Chocolate Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

In college, the girls and I had a habit of buying holiday edition Reese’s peanut butter cups whenever we went to CVS. The problem was that it was always Halloween, or Valentine’s Day, or Easter and there was always an excuse for a jumbo sized Reese’s. I’ll keep the rest of my thoughts on this bad habit to myself. The bottom line is, we clearly love the chocolate peanut butter combo, so for Cara’s birthday this seemed like a good starting point.

Certainly birthdays should be celebrated with cakes; however, sometimes transporting cakes or cupcakes is a bit too cumbersome. Traveling with a large cake tuperware isn’t the most convenient and certainly doesn’t work if you are going to a restaurant or bar. For such occasions I am a big fan of sandwich cookies. They can be stacked, and you can put a candle in them. So, a search for a good chocolate peanut butter cookie began… I found a recipe for Whoopie Pies on Epicurious (originally from Gourmet), that sounded delicious. With a bit of adjusting the filling became peanut butter and Cara’s insanely rich birthday “cookies” were created.

These were huge and shareable. So good that the few leftovers I had at home got given to the doormen so I wouldn’t be tempted by the gluttonous cookies.

Happy Baking. Whoop it up!

Macarons

Macarons are French Almond Macaroons... I always thought I hated macaroons because to me macaroons come in a can at Passover... yuck.  I hate coconut and have been known to pretend I'm allergic to it... but those canned, dense Maneschevitz cookies have nothing to do with French Macarons.

Macarons are airy, almondy sandwich cookies typically filled with buttercream.  For less typical, and exceptionally delicious macarons try Dutch Epicure Bakery in Amherst NH or Lakota Bakery in Arlington MA. Unreal.

Getting them to be the right consistency seemed a bit daunting so I teamed up with some fabulous bakers to tackle these beauties.  Martha Stewart over-complicated things a bit, but it turned out these were totally do-able. Doing the buttercream the day before could definitely be a time saver.  So, grab some friends, some booze, and get to it.

Happy Macaron-ing

Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies

December is cookie month. Cookies for holiday parties, cookies for family and friends, and quite honestly, cookies because I have a ton of time off and need to keep busy! I figured that it was time to introduce a few new recipes into the rotation... the first of which is salted oatmeal cookies. The original recipe is from Cook's Illustrated and then it was adapted a bit by Deb of Smitten Kitchen fame... Love Cook's Illustrated, Love SK, Love Salt... game on.

Happy December Cookie-ing!

Felicia's Chocolate White Chip Cookies

Working at a preschool means eating a lot of cupcakes. It’s possible that KNS keeps the midtown Crumbs and Buttercup in business with all the birthdays and other celebrations at our school. Of course, I prefer to celebrate with home-made treats. My former co-teacher Felicia and I worked well together for many reasons. For one thing, she taught me the joys of color coordinating tacks and artwork. I swear my life, or at least my classroom, will never be the same… but on a food related note, she loves sweets as much as I do. After a little sneaky digging, I found out that she particularly loves chocolate white chip cookies, and Felicia’s birthday cookies were born… For the third year of these treats I decided to use a new recipe and the results were even more scrumptious. This recipe is simply the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe with added cocoa. Why mess with a good thing?


Happy Indulging!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I love to make cookies that impress, but quite honestly I have yet to find the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. I want to make cookies like they sell at Levain… seriously how insane does that cookie look?


Now, I know that is a dark chocolate peanut butter chip cookie but the picture does the best justice to their unbelievable, Throwdown with Bobby Flay winning cookies. It’s huge, fluffy, perfectly underdone, and just begging for a glass of cold milk.

Black & White Cookies

Maybe it’s because my parents both grew up in Brooklyn, maybe it’s because as a child the black & white cookie was enormous and thus exciting, or maybe it’s because they stare me down at every local deli, bodega or market in NYC; but whatever the reason, the black and white cookie is truly a NY staple.

William Grimes of the NY Times said “Today's black-and-white cannot compare with the black-and-whites of yesteryear, of course, just as no mayor will ever be as good as La Guardia and no team as beloved as the Dodgers. It is now the stuff of legend, even though a truly impartial adult judge might say that, as cookies go, the black-and-white is nothing special. That argument does not get very far in New York.”

Homemade Oreos

I have had my eye on a homemade oreo recipe on Smitten Kitchen for months. Deb, the author of Smitten Kitchen, suggests that this recipe falls into the “you’ve been warned” category because once you make these you will have to make them a million times as everyone will love them and request them. I’m okay with that!

I grew up with an actual cookie jar that was almost always filled with oreos. We had a two cookie rule in our house so sometimes the oreos would even get stale – tragic. These days I don’t have oreos in my house unless they come in a 100-calorie pack and we all know those aren’t even close to the real thing. I have the feeling this version will get shared, and devoured before they get stale…

Happy dunking!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I think it’s true you never know how much you love something until you let it go… in this case I’m not talking about some sappy love story, I’m talking about my oven! A month or so ago I was baking muffins when the second batch just wouldn’t bake. I kept adding another 3 minutes to the baking time since it didn’t dawn on me that the oven would just stop working mid-baking. Just my luck – my brand new GE oven that had plastic wrap on it when I moved in was already busted. Needless to say, I finally got it fixed. And, of course I felt compelled to put it to good use.

This summer one of my mom’s friends baked some cookies for her. They were so good she refused to bring them to a family BBQ and froze them to enjoy on her own terms. Now, for anyone who knows my mom, that is saying a LOT, because she could sit with a humongous bag of candy, or a big batch of brownies in front of her and have one little nibble. The woman has amazing will power and is not tempted by sweets. Sadly, I did not inherit that from her.

Anyway, I was told these delicious chocolate cookies were from a Williams-Sonoma recipe so I did some digging and here is what I found… Chocolate Crinkle Cookies. The best part is these are so easy… so if your oven hasn’t been used in a while, I recommend a chocolatey reunion.

Happy crinkling!

Rainbow Cookies

Rainbow cookies were never my favorite. I'm not a huge fan of marzipan or almond flavoring, but over the past few years, I have learned to love the cookies as much as everyone else. My dad, cousin Marcy and Krit love, love, love rainbow cookies. I felt compelled to find a good recipe. A few years ago I came across this one, posted on Epicurious (originally from Gourmet). Since then, these cookies have been my most-requested cookie. They are a bit labor intensive, but worth it. I've made the traditional red, white and green, but I've also made red, white and blue for the 4th of July and red, white and pink for Valentine's Day (pictured above).

Happy Cooking!

Ingredients:

• 7 oz (one tube/can) of marzipan or almond paste
• 1 C. sugar
• 3 sticks softened unsalted butter
• 4 large eggs (separated)
• 1 tsp. almond extract
• 2 cups sifted flour (sift before measuring)
• 1/4 tsp salt
• Food coloring (green and red)
• 12 oz. seedless raspberry jam
• 6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13x9 baking pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper, letting it extend at each end.

Break marzipan paste into small pieces and grind with the sugar in a food processor until no lumps remain. (cook's note - the first time I did this I did not have a food processor so I did this step by hand. A mixer will not work, you must work the marzipan and the sugar together until it is as smooth as possible). Transfer to a large bowl and add butter. Beat with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add yolks and almond extract and beat well. Beat in the flour and salt on a low speed.

In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until they hold a stiff peak. Stir 1/3 of egg whites into batter. Fold in the remaining egg whites until thoroughly incorporated. Divide the dough into thirds (about 1 1/2 cups each). Add green food coloring to one and red to another. Spread each 1/3 of the batter into the prepared pan in a very thin layer.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 7-10 minutes. Repeat with each layer. Cool completely. Spread half of the jam over the green layer and top with the plain layer. Spread the remaining jam over on top of the plain layer and top with the pink layer. Wrap in plastic wrap and weight. Chill for at least 3 hours. Cover with melted chocolate. Cut into 12X12 diagonals.