Banana-oat-white and dark chocolate- pumpkin seed-pecan-cookies

The last few weeks have been tough at our house. Things have been a little out of whack, and then yesterday Jacky had to have his snaggle tooth pulled. In short, we need cookies.

Since I haven't posted a recipe in a long time, I thought if I was gonna do it, why not make it a crazy, out of control, every-ingrediant-ever type recipe?

Here is how I came up with this one. I had some rapidly browning bananas laying around that needed to be used up. I also had dark and white chocolate from easter in my pantry, as well as pecans, pumpkin seeds and the usual baking paraphenalia. I always like to use what I already have laying around the house when baking. However, after tasting the results, I must recommend that you go out and buy whatever part of this recipe you might not have- these cookies are worth a trip to the store to pick up white chocolate!

I also want to mention that I tried baking with brown rice syrup for the first time ever in this recipe. Rice syrup is an alternative to sugar that is less sweet and makes you feel a little less bonkers after eating it. I only swapped it with the white sugar- I still used brown sugar too- and the cookies were wonderfully balanced. I think the oat flour helps knock down the sweetness a bit too. The dough is chewy but tastes like banana bread, and then you bite into a big, bitter chocolate chunk and a toasted pecan... wow. The white chocolate chunks are the real sweet spots. Anyway, I think its worth trying the syrup or cutting back the white sugar just to make the contrast within the cookie extra special.

I found a recipe from Auntie Martha (it feels like we are related, anyway) for banana chocolate chip cookies, and then changed it all around. Here's what I came up with:


Banana, Oat, White and Dark Chocolate, Pumpkin Seed, Pecan Cookies

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup oat flour (just grind up some oats in the food processor)
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt (plus more for sprinkling on top of these bad boys)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup brown rice syrup* (or 1/2 cup white granulated sugar)
• 1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup mashed ripe banana (about 1 large)
• 1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate and 4 ounces good quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped into 1/4-inch chunks (I used disks and didn't chop them up- delightful)
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans (about 2 ounces), toasted
• 1/4 cup pumpkin seeds, toasted

Mix butter and sugars together in standing mixer until fluffy. At a lower speed, add vanilla and the egg. In a separate bowl, combine AP flour, oat flour, baking soda and salt. Gently combine flour mix with butter mix. Then, also gently add oats, nuts and seeds. I wanted giant, extravagant cookies, so I made my dough balls about the size of clementines. I kept the dough high and tight so that the cookies wouldn't spread out too flat in the baking process. Bake for 12 minutes, turning the pan in the oven half way through in order to evenly bake the cookies. Sprinkle with coarse, flakey salt when they are hot out of the oven.

I just ate two. God help me.

Blueberry Muff's

When we spent that grueling day constructing Fancy Acre Farm in the back yard, I knew I had to feed my workers right. So I made muffins like a lady. I had a giant tub of Nancy's whole-milk honey yogurt in the fridge that I wanted to use up, and so in it went. They were moist on the inside and had a nice brown sugar crust on top. I might not be much of a muffin person (too healthy) but I found these to be very good, especially when served with butter. 

• Blueberry Muffins made with Yogurt
• 3 cups of a-p flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 10 T unsalted butter (1 1/4 stick), softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cup plain whole milk yogurt
• 1 t grated orange peel
• 1 1/2 cups blueberries
• brown sugar to sprinkle on top
•  
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a bowl, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a standing mixer, cream butter and sugar together, then add eggs one at a time. Slowly add some dry mix, then some yogurt, then some dry mix, until both are thoroughly encorporated- do not over mix. Gently fold in blueberries and orange zest. After greasing them with butter, fill muffin tins about half way with batter. Sprinkle brown sugar and a little sea salt on top and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Whoppas

Staff meal has been epic lately. This last week we had a southern meal with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, collard greens, cole slaw with fried pigs ears, jello shots, and I made whoppa cookies. Now, I am not sure if whoppa cookies are, in fact, southern because I made them up. But I think southern people are always putting candy in stuff to "make it fancy." Kevin does anyway, and he's fair-weather southern. So, the point is, I made cookies and they were southern in my mind and also very, very good. Because I didn't follow a recipe, they are not perfect. For some examples, they are a little greasy when still hot, the malted milk balls collapsed in the cookies (which ended up being a good thing- they caramelized) and they were very flat. However, I have tweaked the recipe here by adding a bit more flour and reducing the baking soda. Please let me know how it goes for you. I normally might not post this recipe until I got it right, but they are so good even if not puffy and pretty. And I promise I am not avoiding putting a photo up because they fell- I just forgot my camera and I made them at work.


Whoppa Cookies

2 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 lb dark semisweet chocolate, melted with 1 T butter
2 cups halved whoppers or malted milk balls

Mix the flour, powedr, soda, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Meanwhile, in a double broiler melt the chocolate with a bit of butter. After it has fully melted remove from heat and set aside. In a standing mixer, beat butter and sugar until fluffy and add the vanilla. Slowly blend in the chocolate, then the flour mixture, the milk, and then the whoppers.
Chill the dough for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper drop healthy spoonfuls of dough 3 inches apart from each other. Bake 10-12 minutes and let cool. They are fantastic on the second day, if stored properly in an air-tight container or wrapped in plastic wrap.

Plain Cookies

I wanted a cookie on Sunday. Something honest to go along next to that crazy panna cotta. I thought a whisp of cinnamon might work, but not much else.I decided to make up my own damn recipe after having little luck finding something as simple as I wanted it to be. Here is what I came up with:

Plain Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter at room temp
1 T. mascarpone
1/2 cup bakers sugar
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp. vanilla (if I had a vanilla bean on hand I would have used it)
1 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for dusting

Beat butter, mascarpone and sugar together until light and whipped. Add vanilla, then slowly mix in the flour, salt and cinnamon. Form dough into a tube, wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. (This dough can be frozen this way too, and then you can bake off the cookies as you wish.) Slice off cookies about 3/8ths of an inch thick, and space evenly on a baking sheet or silpat. Bake until golden, about 9 minutes.


This cookie is buttery with little diamonds of salt here and there. It is not too sweet and highlights the cinnamon in a very comforting and pleasing way. I had two for breakfast yesterday and plan on having the last one right now.







PS. I would like to direct your attention here for information on how to help people in Haiti today.

Back to Cookies.

I posted this photo earlier but I never gave the recipe for the cookie! And it's really good, so it needs posting.

Chocolate Toffee Cookies
Adapted from Bon Appetit

1 lb dark, semisweet chocolate (chopped)
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter
1 3/4 cups packed brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
5 1.4 oz chocolate covered toffee bars (I used Heath)
1 cup toasted pecans or walnuts
sea salt for a final sprinkling.

Combine flour, salt and baking powder in a small bowl and set aside. Meanwhile, melt chocolate and butter in a large double boiler. Once melted, remove the bowl from the double boiler and allow to cool down to room temp.
In a standing mixer, beat eggs and brown sugar for 5 minutes, until they are smooth and thick. Slowly add in chocolate and vanilla. Next, sift in flour mixture, chopped toffee and nuts. Chill batter for 45 minutes. It is really thin before chilling, but it firms right up in the fridge.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a pan with parchment paper, and drop spoonfuls of dough 2 inches apart on the pan. Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake for 12 minutes- they are really good underdone. They should have a crackled appearance on top.

Black Pepper Spice Cookies with Glaze

I wanted to make Tartine's glazed gingerbread when I woke up last Sunday morning. It was cold and rainy (shockingly) and I knew I needed to make a treat for teatime at a friends. The problem was that I didn't have ginger or cloves- two of the most important ingredients! So instead of gingerbread, I made black pepper spice cookies with plenty of salt and a light glaze. They were amazingly soft and satisfyingly spicy, salty and sweet. I burned the hell out of one batch and we are still can't stop ourselves from eating them. But then, we are pigs.

Make the dough one day in advance for best results, or bake it right away and it's still great.

Black Pepper Spice Cookies with Glaze

3 3/4 cups AP flour
1 T cocoa powder
2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
4 tsp cardamom
1 1/2 tsp Jamaican allspice
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temp
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
2 T honey

Glaze
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1 T water

Beat butter until creamy, and then add sugar and mix until smooth. Scrape bowl with a spatula and then add the egg. Next in, molasses and honey. Mix until blended, and scrape down the bowl again. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, spices, cocoa and baking soda. Slowly add this into the wet mix. Beat on low until a ball forms. At this point, you can either refrigerate the dough overnight or chill it for 20 minutes like I did. I'm sure its better if you let it sit overnight (it makes a world of difference with chocolate chip cookies).
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Flour your work surface and roll out dough to about 1/3 inch thick in the shape of a rectangle. You may now cut out cookies as I did, or gently roll over the whole thing with a patterned rolling pin. And if you have a patterned rolling pin, send it to me immediately and never expect to see it again! Cut the pattered dough into tiles that are 3" by 4", or whatever size you prefer. I made both teardrop cookies and circle cookies, and then I rolled over them with a fake ear of corn for texture. You can roll whatever textured items you may have laying around the house over the dough! This comes into play when you glaze the cookies and the glaze nestles into the pattern quite beautifully.
Place a sheet of parchment paper over your cookie sheet, and bake the cookies for about 7 minutes. I did one batch for 10 minutes and the bottoms were burned. The next batch I baked for a mere 7 minutes and they were slightly underdone. When they cooled down, they were perfect.
While the cookies bake, whisk together confectioners sugar and water for the glaze. After you take the cookies out of the oven, let cool for a few minutes and then brush the glaze over the cookies. Do not freeze these, though I don't know why you would even try.

Serve with coffee, or on the rim of a Guiness float with vanilla ice cream!

I can't wait to make them again.