The "Ex Lax Inc" building on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn.
How could I not take a picture?
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June 2008
June 30, 2008
When in the Lower East Side...
Eat pickles!
On day one of our staycation, Jon and I walked through the Lower East Side on our way to the Brooklyn Bridge. We were going to get doughnuts from Doughnut Plant, but it was closed! Too bad, too, because this month's flavors included lavender and blueberry. (We had to peer through the metal shutters to see the menu.) And I was so in the mood for a doughnut!
So we got pickles instead from The Pickle Guys, which, funnily enough, is always closed when Doughnut Plant is open. Go figure. These were a nice ¢50 snack to fortify us for our walk across the bridge, around Brooklyn Heights, and then up to, through, and around Prospect Park. I think I need a new pair of sneakers.
Mocha Mint Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches
What could be better than my Mocha Mint Cookies?
Mocha Mint Cookie ice cream sandwiches! This time, I used regular-sized cookies, not these gigantic ones.
I used vanilla ice cream, but you could use chocolate, strawberry, coffee, or any other ice cream to make these sandwiches.
June 29, 2008
Mocha Mint Cookies
I was going to post the recipe for my Fourth of July Cookie tonight, but a Starbucks mocha mint frappuccino pointed me in a new direction as Jon and I were walking home from the park this afternoon. (Isn't the Starbucks naming convention for sizes completely stupid? Small, medium, and large are perfectly descriptive enough...why front with the pseudo-Italiano barista speak? But I digress.) Don't worry: I'll post the Fourth of July Cookie later this week--just in time for you to enjoy during the fireworks.
I've had the Mocha Mint Cookie on The List since the beginning, but this recipe is a little different from--and an improvement upon--my original. I upped the coffee flavor by using both instant espresso powder and brewed coffee, and I used easily accessible Junior Mints candies instead of less common mint chips. I also use three kinds of chocolate--cocoa powder, milk chocolate, and semisweet chocolate--to compliment the coffee and mint flavors.
Make sure you freeze the cut-up Junior Mints before you add them to the dry ingredients, and also make sure you refrigerate the dough before you form the dough balls. If you don't keep the Junior Mints chilled before baking, they will melt quickly in the oven and "bleed out" of your cookies. Makes 4 dozen cookies.
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Creamables
|
2 sticks butter 2 cups dark brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 1/4 cup cocoa powder 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder |
| Wet Ingredients | 1 egg yolk 1/2 cup coffee 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder 2 ounces milk chocolate 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla |
| Dry Ingredients | 3 3/4 cups oatmeal 1 1/2 cups flour 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips 2/3 cup frozen and quartered Junior Mints candies 1/4 cup cocoa powder 2 ounces milk chocolate, microplaned 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt |
- Cut Junior Mints candies from a 4.75-ounce package into quarters. Place quartered candy pieces in the freezer until Step 5.
- In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.
- In a small bowl, combine all the wet ingredients except for the egg yolk and microwave on high for 1 1/2 minutes. Whisk together until smooth. Let liquid mixture cool and then whisk in the egg yolk.
- Add the combined wet ingredients to the creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients, including the frozen, quartered Junior Mints. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients to the combined creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined.
- Preheat oven to 350º
- Refrigerate dough for 30 minutes.
- Shape dough into balls--about 2 tablespoons each.
- Place dough balls about 2 inches apart on Silpat- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.
- Bake at 350º for 10-12 minutes. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.
June 27, 2008
Oatmeal Seals the Deal?
This is the third post in a series on cookie recipes and presidential hopefuls’ spouses (see here and here). Based on the reporting of the Telegraph (UK), recent history has shown that oatmeal is a winner (emphasis mine):
“Even her [Michelle Obama’s] cookie recipe submitted for public appraisal--and on which the suitability of US presidential partners seems to rest--reveals a woman of some humour and daring. In her day, Hillary favoured chocolate chip oatmeal cookies; Laura Bush played safe with an oatmeal chocolate chunk variation, while Cindy went for oatmeal-butterscotch (although she's been accused of copying the recipe from elsewhere). Mrs Obama, meanwhile, prefers shortbread cookies with orange and lemon zest--and a cheeky dash of Amaretto.”
Couple with this my research (see here and here), and it’s clear that the perfect cookie for a presidential candidate’s spouse should include oatmeal; have a chocolate, peanut butter, or chocolate-peanut butter base; and be chewy. In short, something like my Peanut Butter Cup cookie, which is a chewy oatmeal-chocolate cookie stuffed with peanut butter, or my Inside-Out Peanut Butter Cup cookie, which is a chewy oatmeal-PB cookie stuffed with chocolate.
Peanut butter, in addition to being a really popular cookie flavor, is a decidedly American ingredient. Just check out my posts on trying to find PB products in Europe (see here and here).
Cindy, Michelle: You heard it from the Oatmeal Cookie Guy himself. Go with oatmeal, chocolate, and peanut butter. And make ‘em chewy!
I should totally be a commentator on Hardball.
June 25, 2008
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream Sandwiches
Judith's comment about baking in hot weather got me thinking about ice cream sandwiches...well, ice cream cookie sandwiches to be exact.
I baked up some gigantic Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies and made sandwiches with them and vanilla ice cream. (Yes, those are my chubby Flintstone fingers holding up the sandwich.)
I used a #20 scoop, which holds 1/4 cup (!!), to make these obscenely big cookies. Longtime readers will remember from "The Scoop on Cookie Scoops" that I prefer plastic-handled scoops over old-school aluminum scoops, but the shiny guy, with his massive bowl, won this time.
You can make ice cream cookie sandwiches with regular-sized cookies, but where's the fun there? Scoop up an even number of (equally sized) big dough balls, place them on your Silpat- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, flatten them a little, and then bake them for 15-18 minutes or until the edges are brown and the centers are firm to the touch. Be careful not to over bake the cookies because a hard, dry cookie will be really, really difficult to eat after it's been frozen. (Just a heads-up. I don't want to be liable for dental work!)
Before you start building your sandwiches, make sure you let the cookies cool off completely, and make sure your ice cream is firm but pliable. Spread a layer of ice cream about 1/4" thick on the bottom side of one cookie. Top the layer of ice cream with the bottom side of another cookie and press down slowly and gently so that the cookies and ice cream stick together. Wrap the sandwich in wax paper of plastic wrap and place in the freezer for at least 4 hours. A night in the freezer will make these sandwiches perfect, but let's be honest: Who can wait that long?
June 24, 2008
Reader Query: Can Cap'n Crunch Cross the Atlantic? II
I was thinking about Laurel's question about finding Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch cereal (or an equivalent), a key ingredient in all my peanut butter cookies, and it hit me. Follow my train of thought: Laurel's in Belgium. Belgium is in Europe. Peanut butter--in any form--is nearly impossible to find in Europe. Oh kukka!
And then I started thinking of Mumma and Puppa and their travels and how Puppa brought those little peanut butter-cracker sandwiches (you know, the ones with the thoroughly unnatural orange color) across the globe.
So, long story short, I don't think any of you readers outside North America will have much luck sourcing the ingredients for my PB&J(onnie) or Inside-Out Peanut Butter Cup cookies. Sorry! The best I could find was a "European" PB cookie, but this product's European parentage and availability is dubious at best.
June 23, 2008
Poll Roundup III
Here are the results (so far) for my cookie texture poll.
I'm about 1/3 in the crispy camp and 2/3 in the chewy camp. My favorite cookie texture by far is a crispy exterior with a chewy interior. And who doesn't eat raw cookie dough? (Though I have to admit that raw cake batter is strangely appealing to me.)
Voting still remains open, so feel free to weigh in. Thanks for all your feedback, everybody. Especially to those of you in Hong Kong, the UK, France, Belgium, Australia, and the Philippines. The interwebs rocks!
Small Plates II
Here's my expanded collection of cookie plates. Let's hear it for cookie plates!
We picked up the little yellow dish at Fish's Eddy and the rest of the new ones at Crate and Barrel.
June 22, 2008
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
Mmmm...chocolate chip cookies. They're a classic and easy to make, and you should have a good recipe on hand so that you can bake up a batch in a snap. This is that recipe. You don't need any fancy ingredients or exotic extracts. And you don't have to stuff anything--though you could if you really wanted to! This is a very, very simple recipe. (A shock, I know, coming from me!)
The key to this recipe is to use finely ground oatmeal. Nothing--nothing--but oatmeal will give you the the texture or the flavor you look for in a delicious chocolate chip cookie. Trust me. I am the Oatmeal Cookie Guy after all.
I used to bake chocolate chip oatmeal cookies all the time when Jon and I first moved to New York. Back then, I used the famous $250 Neiman Marcus cookie recipe that's made its way around the internet a million times by now. You've probably gotten this recipe in your inbox as well.
My recipe is a simplified version of the Neiman Marcus one. I leave out the nuts, white sugar, and baking powder, and up the vanilla, chocolate chips, and oatmeal. For a variation, though, you can add a cup of chopped nuts or a teaspoon of cinnamon. However you customize them, these will always be bring-in-able. Makes about 4 dozen cookies. (To see this recipe in process, check out Picturing Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.)
Tip: I pop the milk chocolate in the freezer for about 20 minutes, and then I use a (tadah!) vegetable peeler to shave off long, curly strands of chocolate. A hard chunk of chocolate is a whole lot easier to shave than a melty, mooshy one, so always remember to freeze your chocolate a little before you shave, grate, or microplane it.
Tip 2: If you've got the time (and the willpower), let the raw dough rest in the refrigerator for 1 day--no more, no less. Believe me...I tested it!
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Creamables
|
2 sticks butter 2 cups dark brown sugar |
| Wet Ingredients | 2 eggs 1 tablespoon vanilla 1 tablespoon milk |
| Dry Ingredients | 3 3/4 cups finely ground oatmeal 1 1/2 cups flour 4 1/2 ounces milk chocolate, shaved 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt |
- Preheat oven to 350º.
- In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.
- In a small bowl, combine the wet ingredients and whisk together until smooth.
- Add the combined wet ingredients to the creamables. Mix together until well incorporated.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed.
- Slowly add the dry ingredients to the combined creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined.
- Shape dough into balls--about 2 tablespoons each.
- Place dough balls about 2 inches apart on Silpat- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.
- Bake at 350º for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.
June 21, 2008
Chimichurri Revisited
We went back again.
June 20, 2008
Phases of the Moon II: Livin' Linguica Louco
One of my favorite foods from home is linguica (lin-GWEE-suh) rolls, and the best form to have them in is a moon, and the best place to get a moon is Clyde's.
I found a recipe for linguica rolls online a few weeks ago and filed it away for future use. And there's nothing like an 80° day without air conditioning (don't even get me started) to make you want to do some baking.
My homemade moon came out well, but it's not nearly as good as one from Clyde's. The lightness and flavor just wasn't there. So rest assured, Mumma, I will be coming home again soon.
Just an aside: It was quite an effort to find linguica in my neighborhood. On the South Shore of Massachusetts, you can find linguica everywhere; in fact, it's a really popular pizza topper. I got my freshly made (whodathunkit) linguica from Whole Foods, but there's one major drawback to that store: the lines are ridiculous, and people try to cut like crazy. I swear I could have walked to Plymouth in the time it took to get to the register. And if one more person tried to slip in line in front of me, I would have been charged with assault and battery with 1 1/2 pounds of Portuguese sausage.
June 19, 2008
June 18, 2008
Poll Roundup II
Here are the results (so far) for my cookie dunking poll.
I'm with the majority of you. But on second thought, perhaps I should have included "Depends if milk is available" as an option.
Voting still remains open, so feel free to weigh in.
Poll Roundup I
Here are the results (so far) for my favorite cookie flavors poll.
No shock here. Chocolate, of course, is the most popular cookie flavor, followed by peanut butter.
Voting still remains open, so feel free to weigh in.
June 17, 2008
Small Plates
No, not tapas...baby dishes. (Sorry. I have that war kittens/baby cats commercial for Capital One on the brain.)
I'm a little tired of the two plates I have to set up my cookies' photo shoots, so Jon and I are going to stop by Fish's Eddy (which I always confuse with Vischer Ferry) this weekend to see if we can find some cheapo but neato props. Stay tuned!
When we first moved to New York, Jon and I went back and forth for a week (seriously!) trying to decide which silverware to get. I know...as if we were outfitting Martha Stewart's Bedford estate. We ended up getting the first and cheapest set we saw at Fish's Eddy but not before annoying the clerk...and following her from the Union Square store to the Upper West Side store and then finally buying them downtown at Union Square.
And don't get me started on our first set of plates. All I'll say is that I was too cheap to pay for a cab (or the subway) home from the Pottery Barn in Lincoln Center. But that's another story...
June 16, 2008
Apple Jack Cookies
April, a reader and real-life cookie taster and recipe user, asked if I had a recipe for an apple and cinnamon cookie. Well...I didn't, but her question got my wheels turning. The result (drum roll, please) is this: the Apple Jack cookie.
I wasn't sure how to impart apple flavor in these cookies. Too much apple juice, apple sauce, or apple slices would make the dough too wet and would lead to either cakey cookies or really, really flat cookies, neither of which is good in my book. I thought about using dried apples, but the ones I picked up at the grocery store downstairs didn't have much flavor and, oddly, had the texture of mushrooms. Ick.
Then it hit me. I'd use apple juice as a wet
ingredient, but I'd reduce it down to concentrate the flavor and the volume, and I'd use lots of diced apples--3 cups' worth, in fact. I'd also use ground-up graham crackers because they add a wonderful flavor that makes every cookie I put them in taste awesome. The next question, though, was what kind of apples to use. My grandmother always used Cortland apples in her pies, which tasted great and made for a wet, almost saucy filling, which I love. But I needed a "drier" apple for these cookies to prevent the dough from getting too wet. My solution: Fuji apples. They're great for eating and baking, and they're Jon's favorite. (I used an alligator-style chopper to dice my apples.)
The cinnamon component was simple: ground cinnamon and cinnamon chips, which taste like the cinnamony crumb topping on coffee cakes. A couple teaspoons of lemon juice highlight the apple flavor, and a roll in turbinado sugar prior to baking gives the cookies a great crunchy exterior.
Here's what April had to say:
“These were soooo good! Thanks!!”
Note: The apples give off a little moisture, so I refrigerate the dough to firm it up before forming the dough balls, and--to dry them out a little--I also bake these a little longer and let them rest a little longer than my other cookies.
Makes 5 dozen cookies. (To see this recipe in process, check out Picturing Apple Jack Cookies.)
Creamables |
2 sticks butter 2 cups dark brown sugar 1/4 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon |
Wet Ingredients |
2 eggs 1/4 cup apple juice (reduced over heat from 1 cup) 1 tablespoon vanilla 2 teaspoons lemon juice |
Dry Ingredients |
4 cups oatmeal 3 cups small diced apples 1 1/4 cups flour 1 cup finely ground graham crackers 3/4 cup cinnamon chips 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt |
Topping |
turbinado sugar |
- In a small saucepan, simmer 1 cup of apple juice over medium heat. Reduce the 1 cup of apple juice down to 1/4 cup. Set aside to cool for Step 3.
- In your Kitchen Aid or a large mixing bowl, cream together the creamables.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients and then add to the creamables. Mix together until smooth.
- In another large mixing bowl, add the dry ingredients. Using a spatula, fold together until evenly distributed. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the creamables and wet ingredients. Mix until evenly combined.
- Preheat oven to 350º.
- Refrigerate cookie dough for 30 minutes.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator and shape dough into balls—about 2 tablespoons each.
- Roll each dough ball in turbinado sugar
- Place the sugar-coated dough balls about 2 inches apart on Silpat- or parchment paper-lined cookie sheets.
- Bake at 350º for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let stand for 5 minutes. Then place cookies on wire racks to cool.
Definitely Bring-In-Able
Eager to spread the news about TypePad featuring
the Oatmeal CookieBlog, I emailed everybody.
Michael, a real-life cookie taster, emailed me back to say:
“Congrats on getting your blog featured. And I'll take this opportunity to finally thank you for bringing in those cookies all the time. I can definitely be blamed for having a hand in finishing off the Inside-Out Peanut Butter Cups, Chocolate/Salted-Caramel Cookies, and Peanut Butter Cups. Delicious!”
Thanks, Michael. I have to admit that these cookies were really good and definitely bring-in-able. Thanks for being such a willing taste tester!
June 15, 2008
Good 'Til the Last Crumb
Jen, a reader and real-life cookie taster, took home some of my Inside-Out Peanut Butter Cup cookies, and this is what she and her daughter had to say:
“My daughter praised your stuffed peanut butter cookies for about 30 minutes. She's 7 years old. She said it was the best cookie she's ever had...Ariana ate it crumb for crumb not wanting the last crumb to be eaten...she is TOTALLY in love with your stuffed peanut butter cookies! ”
Thanks, Jen and Ariana! I hope to make a whole bunch more cookies that get this kind of reception.
June 14, 2008
Phases of the Moon
Whenever Jon and I head up to Massachusetts to visit Mumma, we have to have linguica rolls from Clyde's. Lucky for us, though, we don't usually have to buy them ourselves because Sheryle and Gary (hi Sheryle and Gary!), who are wicked good friends of the family--another aunt and uncle, really--pick up a moon (pictured here) for us.
The moon is comprised of seven individual rolls stuffed with linguica, a Portuguese sausage that’s made out of pork and that has mild heat. (Hmmm...kind of reminds me of a stuffed cookie...but not really.) The bread is light and yeasty and has a slightly sweet crust.
Today we stopped by Sheryle and Gary’s and surprised them with a moon of their very own. And we got one ourselves to take home. As you can see from these pics, it probably won’t survive our drive back.
I found a recipe online for linguica rolls, so stay tuned for my homemade version.
June 12, 2008
You Like Me...You Really Like Me!
TypePad chose my Oatmeal CookieBlog as the a featured blog for June 12, 2008. Woohoo! What's next...a key to the city?
