Tag Archives: dessert

Chewy Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ve shared before that I’m not much of a baker. I like the immediacy of the cast iron skillet and the smell of frying garlic and onions, the excitement of modifying recipes as you go, and the mincing and dicing of fresh ingredients. Kneading dough and mixing flour and sugar . . . hasn’t been my thing. So it’s been up to my husband to supply the cookie needs of our little household. They used to just be his own cookie needs, but slowly he’s gotten me a little addicted. Cookies are pretty great for breakfast–they go so well with coffee!

Lately when we agree that it’s time for some baking to happen, I’ve been putting my oar in. I prod and plead and whine and beg my husband to let me try a new recipe. Pleeeeease? I just came across this recipe on Tasty Kitchen, see, and I think it could really be awesome . . .

See, my baby likes the old favorites. He’s faithful, loyal, and true–to his friends, but also to his cookies. Here he is feeling skeptical about this uncharted baking territory.

He’s like Just call me Mr. Skeptical.

I’m like Hey Mr. Skeptical. I really like you. But we can’t cling to the old ways! What about the sweet smell of culinary progress??

By the way, you’re hot.

My addiction to the smell of progress is the reason that sometimes dinner ends up in the trash . . . yep. I like living on the edge.

So back to cookies: this recipe is great. I’m not going to go around shouting through a bullhorn that it’s the best cookie recipe in the world. It might be, it might not be–I just don’t have that much experience with cookies. All I can say is that I have trouble when it’s time to stop eating them. That I had them religiously for breakfast until the cookie jar was empty. They are hearty and chewy, which is exactly what I want at 9am in the morning. My husband (so faithful to his regular recipe) says the jury is still out for him, because the quick oats give them a kind of grainy texture. But I love them that way! So I’ll share with you. And if any of you have to-die-for cookie recipes that this here cookie novice needs to try, please send me a link or give me instructions in the comments! I have so much to learn.

To flex the muscles of this new baking impulse, there will be more recipes for sweet treats coming up Monday and Tuesday. I hope you don’t mind. We’ll break things up with a delicious savory recipe soon enough, don’t worry.

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened

1 c brown sugar, packed firmly

1/2 c sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 ½ c flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

3 c quick oats

1 c chocolate or butterscotch chips

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Then, enlist some man-hands to unwrap the softened butter so that your camera doesn’t get greasy.

Thanks, man-hands.

Put the butter in a mixer bowl, and add in the white sugar . . .

. . . and the firmly packed brown sugar.

Beat together the butter and sugars until they’re creamy. Sorry for the butt-ugly picture.

Add the eggs–looks like I had just enough!

Add the vanilla, too–I was plumb out of extract, but had this cool vanilla paste thingy that I got from a trade show last year. It’s thick like a syrup, and smells like paradise.

Hello, batter! I hope you’re not teeming with salmonella, because my finger is about to make the journey from bowl to mouth.

Now beat that good stuff until it’s nice and mixed.

Now if you’re a good boy or girl, you will mix together your dry ingredients in a separate bowl, and then add them to the wet batter all at once.

That avoids clumps of salt or baking soda and the like. However, I couldn’t be bothered with getting another bowl dirty, so I dumped it all in and then did a little mixy-mixy-mixeroo among the dry ingredients with a spoon before turning the mixer back on.

Here goes the flour:

Followed by the salt . . .

. . . and the baking soda.

I skipped the cinnamon–I didn’t feel like it for some reason. But you’re welcome to add it!

Mix it for a couple minutes. It will come together pretty quickly.

Time for the quick oats!

Mix them in, too.

It will get very, very thick at this point, and start sticking to the stirry thingamadging on your mixer.

Pause briefly for a taste, if that’s your thang . . .

. . . and pour in the chocolate chips.

Oh yes.

At this point the dough was so thick that I abandoned the mixer and grabbed a trusty old wooden spoon to finish the job. Much cookie dough was eaten along the way.

Shape the dough into rounds and place them on an ungreased cookie sheet. You can make smaller cookies (heaping tablespoonfuls of batter) and bake 10-12 minutes:

Or you can go with larger ice-cream scoop sized cookies and bake them for about 15 minutes.

We chose both options. Note: these cookies will not flatten out very much during baking, so I like to press the balls of dough flat with the palm of my hand before baking, to get a wider cookie as opposed to a taller one.

Let them rest for 1 minute when they come out of the oven before moving them to a wire rack to cool.

As a non-baker, I was surprised at how mushy and gooey they were right out of the oven, and I wondered if they were really done or if they needed more time in the oven. So if you are inexperienced as I am, don’t be alarmed! They will solidify as they cool.

The bottoms: perfect.

If only my bottom were that perfect.

But that’s not what we’re talking about here!

We’re talking about these cookies. And how great they are, tops, bottoms, and middles.

 

Have a great weekend, and see you Monday for another sugar-laden experience.

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Pôts de Crème

This easy and elegant dessert is my go-to when we have people over for dinner. In fact, chances are if you’ve been over to our house for dinner, this is what I served you.

If I didn’t, please notify me immediately so that I can rectify the situation with an emergency dinner party.

I’ve never met a dessert before that was so delicious and so easy. Really, really easy. I know, everyone and their mother promotes recipes by saying ‘it’s really easy, guys!’ but this one–this one. This one is the real deal. You blend a couple things, and then chill the mixture. And that’s it. It’s one of the Pioneer Woman’s more brilliant recipes, and I bring it to you in step-by-step form today.

Ingredients

(Serves 6)

12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 eggs, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract (or Kahlua, Baileys, Amarula, cognac, etc.)

1 pinch of salt

8 oz strong, hot coffee

First, my friends, let your eggs get to room temperature on the counter. If you forget to take them out ahead of time, run them under some tepid/warm water for a few minutes and they’ll warm right up.

Now grab your trusty blender and put in the chocolate chips and the eggs.

I chose to use a gross dirty old blender from Big Jake’s basement.

I should clarify for my hygiene-conscious friends: the glass receptacle is spanking clean. The gross and dirty part is the base, and that’s only because I don’t want to get close enough to clean it. But it chuggalugs along, and that’s all that I ask of it for now–we’ll talk about blender beauty pageants in future years.

Looks delish, eh?

Add the salt (a “healthy pinch”) . . .

And the flavoring. You can use vanilla extract, but you can also amp it up with a fun liqueur. Kahlua or Baileys are obvious choices.

I chose to use a bottle of Amarula from Aunt Laura. It was out of this world.

And there it all is! One big happy dessert-to-be.

Blend!

After things seem pretty homogeneous, and while it’s blending, pour the coffee into the blender in a slow, steady stream. I reiterate that it must be very, very hot. In fact, bring the coffee to a boil in your microwave just before adding it in–this has great bearing on the final texture of the dessert.

You can prepare a gourmet pot of espresso expressly for this purpose . . . or you can use instant coffee. I used a packet of Starbucks via mixed with some off-brand instant coffee to add strength.

Now say ‘espresso expressly’ ten times fast. If you can do it perfectly, you will receive a cool little prize from me.

The ‘cool little prize’ is my eternal admiration of your agile tongue. And aren’t the intangible prizes the most valuable ones? I mean, ultimately? Doesn’t the promise of my approval make you want to try your best?

What? You could care less about my approval? But I’m an older sister! Everyone must work to please me!

Wow, that tangent is headed for some kind of frenzied crisis, so let’s return to the chocolate that brought us here today. After about a minute of blending, you will have a creamy, chocolaty mess. Blend for an extra minute just to make sure everything has gotten married and become One Flesh. We don’t want granules of chocolate chips floating around trying to be independent.

Pour the mix into serving glasses.

Just leave plenty of room for the whipped cream that you’ll be heaping on them before serving.

It can be fun to use glasses of assorted shapes.

It adds a little whimsy to the whole sordid affair.

Now chill them in the fridge for 3-4 hours.

Right before serving, whip some heavy cream and pile it on. I whipped a little more Amarula into my cream the last time I made these, and it was fantastic.

You can fold in pieces of fruit, and top it off with chocolate shavings or little curls of orange peel if you’re feeling fancy.

I’m feeling fancy. Let’s pile on the chopped up chocolate!

Beautiful, eh?

Let’s take a bite.

So rich . . . so decadent . . . like silk on the tongue.

And just for fun, let’s add some chopped up canned mandarin oranges.

Don’t even get me started on the idea of adding heaps of fresh berries when the summer returns. *swooning* Fruit and chocolate were meant to be together.

I can’t seem to stop photographing these little beauties. And envisioning variations–such as stirring minced cranberries into the chocolate before chilling, to add a note of tartness. Or sprinkling some peanuts and macadamias on top right before serving–along the whipped cream. The whipped cream is one thing I’m not compromising on; it adds a necessary balance to the richness of the chocolate.

Make this dessert for your next dinner party! You can throw it together the night before, and it’s guaranteed to please everyone. Or you can always just make it for yourself. One batch should provide one fortunate individual with a dessert for every single night of the week. Now that’s an idea . . .

Click here for printer-friendly version: Pôts de Crème