It's the Yeast I Can Do

Momofuku confetti cookies, 04.01.13

This photo is terrible. Like, truly just awful. It’s out-of-focus, the colors are whatever, and it does nothing whatsoever to give you an idea of the texture of these cookies. Also, like an idiot, I cropped it so you have no sense of scale.

What’s so hilarious about this photo being so bad is that these are probably one of the most amazing things to ever come out of my kitchen. They’re five inches across, for starters. They have a delicate, crunchy exterior that belies the supersoft crumb within. The sweetness of the sprinkles plays off a lightly salted crunch of the cookie crumbles baked in. Truly, everyone who’s had one has had nothing but moaning and expletives to say about them — but, like, in a good way.

And I only made 12.

I prepped the recipe about a week ago, and then left the sheet in the fridge as instructed, and baked off two or three at a time as needed. A few for immediate consumption, a few for Richard, one each for Zoe and Austin’s birthdays, etc., etc. And, knowing that I’d bake them off in multiple rounds, I just snapped a couple shitty shots after the first round and figured I’d do better “next time,” “later,” “in the daylight,” “when it’s not March anymore.” Guess who didn’t do that?

And so here we are with my shitty picture of my amazing cookies. There’s one more left of the batch — in the freezer, waiting for my mom — so if I manage to do better then…

Via Momofuku Milk Bar

Engine 2 cookies, 03.23.13

You should know better than to think I really went two weeks without stress-baking. My roommate is a couple of months in to the Engine 2 diet, this sort of horrifying gluten-free-vegan disaster that I could never follow in a million years, and he wanted help making a diet-approved treat. Sure, these are a little more like granola clusters than what I’d call cookies, but they’re not half bad.

***

1c unsweetened applesauce
2T ground flaxseed meal in 1/4c water
2/3c light brown sugar, packed
1/2c raw sugar
1T egg replacer in 1/4c water
1t vanilla
1 1/2c whole wheat flour
2t cinnamon*
1/2t nutmeg*
1t sea salt
1t baking soda
3c rolled oats
1c raisins

Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine the first four ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer**. Beat in the “egg” and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients except the oats and raisins. Gradually combine the dry and wet mixtures until blended, and then stir in the oats and raisins. Drop heaping spoonfuls onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

* Spices have been doubled from the original recipe because flavor.

** You can always do this by hand instead, but why?

Samoas bars, 02.19.13

For dessert tonight with Christian and Rita. They’re richer than the originals, I think, and with an obviously higher ratio of chocolate to cookie, but I’m not saying that’s a bad thing…

Via Crepes of Wrath

Superbowl cookies, 02.03.13

And then, two weeks later, I made those same cookies again. Except this time, for the first time in the dozen or more times I’ve made those toffee beauties, I found tiny Heath bars to chop up instead of using Ghiradelli’s Toffee Interludes (which, while delicious, is more chocolate than toffee). Delicious. I set them out at the beginning of halftime, and they were demolished before the blackout.

Also, you know, snickerdoodles. For variety.

Both recipes via Smitten Kitchen

Chocolate chip cookies, 12.19.12

There’s no doubt in my mind that my favorite kitchen appliance is my KitchenAid, but it sure has made me a lazy baker. And I’ve been incredibly busy these past few weeks with holiday prep and work, so when I realized last night I needed to bake another batch of cookies, I almost dreaded it. But then…

This is the first time in ages that I’ve done everything by hand, and I’d forgotten how satisfying it is to cream butter and sugar with a spatula. I branched out from my usual chocolate chip cookie recipe and cracked open a new cookbook and got to thumb through the crisp pages (before they become all glued together with sugar), and it all calmed down for a minute. Leave it to chocolate chip cookies to really take you back to basics.

Via Simply Sensational Cookies

Gingerbread cookies, 12.16.12

Felicia asked me to make holiday gift bags for her students again this year, but thankfully, we skipped the whole piping-piano-keys-with-royal-icing part of the endeavor. This year, the bags had one gingerbread cookie and a couple pieces of peppermint bark (stay tuned).

Icing via Wilton

Hippie dippy chocolate chippy cookies, 11.02.12

Full disclosure: These are not my usual fare. In fact, their original title was “Postpartum Cookies,” which makes me more than a little uncomfortable given my whole #nobabies philosophy… But it was a recipe that needed testing for the Austin Food Bloggers Alliance cookbook, and who am I to judge a cookie without trying it. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised. They’re definitely better warm, and you can tell there are some health food things in there (I told the people at Central Market not to judge me for asking where to find hemp seeds), but they’re decidedly not terrible.

Which, if you’ve ever given me a cocktail to try, you know is actually higher praise than it sounds.

Recipe via Lisa Goddard