Cookie classics

Oatmeal Raisin and Chocolate Chip cookies aren't the most challenging things to bake, but they're always a hit. They were gone in a minute when I left them in the kitchen at work. These are "drop" cookies {which means exactly that; they're dropped onto the cookie sheet} and include the usual suspects: butter, sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda, eggs, vanilla and chocolate chips/oats. The oatmeal cookies also included some cinnamon...a nice touch!

Not sharing these

I love biscotti! We made two types last night: Espresso and Chocolate Chip Almond. I've never made it before as the twice-baked process seemed hard but was actually really easy. For the Espresso ones {the "dry" recipe which uses butter}, it only takes 5 minutes to cream the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla and then mix in the dry ingredients {flour, baking powder, cinnamon, espresso, orange zest, chocolate chips}.

The dough is then rolled into a log and baked for 35-40 minutes, cooled, cut, then baked again for 20 minutes. Cooled, then DIPPED in CHOCOLATE.

The Chocolate Chip Almond ones {"wet" as oil is used instead of butter} are basically the same process, except for the oil and baking soda instead of powder. Those were baked for 30 minutes, removed, cut and baked again for 10 minutes. Cooled and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

Crunchy caramel

Now we're getting somewhere! My Cakes: Classic to Modern class started this past Saturday and everything on the menu sounds really good and involves a few recipes so will be more challenging. For week 1, we made a Crunchy Caramel Cake which included three recipes: Meringue noisette layers, butterscotch caramel and Chantilly cream. The meringues {ground hazelnuts, cornstarch, egg whites, sugar and vanilla} were baked at 250 degrees for an hour and a half {but could be baked for up to 2-3 hours} to dry them out.

Making caramel is scary. Sugar has to be cooked on high heat, along with water and glucose. While the mixture is caramelizing, the sides of the pot need to be brushed down with water to avoid crystallization and if a drop of the boiling mixture touches you, you will be scarred FOR LIFE with a sugar burn.

Then we made Chantilly cream. Whipped cream, gelatin and sugar made fluffy. Everything layered together and SO sweet.

Coming this Christmas...

Back to school! My Art of Cookies class started off simple last night with a classic shortbread recipe. This is a less buttery version of typical shortbread: butter, icing sugar, bread flour and rice flour are combined and rolled out and baked for approximately 20 minutes. Very light and flaky. I can't wait to make these again during the holidays.

Messy but good

I finally tried a recipe from this book I bought a while ago {Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey}, the delay being that the recipes are INSANE: we're talking chocolate, caramel, butter, etc, etc...seriously sweet stuff.

So these "Heart of Darkness Brownies" not only contain butter, semi-sweet and unsweetened chocolate, pecans, but chopped up Snickers bars too. Wow. PLUS, they are topped with marshmallows and drizzled with a caramel sauce made of those little Kraft caramels, heavy cream and vanilla. I'm going to test them out on my family tomorrow but I'm sure that these will be a hit.