a whisk and a spoon

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Blondies

School’s out, summer’s here, and I could use a snack. Blondies are often thought of as brownies’ sister sweets, or brownies for people who don’t like chocolate (aka people I don’t trust). I’ve had blondies that I are all goo inside, with no chocolate to be found (maybe butterscotch chips or something like that instead) and with a crackly crust similar to brownies, but I think these ones are more along the lines of traditional chocolate chip cookies. You can, in fact, be pretty experimental with your blondie mix-ins…mine had a combo of dark and white chocolates, toasted pecans and unsweetened coconut. Dorie gives several options for baking these off, including using a baking pan for the standard bars, but suggests baking them in a mini muffin tin in the main recipe for crisp edges. I wanted something a little bigger, because I knew if I baked them in a mini muffin tin, I’d just eat five anyway. I went for the ring mold option and baked them up in my smaller sized bottomless tart rings. I also scooped out a few dough balls to bake off freeform as “blondie drop” cookies later. They wait for me in the freezer. I did like the way the ringed blondies had a nice circle of caramelization around the outside from contact with the metal. I put a scoop of ice cream on top.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Chocolate-Oatmeal Biscoff Cookies

I have a soft spot for oatmeal cookies of any kind. I don’t know where this fondness comes from in my own life, but if I had children, I’d bake them oatmeal cookies to encourage it in theirs. These Chocolate-Oatmeal Biscoff Cookies would be in my after-school snack rotation for sure. With oatmeal, cocoa, chocolate chips and cookie butter (what?!?) these tick all the boxes for a great treat. You can use nut butter instead of Biscoff if you want, and I’m pretty sure that would be just as awesome.

I recently made my own cookie butter for the Good, Better, Best Cookies, and while Dorie specifically states to use store-bought Biscoff here instead of a homemade version, there was no way I wasn’t going to use it. Yes, I blatantly disregarded her instruction, but I did try to compensate for it. I added in an extra couple tablespoons of flour to my dough because my homemade cookie butter seems softer than the commercial product. I don’t really think that they suffered for it in any way. My cookies baked up soft, chewy and pliable, and really full of chocolate flavor, with a slightly spicy something-something in the background.

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll!

Tuesdays with Dorie DC: Good, Better, Best Cookies

These Good, Better, Best Cookies are a straight-line progression of deliciousness. It’s really very logical…a good cookie, crisp with almonds and cinnamon, can be made better if it’s sandwiched with cookie butter, and that sandwich cookie can be the best it can be if it’s dipped in ganache. Of course, I wanted the best version.

I made and rolled the cookie dough a few days before I needed it, so I stashed the dough sheet in the freezer. I was really happy with how perfectly the cut cookies held their round shape and how flat they stayed in the oven. Dorie has a recipe for homemade Spiced Cookie Filling and Spread in the back of the book, and since I had taken home some reject speculoos from work, I made myself a little pot of it for sandwiching my cookies. I admit that I didn’t bother to turn it into a buttercream as per the the “better” instructions. I just used it as-is. I eyeballed my dark chocolate ganache for dipping after reading that the “best” recipe makes a rather thin one, and a lot of it. I think everyone I shared these with appreciated that I took them all the way– they were the best!

For the recipe, see Dorie’s Cookies by Dorie Greenspan. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the TWD Blogroll and please join us if you haven’t already!