Arnott’s Biscuits. A Tim Tam is composed of two layers of chocolate malted biscuit, separated by a light chocolate cream filling, and coated in a thin layer of textured chocolate. (Photo above also from Wikipedia)

There are a variety of flavors available as well.  Caramel Tim Tams, Rum & Raisin Tim Tams, White Chocolate Tim Tams, Dark Chocolate Tim Tams, Double-Coated Tim Tams… you get the idea.  They’re all very delicious.  Apparently 1 in every 2 households in Australia has a package of Tim Tams in their pantry.

Note also that Australians call cookies, “biscuits”.

So now you know what a Tim Tam is, if you didn’t already. 

I doubled the recipe for the Tim Tam cookie pops I found on Bubble and Sweet.  I chose to use a package each of original flavor Tim Tams, and dark flavor Tim Tams, and I used 400g of 70% chocolate to double-dip each truffle.  One coating of the chocolate was too thin, I thought.  In order to double-dip properly, I found that you need to let the first coating set before you dip again.  Put the pops into the refrigerator for 15 minutes or so before dipping the second time.  Also important – make sure the chocolate that you are re-dipping into is not hot, but at room temperature, or close, otherwise, the hot chocolate will re-melt the coating already on the truffle.

I made each truffle weigh 25g so that they would all be of uniform size.  Picture above, you will see that I dipped the ends of the lollipop sticks into melted chocolate before sticking them into the truffles; after I stuck them all in, I put them back in the refrigerator to set the chocolate faster.  This will help the truffle to stay on the pop while dipping and eating.

I kept the truffles in the refrigerator overnight and the morning of election day I packaged the pops into mini treat bags and tied them each up with a silver twist tie.

So yes, apparently, these little guys were a real hit with the cake stall helpers; they told me they only sold about four to actual customers before buying the rest of the pops for themselves!  They even asked for the recipe!  I’m glad that all my efforts on the day before were well worth it – job well done, I say!

The recipe below is not doubled; what follows is the original recipe.  Feel free to substitute any flavor of Tim Tams you wish, as well any flavor of chocolate – even milk, or white.  If you don’t have lollipop sticks, you can leave them out of the picture entirely and simply dip the truffles in chocolate and lift them out with a fork onto a sheet of baking paper.  If you happen to have styrofoam lying around, you can stick the lollipop sticks into it, instead of placing them upside down on a sheet of baking paper.

The instructions may seem long, but this is not a difficult recipe.  Basically, it’s the technique that takes a few extra words to explain. 

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No sooner had I put that book away than the new April issue of delicious. magazine hit the shelves.  Oh, delicious., you certainly know how to make me swoon!  And they know how to deliver a recipe that works.  A little bit hesitantly, due to my recent string of failures, I took this issue of the magazine to the kitchen and made the double-chocolate cookies in the article about Mandy Valsinger, who ran The Chocolate Maven bakery in Sante Fe, New Mexico.

And, of course, they turned out sinfully delicious!  What is not to love about these cookies?

I’ll tell you one thing I don’t like about recipes like this one, however.  It’s rolling the dough into logs when there are chunks of stuff in the dough.  Whether it’s peanuts or chunks of chocolate, or whatever, it is hard to cut a straight and even slice because of those chunks.  Maybe it’s the fault of my knife; maybe it is too dull.  That’s the only thing I didn’t like about this recipe.

Not to worry though, as I was speaking to someone else about this recipe, I found out that this person didn’t roll the dough into logs; she just scooped out bits of dough, rolled them into a ball and flattened them with the palm of her hand.  Apparently they turned out just fine, although they didn’t look like the picture in the magazine.

No matter which way you to decide to prepare these cookies, the most important thing is to, if possible, use the absolute best cocoa powder you can afford/find for the best chocolate taste.  I use Droste cocoa powder, which I surprisingly can find at my little local fruit/grocery shop at $9 for 250g.  For the white chocolate chunks, make sure you use real white chocolate – that is, read the ingredients and make sure it has at least 20-25% cocoa butter.  Note that you can get good results using the cheaper stuff, but if you’re trying to impress or want a decadent treat for yourself then you have to hand over the money!!

I can see myself making these again in the future, no doubt about it!  Next time, however, the only thing I might change is making the cookies a little smaller.  The recipe says to roll the dough into a 7cm-wide log; I may do only half that diameter next time, which may mean I will need to divide the dough into 2 logs.

These are so amazing!  I don’t understand why you’re even still reading this – print out the recipe and make these for yourself and your loved ones now!

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This past month I have discovered a new version of the peanut butter cookie on three different food blogs.  First, I found it at Drool Factor, who found it at Almost Bourdain (my favorite food blog).  Then a little later, I found it at Iron Chef Shellie, which made me realize I’ve had enough of looking at this recipe, I just had to finally make it.

So what is this new version of the peanut butter cookie?  What first attracted me was the sprinkling of sea salt on top of the cookie.  Then, came the realization that this was not your average peanut butter cookie – this cookie had perfectly formed round edges and it was flat on top with no fork tine criss-cross.  This cookie dough requires a teensy bit of kneading, after which it is rolled into a log, refrigerated until firm, cut into slices and then baked.  How interesting!

I had one problem with the recipe though – the dough is supposed to be made using a food processor.  I don’t have a food processor.  Drool Factor, however, made these cookies by using an electric mixer, so I followed the directions on this post.  Everything went well doing it this way instead of in a food processor.

The only tip I can give you is to be absolutely sure that the log of dough has been refrigerated until it is very, very firm.  For me, it took longer than 3 hours (as recommended in the recipe).  If you try to slice the cookies from the log and the dough is not firm, the slices will all have flat bottoms and your cookies will not be round.  This might have happened to me… because someone was just so impatient!

As I already mentioned, I’m not really keen on crunchy peanuts in my peanut butter cookies, but I didn’t have a problem with them in these cookies.  If I made these again (and I probably will), I might use smooth peanut butter and add no extra peanuts at all.  I think it would still be very nice.  The texture of the cookies reminded me of shortbread, and without nuts in it, it would be even more like eating peanut butter shortbread!

The sea salt flakes on top were a delicious topping.  I used Murray River pink sea salt flakes.  I was a little concerned as to how the salt would taste if I were to eat these cookies with a cup of coffee or tea, but I’m happy to report that they couldn’t have tasted more perfect together.

The recipe seems a bit long, but don’t be intimidated – these are actually really easy!

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The recipe I’m about to share with you was one of those that I didn’t like one day, but fell in love with the next day – dark chocolate cookies with pistachios and milk chocolate chunks.  It comes from the August 2010 issue of delicious. magazine, and was created by Bill Granger.

I’ve never been keen on pistachios, which is why I originally skipped over the recipe.  Sure, the picture of the cookies in the magazine looked droolworthy, but when I read that there were pistachios I just turned the page.  But the next time I looked at the magazine, these cookies basically screamed out at me to make them immediately.  I had everything on hand already, except the pistachios.  I chose a bag of pistachios that were already shelled so that I wouldn’t have to waste time in shelling them myself.

To achieve a really dark brown color in these cookies and the ultimate chocolate flavor, I recommend using Dutch-processed cocoa (the recipe simply says to use “good quality cocoa”).  This is rather hard to come by in Sydney, it seems, so I used Cadbury Bournville cocoa powder, available at any grocery store here.  I would have used Green & Black’s cocoa powder, which is Dutch-processed and available at the gourmet grocery store, but I couldn’t quite afford it at this time.  My cookies did turn out quite dark anyhow, so I was very pleased.

For my milk chocolate chunks, I used Green & Black’s milk chocolate.  This is by far my new favorite milk chocolate (originally, Cadbury’s was my favorite).  And for the dark chocolate zig zags on top of the cookies I used Lindt 50% chocolate.  These cookies took out a lot of my chocolate stash, which I have built up slowly whenever the best quality chocolate bars have been on special on the store, but it was well worth it.

They are one of the best cookies I have ever tasted.  In fact, they just may be my new ultimate favorite – chocolate chip cookies are so yesterday anyway!  Okay, so I still love the old chocolate chip cookie, but wow.  You have got to try these cookies.  Empty your wallet for the best quality chocolates and you’ll be rewarded with these scrumptious gems.

The cookies bake up nice and thick.  They’re chewy, not crunchy at all.  With the exception of the nuts, of course.  The combination of different chocolates is a real pleasure to eat.  The pistachios lend a totally different flavor and is a perfect switch from the average nuts you’d find in cookies – walnuts, peanuts, etc.  I’m sure that if you don’t like pistachios you could add any other sort of nut, or if you don’t like nuts at all or are allergic, then I am more than positive that these cookies would still taste amazing without any nuts at all.

As with any cookie, be extremely careful not to over-bake them.  Cookies are so easy to over-bake, which completely (or very nearly) ruins them.  If you’re unsure, err on the side of under-baked.  Also remember, that with most cookies, if they look done while still in the oven, then they are over-baked – take them out before they look done.

Look at how dark they are!  Amazing!  And the best thing about this recipe, besides the fact that I loved it, is that I got about a dozen more cookies than what the recipe said it would make.  Awesome – the more the better!

Why are you even still reading this?  You should have printed out the recipe and made these cookies already!  Enjoy!  :)

Dark Chocolate Cookies With Pistachios And Milk Chocolate Chunks
Adapted from delicious. magazine, August 2010
Makes about 2 dozen

Ingredients
185g unsalted butter, softened
275g brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups (185g) plain flour
2/3 cup (70g) good-quality cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
150g milk chocolate, cut into chunks
110g pistachio kernels
100g dark chocolate, melted

Method
Preheat the oven to 180C and line 2 large baking trays with baking paper.

Beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until thick and pale. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, until well combined. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and a pinch of salt into the butter mixture and beat slowly until well combined. Stir in the milk chocolate and pistachios.

Dollop heaped tablespoons of the mixture onto prepared trays. Flatten the dough slightly using damp hands, then bake for 12-15 minutes until cooked through. Cool on trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cool, drizzle the cookies with melted chocolate, then allow chocolate to set.

Store in an airtight container for 3-4 days.

Back to the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie cake.  This is a cross between a gigantic peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and a cake, so it’s sort of difficult to classify it as either a cookie or a cake, in my opinion.  It has the texture and appearance of a cookie, not the soft, tender crumb of a cake.  The only way in which it resembles a cake is that it’s about 10 inches in diameter.

You can call it whatever you like, but chances are when you taste it, the only thing you’re going to be calling it is absolutely delicious.

I baked mine in a tart pan with a removable base because I don’t have a 10-inch round cake pan.  It made it super easy to remove the cookie cake when it was cool (er, well, it was almost cool when I removed it, I just couldn’t wait any longer!).

This has got to be one of my most favorite foods that I have baked.  My only regret is that I over-baked it just by a couple of minutes (it was slightly dry, not gooey-looking like the pictures at Almost Bourdain).  My oven is hard to figure out.  It’s basically brand new (just about 7 months old) and it is fan-forced.  It doesn’t really brown anything, so it’s sometimes hard to figure out when something is done.

No matter, this cookie cake was just the most scrumptious thing ever.

And I will definitely be making this one again soon.

The original recipe that inspired Ellie from Almost Bourdain to make this cookie cake called for semisweet chocolate chips to be used, but Ellie used milk chocolate chips.  I decided to use milk chocolate chips too.  I normally don’t like milk chocolate that much, but coupled with the peanut butter I thought it would taste great.  I made sure to choose a good quality milk chocolate (I chose Cadbury, which isn’t top of the line, of course, but I do like Cadbury milk chocolate) to give me a better chance of liking it!  Even though I loved the cookie cake with the milk chocolate chips, I’ll try semisweet, or even dark, chocolate chips next time I make this.

This was a big hit with my 2-year-old son, who even sneaked into the cupboard and stole some when I wasn’t looking!

Recipe Source
Ellie from Almost Bourdain

And on a separate note, just a quick reminder that coming up on July 1 the first ever Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge ingredient will be announced. For more information on this brand new monthly cupcake challenge that I have started, read this page.

Don’t give up!  I have something for you!  It’s buttery, it’s tender, it’s chocolatey, it’s chocolate shortbread!

You’ll be able to raid your pantry and whip up this super easy chocolate shortbread recipe before you can even blink.  I loved this shortbread so much, that I am going to make it again, and instead of using icing sugar on top, I may drizzle some chocolate on top.

This shortbread tasted lovely with my coffee, lovely for dessert, lovely for afternoon tea.  It’s just lovely all around.  The recipe asked that it be baked in a rectangular pan, but I baked it in a round tart pan with fluted edges.  I had to bake it for a longer time.

When testing for doneness, the recipe states that the shortbread will be firm to touch.  This is crucial, or you may end up with dry shortbread.  Touch in the middle, lightly, and if you can push it down easily, bake for a couple minutes longer until it is firm, then take it out immediately.

So next time you think that you don’t have the right ingredients to make something delicious, remember this recipe and give it a go.

Chocolate Shortbread
Adapted from Valli Little
Makes 12 slices

Ingredients
300g unsalted butter
1 cup (220g) caster sugar
2 1/2 cups (375g) plain flour
5 tablespoons good-quality cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
Icing sugar, to dust

Method
Grease and line base and sides of a 18cm x 28cm lamington pan. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl with electric beaters until pale. Sift in flour, cocoa and soda and beat slowly until just combined. Spread in pan and smooth with a spatula. Prick all over with a fork. Chill for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Cook shortbread for 25 minutes or until firm to touch. While it’s still hot, use a knife to score it into 12 rectangles. Cool slightly, then remove from pan and cut into 12 pieces. Dust with icing sugar before serving. Shortbread will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container.

However, while my daughter was at preschool last week, I decided to enlist the help of my 2-year-old son to help me make an interesting-looking recipe on the back of a bag of dried apricots. The recipe was for chocolate and apricot chip cookies; like a chocolate chip cookie with chopped dried apricots.

And do you know what?  Blake did an amazing job with helping me.  To be honest, this was the first time I let my son help me bake.  He’s generally a tornado and destroys everything in sight, from toys to books, from CD and DVD cases to kitchen cabinets, you name it, so I thought that if there was any child I would not allow in the kitchen to help me bake, it would be this boy.  But I felt extra patient that day and decided to give it a go.

He was more than happy to help.  I measured out the ingredients, and he poured them into the bowl as needed.  He stirred the flour into the dough and mixed in the chocolate chips and apricots.  He was so proud.

His cookies were really nice.  They were sort of cakey and chewy, definitely not crunchy.  The apricots were an interesting addition, and one that Blake didn’t actually like that well in the end.

I bought some sea salt for my chocolate salted dulce de leche cupcakes a couple of weeks ago and since I had seen chocolate chip cookies with a sprinkling of sea salt on other blogs, I decided to try a sprinkling of it on these cookies.  It was an addition that I could have done without, although some sea salt fans might appreciate it.

They weren’t quite as good the next day and I thought they benefited from being warmed up in microwave for a few seconds.  The cookies are very easy to make and I would definitely recommend them if you’d like to try a nice variation on the chocolate chip cookie.

Chocolate And Apricot Chip Cookies
Adapted from the back of a Sunbeam Foods Turkish Apricots bag
Makes approximately 1 1/2 dozen

Ingredients
3/4 cup Sunbeam Dried Apricots, diced
100g butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk or dark choc bits

Method
Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and creamy. Add egg and vanilla essence and beat well.

Add flour and baking powder and combine with a wooden spoon. Stir in apricots and choc bits.

Place tablespoons of mixture onto tray and press down to flatten. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180°C.

I presume this is the same with the CUPCAKES book, but I’m not sure; I haven’t yet purchased this book.  I probably will eventually though!

But back to the COOKIES book, one of the pictures and recipes that I kept coming back to were the giant chocolate sugar cookies.  I put off making them for so long because I thought sugar cookies were supposed to be soft; the chocolate sugar cookies were supposed to be a little more sandy in texture, I believe.  I didn’t think I’d like that in a sugar cookie.

Well, after a couple of weeks without a chocolate fix, I decided to go ahead and try out the giant chocolate sugar cookies.  I’ve seen a few photos of these cookies on other blogs and they all turn out sort of different; I’ve never seen any as amazing as what is in the book, though.

The recipe gives the baker a choice between using melted shortening or melted butter as one of the ingredients.  Even though I am not shortening’s biggest fan, I chose this because I had read somewhere (can’t remember where) that shortening would produce a puffier, chewier cookie, whereas using the butter would result in a flatter, crispier cookie.  I don’t like crispy cookies, so I used the shortening.

And I absolutely loved them!  They were chewy and puffier than most of the ones I have seen on other food blogs.  They were, however, crispier on the next day.  I’m totally sorry I had put off making these for so long.  This is a recipe that I will definitely be making again whenever I need a super chocolatey fix!

This is one of those recipes in the COOKIES book that can also be found online at marthastewart.com here.