Almond Joy Cookies

I'm not one to mess around with a good thing. And as far as I can tell, chocolate chip cookies are about as close to perfect as can be. So when I came across yet another recipe that meddled with the CCC I almost rolled my eyes and moved on. Almost. This time, I'm sure glad I didn't.

These cookies take the chocolate chip cookie to a whole new level by adding in almonds and coconut. The resulting cookie is chunky, chock full 'o stuff, and absolutely delicious. I used dark chocolate chips in this batch and they really did taste like Almond Joy bars. Yum.


Almond Joy Cookies

Adapted from here


1/2 cup softened butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups of dark chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups of flaked unsweetened coconut
1 cup chopped almond

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

In your stand mixer, combine the butter, sugars, and vanilla until smooth. One at a time, beat in the eggs.

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking soda and salt. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the until well blended. Stir in the chocolate chips, coconut and almonds.

Let dough cool in the fridge. When ready, drop by the spoonful onto a prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to cool on the pan before moving them to a wire rack.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

A girl I work with has recently dealt with some pretty scary medical issues. She underwent a small (but pretty scary) surgery to remove a cancerous lesion on her thyroid. Although the surgery is fairly easy, as far as surgeries go, it does have some pretty strict limitations on post-surgical activities. Because the thyroid is located on the neck, my coworker had very clear instructions to not talk for an entire week after her surgery. Imagine, a week without speaking.

Since she would be home from work for a week by herself, I put together a post-surgery survivial kit. I let her borrow some books and movies, bought as many crossword books and sudoku puzzles as I could get my hands on, and other stuff to keep her hands and mind occupied for that week. Oh, and I also baked her cookies.

My coworker has some pretty strange tastes. Ok, not strange, just night and day to what I like. First off, she doesn't like chocolate. Or apples. I don't know what to do with someone like that :) But I had to think outside my normal baking comfort zone, which is to pack as much chocolate into as little square footage as possible. I settled on classic oatmeal raisin cookies because they seemed like a safe bet - no chocolate in sight.

I found my recipe here, which is quickly turning into my go-to for anything I bake. These cookies are everything that Deb promises: thick, chewy, and perfect in texture. Yum.


Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats and raisins.

Chill the dough for a bit in the fridge for a few hours, overnight if you can.
The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes, taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

Rugelach: Fail. Then Redemption.

First of all... I like Jews. I think they are great people. I love Paul Simon. I love my Jewish boyfriend, and I love love love being around for his holidays, because if its one thing Jews like to do, its eat. My kind of people. I can go on and on about the merits of a good kugel, or what I think makes latkes perfect, or why challah really does make the best french toast. One thing, though, that I think is sorely lacking in Jewish cooking is dessert. I'm a chocolate lover, and things like honey cake and hamantaschen and mandelbrot just don't do it for me. Le sigh.

One dessert I had really enjoyed was rugelach. Rugelach has been floating around the food blogging world ever since the Tuesdays with Dorie group made them, and I thought they would be a perfect way to get rid of the extreme amount of jam I had sitting around my house: 1 jar of blueberry, 2 strawberry, 1 blackberry, 1 orange, and 1 grape. Sheesh, and I don't even really like jelly!

Let me tell you... it wasn't pretty.

I followed Dorie's recipe for the cookie exactly. It came out perfectly... a little flaky, with a delicious cream cheesey flavor. The filling I just kinda made up as I went, mainly because I wanted to get rid of as much jelly as possible so I wasn't wasting any time with nuts or fruit!

4 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into 4 pieces
1 stick cold unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Let the cream cheese and butter rest on counter for 10 minutes. It should be slightly softened but cool.

Put the flour and salt in a mixing bowl, scatter over the chunks of cream cheese and butter and mix, just until the dough forms large curds. Do not work the dough too long.

Remove the dough from the mixing bowl and divide into half. Shape each half into a disk, wrap in plastic wrap and then refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to a day. (dough can be frozen for up to 2 months.)

Shape the cookies: On a lightly floured surface, roll 1 round of dough into an 11- to 12-inch circle.

Spoon (or brush) a thin gloss of jam over the dough, and spread with jam.

Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 16 wedges, or triangles.

Starting at the base of each triangle, roll the dough up so that each triangle becomes a little crescent.

So this is where things started to go wrong... I definitely did not spread "a thin gloss of jam over the dough." I slathered it on there. I wanted this jelly out of my fridge! Bad move.

Bake: Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350F.

Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until they are puffed and golden.

Transfer the cookies to racks to cool to just warm or to room temperature.

The first batch was a MESS! The dough had unwrapped and all the jelly had come spilling out all over the place.




This guy was the worst... he was literally a flat cookie with some jelly in the middle. Arg!




But, like any good cook, I tried to learn from my mistakes. With the next round of dough I was MUCH more careful with my jelly application, and they came out great!



Yum!