All-Inclusive Monster Cookies

A favorite cookie of mine has recently become the “monster cookie,” and it’s pretty clear as to why: these cookies contain a bit of everything, and combine the best of peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, and oatmeal raisin cookies. I’ve also seen them called “kitchen sink” cookies, as in “everything but the…” When I made these cookies, I was received with two perspectives: one friend told me that she loved them, but they were quite heavy and eating one was more than enough for a sitting. Another friend reported back that he ate four of them after a hike, and that they were the perfect type of energy food. I agree with both; these cookies have a lot going on, ingredient-wise, and with peanut butter and oats, they make a very substantial snack. On reflection, the amount of sugar could be reduced, I’m sure, and the chocolate chips could possibly be omitted, if you wanted to make a hearty breakfast cookie. Of course, I would not leave the chocolate out, and even with their presence, I think that these cookies do pretty well as far as healthfulness goes. The consistency was the one thing that took me off guard (although I should have seen it coming, due to the lack of flour in the recipe): these are moist cookies and I needed to package them carefully so that they would travel well. Aside from that, these monster cookies turned out to be everything I could want in a cookie.

Monster Cookies

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 ½ cups brown sugar
½ tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ cups crunchy peanut butter
¼ cup applesauce
1 cup chocolate chips
¼ cup raisins
4 cups rolled oats

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350° F
2. In a very large mixing bowl, cream the eggs and sugar together with an electric mixer.
3. Add salt, baking soda, vanilla, peanut butter, and applesauce; blend together well.
4. Add chocolate chips, raisins, and oats. Stir until everything is combined.
5. Drop cookie dough by the tablespoonful on cookie sheets, 2 inches apart.
6. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Let stand about 3 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.

Salty Oat Cookies

A friend of mine is addicted to the salty oat cookies found at Teaism, a DC-area tea house. That's a problem for him now that he lives in the Pacific Northwest, so I wanted to find a way to bring him his favorite cookies without having to ship them in bulk across the country (which I doubt is even possible). I did a bit of research on how to best achieve the essence of the salty oat cookie, and put together this recipe. I have eaten the Teaism variety before, so I basically knew what I was working with. What makes these cookies distinctive is the addition of course salt onto the cookies once they are on the sheet and nearly ready to go in the oven; that way, you get a hit of saltiness when you first bite in, but the cookie base is not over-salted. It is a pretty standard oatmeal cookie starter. One thing I love about this recipe is the buttery taste that goes well with the heartiness of the oats, and the addition of brown rice flour (instead of entirely all-purpose flour). Even without the course salt finishing off the dough, these cookies would be delicious. My friend tried them and was thrilled to have found a stand-in for the tea-house cookies; of course, now I have to worry about consistently supplying him with his favorite cookies. Next time, I might try mixing some chocolate chips, and hope that they don’t compromise the integrity of a fantastic cookie.

Salty Oat Cookies

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup unsalted butter, cold
• ¾ cup packed light brown sugar
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 ¼ all-purpose flour
• ½ cup rice flour
• 2 cups rolled oats
• ½ cup raisins
• Course salt

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375° F.
2. In a large bowl, blend the butter and sugars with a hand mixer. Add the baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon and combine until the mixture is crumbly. Add the eggs, one at a time, and then the vanilla, blending well.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flours. Then, add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and blend together. Fold in the oats and raisins.
4. Drop the dough by teaspoonful onto baking trays and then sprinkle the tops with coarse salt. Bake 12-15 minutes.

Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles

Looking for a unique chocolate recipe (possibly or possibly not for Valentine’s Day), I went on a long and thorough search. Although the only caveat was that the recipe must contain chocolate, I hardly felt overwhelmed. One of my greatest pastimes nowadays easily could be browsing cookbooks and the Internet for recipes I would want to try. And with my narrow condition, I was unsurprised when I found I had a great deal of sifting to do in order to get to what I wanted. As with many things in this world, when I saw this recipe, I knew it was just meant to be. Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles: with these two main ingredients, how could I go wrong?

I have not yet had the practice that I crave making candies and confections – what a vast world of endless creativity and deliciousness! – but truffles like these are a simple entrée into this universe. The preparation was not at all difficult, and my slight hesitation did not lie in my ability to make the truffles; I just wasn’t sure how goat cheese and chocolate would mesh. Goat cheese, I love; chocolate, I adore. I was willing to try them together, but even as I set the bowl in the refrigerator to chill, I had my doubts.

Of course, I’m happy to have tried this experiment. If nothing else, I enjoyed watching the quizzical looks I received from announcing the name of the truffles. And they did provide an interesting flavor experience. I think I rolled the truffles a bit too large; these should not be bitten into two, but consumed in one bite, allowing the bitterness of the cocoa powder to mix with the sweetness of the chocolate in the truffle and the creamy sensation that the goat cheese provides. It was not entirely dissimilar from the taste of cheesecake blended heavily with chocolate (along with the richness of cheesecake). For something very different, and not terribly labor intensive, I would highly suggest whipping up a batch for a lovely gift or an addition to a dessert buffet.

Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles
From Epicurious.com
Yield: About 25 truffles

Ingredients:
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
6 oz. (about 3/4 cup) fresh goat cheese
2 Tbsp. confectioners' sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. lemon extract
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted, for coating the truffles

Directions:
1. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate, stirring until it is smooth; remove from heat and let the chocolate cool slightly.
2. In a bowl, whisk together the goat cheese, the confectioners' sugar, the vanilla, and the lemon extract until the mixture is light and fluffy. Whisk in the chocolate until the mixture is combined well, and chill the mixture, covered, for 1 hour, or until it is firm.
3. Form teaspoons of the mixture into balls and roll the balls in the cocoa powder. Chill the truffles on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper for 30 minutes, or until they are firm. The truffles keep in an airtight container, chilled, for 3 days.

Cran Bran Muffins

Although the majority of my baking is done solo, I’ve always loved baking with kids. I worked at an elementary school for a year, and baking projects quickly became a normal event when I was in the classroom. We made brownies and pies, strawberry lady bugs and smoothies, fruit salads and bread art. Now I’m volunteering in another elementary school, and while I haven’t had the chance to get their hands dirty with tempered chocolate or bread mixes, I have been able to bake for them. And while it doesn’t have the exact same effect of walking a group of children through the thrilling world of measuring cups and mixing bowls, I still loved it. These Cran Bran muffins were to be for snack time, and the night before as I was making them, I was full of legitimate joy, knowing that I was creating something nutritious and yummy that they would eat, they would like, and they would appreciate.

I’ll be one of the first people to tell you that what you expect to happen is rarely what occurs, but I was beyond pleased the next day; when I told everyone that I had brought muffins with cranberries in them, I heard a couple of little squeals of happiness and several smiles. I passed out the muffins, and many of the children looked up and me and gave me a polite “thank you,” which was simultaneously heartwarming and reassuring. And I’m aware that it’s silly to care about, but everyone finished their entire muffin and I heard no one complain, “I don’t liiiike this!”


I know that baking muffins for a group of kids is not particularly noteworthy or amazing, and droves of parents do the same thing every single day. But I’m not a parent yet, and I am planning on spending the rest of my life teaching in elementary classrooms surrounded by the adorableness that I get to see now only intermittently. Given how so many children eat – or do not eat at all – in this world, making a batch of muffins for these kids did feel noteworthy to me. And while I would also love to give them cupcakes or chocolate chip cookies, I felt no quarrel in putting these muffins up for snack time consumption: the ingredients are wholesome, using whole-wheat flour, wheat bran, and rolled oats, and low in sugar. The blackstrap molasses is a particularly good sweetener here, both for taste and for its low glycemic index.

Cran Bran Muffins
Ingredients:
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup wheat bran
¾ cup rolled oats
3 Tbsp. canola oil
2 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. blackstrap molasses
1 egg
1½ cups buttermilk
½ cup dried cranberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 375°F and line a muffin tin.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt and then stir in the wheat bran and the oats. 3. In another bowl, beat together the oil, sugar, and molasses and then add the egg and buttermilk. 4. Stir the bran mixture into oil mixture, then fold in the dried cranberries.
5. Place batter in the muffin tin, filling each muffin space about three-quarters full. 6. Bake for 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean.

Kitchen Yogi Lemon Cookies

I may not care for a cookie-cutter home or a cookie-cutter marriage, but I certainly do love cookie-cutters. Recently, I received a cookie-cutter in the mail, and although I was expecting it to arrive, I was not sure what I was waiting for. All I was told was that it was a “yoga” cookie-cutter; an array of visuals flooded my mind, but I still was not sure what a yoga cookie-cutter would be. When it did come, I saw that it was an adorable miniature yogi sitting in lotus pose: its actual name is The Kitchen Yogi. I my first thought upon opening the package was, “what kind of cookie will I make out of this?”


What kind of cookie would be worthy of symbolizing enlightenment? These lemon cookies are a good contender, I think. The original recipe was very non-nourishing, so I made some adjustments in order to make them better suited to a yogi. And I had one of my yogi friends try the cookies out; he enjoyed the fresh lemon flavor, the lightness of the cookie, and of course, their shape.

I refrigerated the dough for an hour, which hardened it up nicely, but it warmed up quickly in my hands and the warmer the dough became, the more difficult to work with. I also had some trouble with the arms of the little yogi breaking off, but the extra care is worth it for these cookies. I would be interested to see how others decorate their yogis (of course, it could be a yogini instead), and hopefully will arrive at some inspiration before I made these cookies, or bring out this cookie-cutter, again. The Kitchen Yogi also comes with its own recipes for gluten free cookies and organic sugar cookies, either of which could be great to try next time.

Lemon Cut-Out Cookies
Yield: About 5 dozen cookies
Ingredients:
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. lemon extract
2 tsp. grated lemon zest

Directions:
1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour and salt.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg, egg yolk, extracts, and lemon zest and mix until well-blended.

3. Slowly add the flour mixture, mixing to combine well.

4. Divide the dough into 4 round sections and wrap each section in plastic wrap, or place in a glass Tupperware container. Refrigerate at least 1 hour until firm.

5. Preheat the oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Take one section of dough and roll out on a lightly floured surface. Cut out shapes with the cookie cutters of your choice. Repeat with the other 3 dough sections.

6. Bake, one sheet at a time, for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned at the edges. Cool completely on wire racks.