Coconut Swirl Brownies

I made these Coconut Swirl Brownies (page 274) for Shabbat dinner when my brother-in-law and his family were visiting. I wanted something easy, kid-friendly and quick - and this recipe was all of those, as well as delicious!

I happened to have had a can of sweetened condensed milk stashed away in the pantry, which was the only "unusual" ingredient that I don't typically stock. Also, the batter is meant to be spread into an 8" x 8" square baking pan, and I discovered that I don't own one of these staple items! Instead of making crispy brownies in my 9" x 13" pan, I chose to use a 9" round pie pan instead. It worked just fine, and I cut the brownies into triangular wedges.

These brownies were included in the "rich and dense" section of Martha's cookbook, and rightly so. They were very rich, but not terribly dense. They were on the cakier side of brownies.

Below is a picture of my brother-in-law devouring this yummy dessert!

Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies

Nothing is on the DVR, so that means it's time to make cookies. Tonight I picked out Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies (page 207), just because the name makes me giggle.

This is a HUGE recipe ... the yield says 3 dozen, and it makes at least that. Since they are sandwich cookies, that means 6 dozen cookies - wow. The recipe calls for buttermilk, which I don't keep in the house. A while ago, I picked up Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend, for recipes just like this one. It's a shelf stable powder that you mix with water to substitute for buttermilk. You add the water with the wet ingredients and the powder with the dry. When the water is added to the wet ingredients, the batter becomes somewhat sloshy and it does not incorporate the same way buttermilk would; however, once you add the dry ingredients, the batter mixes together just fine. The taste was unaffected by using a buttermilk substitute.

I did use natural peanut butter, as called for in the filling recipe. I despise natural peanut butter because I think it's totally gross and don't usually keep it in the house - and I certainly never eat it. We did have a jar of it, though, from our weekly farmer's market bag, so even though it was crunchy, I used it for the filling. What could possibly be gross when it's mixed with powdered sugar and butter?

The cookies were cakey and light and not too sweet, perfect when paired with the creamy, sweet peanut butter filling. These cookies would be great for a child's birthday party.

(Not-So) Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies

My daughters are having a playdate tomorrow and I decided to make these Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies (p. 163) for their snack. When I made the last cookie recipe, my husband complained about how few cookies the recipe yielded, and this recipe promised only EIGHT. He was aghast.

So, instead of using a 2-1/2 inch ice cream scoop to drop the cookie batter onto the baking sheet, I used my standard 1 inch scoop. I baked them at 350 degrees instead of 375, and for 14 minutes instead of 18. The cookies were not-so-giant in size, but I got 24 of them instead of 8! They were chocolately and soft and delicious.

Biscuit Sandwich Cookies

Time to make more cookies! This I chose the Biscuit Sandwich Cookie (p. 299) recipe because I was looking for a something a little bit different. These cookies were very easy to make, and didn't generate a huge mess because you mix them in the food processor as opposed to the mixer. The food processor is much easier to handle.

When the dough came out of the food processor, it was quite soft and sticky. Martha's suggestion of rolling out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper was very helpful. However, the dough was still quite soft and sticky after it was rolled out, so I put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes before I cut out the shapes, and it was much easier to handle and maintain the cookies' shapes.

It is important to make sure the cookies are evenly rolled out to a consistent thickness; otherwise, some will burn, or get browner on the edges.

I used melted milk chocolate for the filling, but you could easily use Nutella or another kind of dessert spread. The cookies themselves are not terribly sweet, but with the chocolate, they are just sweet enough, and crispy and delicious! My husband did complain about the low yield of this recipe (~1 1/2 dozen) ... but that keeps us from overindulging.

The picture below is my mom and daughter enjoying a Biscuit Sandwich Cookie for dessert!

Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

This is my first "do-over" recipe. I tried making these cookies for my husband to take on his poker weekend, but I accidentally used bittersweet instead of semi-sweet chocolate. Let me just say, it was not a happy accident. Huge waste of time and ingredients.

In any case, I was excited to give Chewy Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies (page 67) a second chance. By the way, these are cookies pictured on the cover of Martha's cookie cookbook so somebody must like them!

They are an unexpected mix of flavors - bitter and sweet. They have a nice crunchy outside and a chewy, gooey, chocolately inside. My husband went crazy for them. They are a little bitter for me. The online comments on the web recipe are somewhat divided. This seems to be one of those recipes you either love or hate.

I followed the recipe pretty much to the letter and the cookies are beautiful and tasty.

Chocolate Crackles

Finally, I cookie that was simple to prepare! I feel like I have been tackling all kinds of crazy cookie recipes lately, and this one was refreshingly easy. I flipped through the cookbook quickly, looking for something I could make with one stick of butter, since that was all I had. I discovered Chocolate Crackles (page 68) in the "soft and chewy" section.

I am in love with these cookies. They are beautiful, and SO DELICIOUS. These are the dangerous kind of cookie that I could devour a whole in batch in about 90 seconds. They are very rich and chocolately, but because they use bittersweet chocolate and not much sugar, they aren't very sweet.

Instead of using a full eight ounces of bittersweet chocolate, I combined six ounces of bittersweet with two ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, and achieved the perfect level of sweetness.

Chocolate Cookie Cutouts

We have been snowed in for the past few days, so what better activity to do with the kids than bake cookies!? Of course, Valentine's Day is upon us so I wanted to make something heart-shaped. I tried out Martha's Chocolate Cookie Cutouts (page 239) recipe.

I made the dough last night, and refrigerated it overnight. When I took it out of the refrigerator to roll out this morning, it was fairly hard. But with some muscle power, I was able to roll it out thinly onto the parchment paper. I also got to use my new kiddie cookie cutter from Sur La Table. I had to press the nonpareils into the cookies to get them to stay put.

I was so impressed with the cookies when they came out of the oven! In the past, when I have made cutout cookies, the shapes have oozed and turned into giant glops that in no way resemble the intended shapes. These were perfect hearts! They were beautiful and tasted yummy too. They weren't too sweet (my husband suggested they would be delicious made into a sandwich cookie with icing in between). This recipe was in the "crispy & crunchy" section of the cookbook, but the cookies were soft and delicate when I made them.

Since it's Valentine's Day, I wanted to make more heart cookies, especially since one of my daughters is not a huge fan of chocolate. I also wanted to try out my new Kuhn Rikon cookie press. I bought it to use with one of the Martha recipes, but I haven't been able to find a key ingredient so today, I just used the recipe in the booklet that came with the press.

The press came with 14 different disks that shape the cookies, including hearts, flowers and of course, pumpkins and bats, among others. It took only a minute to figure out how to assemble it and insert the dough, and soon enough, I had perfect little hearts! They were fairly small, so I could fit LOTS of them on one cookie sheet. I can't wait to try out all the other shapes!