Tag: Chocolate Cookies

Ice Cream Cake

February 25, 2014February 9, 2017

When I asked Carmelle what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday this year, and she replied, “ice cream cake,” I was stumped. I mean, not so stumped. I’ve had ice cream cake before. I understand the concept. But I’ve certainly never made one. In a summer cooking camp I did when I was younger, I made a baked alaska, but I certainly wasn’t going to attempt that. My mom used to make a version of ice cream cake with Ho hos: she would take a big metal bowl, line it with slices of Ho hos, fill the bowl with ice cream, freeze it, and then turn it out, so it looked something like this.

So I suppose it was officially time to learn to make my own ice cream cake. I had a choice to make: do I make the kind with an actual layer of cake in it? Or do I make the kind that just has layers of ice cream and chocolate sauce and magical cookie crumbles?

I decided to go with the latter. If I’d had more time I would’ve made my own ice cream, it turned out it was a crazy weekend (full of Valentine’s Day, a bar mitzvah, work, and an Amos Lee concert), so there wasn’t time for that madness. Still though, ice cream making is on my to-do list.

I decided to use a recipe from Not Without Salt (NWS) as a guideline, except I wanted to just buy Oreo crumbs at the store instead of making my own chocolate wafers. At this point, I was thinking more along the lines of cake assembly than actual creation. Don’t judge me. After hitting the grocery store (note to self: NEVER go to Fred Meyer’s on a Sunday again), and not finding Oreo crumbs or any wafers I liked, I decided to make them myself. And because I’ve been eyeing Smitten Kitchen’s chocolate wafers, I decided to go with that recipe. Interestingly, something I noticed after I had already made the wafers was that both Smitten Kitchen and Not Without Salt identify Alice Medrich as the cook behind the recipe for their wafers, though they do differ a bit. What I’m saying is, if you decide to go with NWS’s chocolate wafer recipe, I’m sure it will be just as delicious.

Ice Cream Cake

Note: For your ice cream, I would suggest something smooth like coffee, or with small pieces in it, like mint chocolate chip. Carmelle requested cookie dough ice cream, and while it was certainly delicious to get the chunks of cookie dough, it made it a little trickier to slice and serve.

Ingredients

Chocolate Wafers

1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup + 2 Tbl sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
14 Tbl (1 3/4 sticks) butter, softened
3 Tbl milk (higher fat is better, because we’re baking here, people)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Fudge Sauce

1 cup heavy cream
1/3 cup corn syrup (I used dark because I liked the slight molasses smell to it, but light or golden syrup will work)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 cup (6 oz) bittersweet chocolate (you can use chopped baking chocolate or chips, whatever is convenient for you)
2 Tbl butter
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

1 gallon of ice cream of your choice, or 2 quarts of ice creams of your choice

Instructions

Chocolate Wafers

First, let’s make the wafers. In the bowl of your food processor, combine the dry ingredients and pulse to mix. Cut the butter into chunks and add it to the bowl as well, pulsing again until evenly distributed. In a small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla extract, and then add it to the bowl with the food processor running. Transfer the dough to a bowl and knead a few times to bring it together. On a piece of parchment or wax paper, form the dough into a ~14-inch log, wrap it in the parchment or wax paper, and refrigerate for an hour, or freeze for 20-30 minutes, or until firm.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice the log of dough into ~1/4 inch slices, thinner if you’d like, but keep an eye on baking time. Place them on pans about an inch apart, and bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating halfway through. Allow to cool on the pan for a minute or two, as they’ll break easily. Which, for our purposes isn’t the end of the world, but you will have extras, and maybe you want those to be unbroken.

Chocolate Fudge Sauce

Before making the fudge, I recommend taking your ice cream out of the freezer to soften.

To make the fudge, combine the cream, corn syrup, sugar, and cocoa powder in a pan. Bring this mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a steady simmer. Allow it to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. After 5 minutes, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate, butter, salt, and vanilla. Keep stirring so the chocolate and butter melt, and run through a sieve, preferably into a microwave safe bowl, make sure there are no clumps of cocoa powder. My fudge had a little trouble, and decided to separate (super fun!). Jonah had the brilliant idea to just get out the immersion blender, and I would suggest the same should the separation happen to you. But I sincerely hope it doesn’t. Set fudge aside and let it cool down a bit. Because you have to make this cake in layers and freeze between each layer, the microwave safe bowl comes in handy when you need to warm up (and potentially blend) your fudge sauce.

Now let’s assemble the cake. Put about 20-25 of the chocolate wafers in a big ziploc bag, and beat it with a rolling pin, until the cookies are completely crumbled and there are no pieces larger than a pea. In an 8 or 9 inch springform pan, spread 1/2 of your gallon of ice cream, or one of the quarts. Make sure it’s evenly spread, so it’s roughly the same thickness all the way around the pan. Sprinkle half the cookie crumbs on the ice cream, and then drizzle/spread half the hot fudge over the cookie. Put the pan in the freezer for 30-45 minutes to set. After it has firmed up a bit, spread the second half of ice cream over the fudge, then sprinkle over the remaining cookie crumbs and spread over that the remaining fudge. Put the cake in the freezer until you’re ready to serve, at least an hour.

When you’re ready to eat this bad boy, remove from the freezer and run a knife around the edge before un-molding the cake. Serve and enjoy!

World Peace Cookies (or Extremely Chocolate Cookies)

April 21, 2012February 2, 2017

One of my favorite care packages that I got in college was from my dad. It arrived the week before finals, and included all kinds of stuff to help get me through the very stressful time: chocolate covered coffee beans to help with the all nighters, delicious tea to help me fight off illness, dried fruit and other healthy snacks to keep me going during the long days, etc. It made me feel so much better about all the work I had to do, and made it feel like he was there, pushing me to get everything done and do the best I could.

Anyway, so I was thinking about my baby sister, who is about to enter finals week. And she’s had a bit of a rough semester, with some health issues (she may have to haver her tonsils out this summer, ouch) and all kinds of yuck-o stuff. And I thought, you know what would make her feel better? A care package full of funny and delicious things to help her get through the toughest part of the school year. Plus, let’s face it, I’ll take any excuse I can get to make cookies. I’d been eyeing this recipe from Smitten Kitchen for these chocolate cookies called “World Peace Cookies.” Apparently the title is based on the idea that if everyone in the world had these cookies, there would be peace. And they are pretty dang good.

World Peace Cookies

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 stick plus 3 Tbl unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp fleur de sel or 1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Instructions

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together into a bowl. Set aside. In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both the brown and granulated sugars, the salt, and the vanilla extract before beating for another couple of minutes.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour/cocoa mixture and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. (A nice trick when pulsing flour and or cocoa: cover the bowl with a dishtowel, draped over the mixer, to protect yourself from inhaling the ingredients and to protect your kitchen from a total mess.) If, after a few pulses, there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more. After everything is all mixed in, continue mixing on a low speed for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough. As with anything with lots of butter, you want to work the dough as little as possible. Don’t worry, the dough will be crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix to incorporate.

Dump the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. One half at a time, shape the dough into logs about an inch and a half in diameter. Wrap them in plastic wrap and stick them in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Towards the end of the three hours, you can preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Line your baking sheets with parchment, silpats, or just grease them lightly like I did.

Pull the logs out of the fridge, unwrap, and with a sharp knife, slice them into 1/2-inch thick rounds. They may crumble: don’t worry, just squeeze the bits back together. Put the rounds on a baking sheet, leaving about an inch in between them. Bake for about 12 minutes. They won’t look that done, but they are. I promise. Allow to cool on the sheet for at least a couple minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. Good luck letting them cool all the way before munching on a few accompanied by a glass of cold milk. Yum.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

March 8, 2012February 2, 2017

You’ll notice that this is my second chocolate cookie recipe within a week. I know, I know, why Annie? Why do you tempt yourself with these delicious chocolatey cookies? First, I can’t help it. Sometimes I just want something fudgy and gooey and crisp around the edges. Second, I don’t eat all of them myself. The first cookies (the salted chocolate cookies) were mostly consumed by a bunch of friends we had over, and the second cookies (the ones I’m about to tell you about) I brought to Jonah’s boss. We’ve started a little tradition that whenever I make cookies, Jonah takes some into work so that we don’t eat them all, and his coworkers are loving it. Jonah works at a great start-up company in Portland that does internet radio, and we may be hitting the airwaves ourselves soon with a food/cooking show. We’ll see what happens, but we’re talking about it. Thoughts?

Anyway, now onto some chocolate crinkle cookies. I wanted to make something that did not require me to buy anything since we have so much baking stuff in our apartment. So after some searching, I found this recipe on 17 and baking for these. Easy, delicious, and pretty. I halved the recipe because, well it supposedly yields 7 DOZEN COOKIES and let’s face it, we really didn’t need that many. So I’ll give you my miniature version.

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Makes 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4-1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

Instructions

In a bowl (or in the bowl of your electric mixer, if you’re using one) combine the cocoa powder, sugar, and oil. Scrape down the sides, and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition. Add the vanilla. Now throw in the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix to combine. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 4 hours. I let mine sit in the fridge overnight because I didn’t feel like starting the baking process at 11 p.m.

When you’re ready to bake the suckers, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and pull out the cookie dough. Put the powdered sugar into a shallow bowl, and roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter or about a rounded teaspoon. You’ll want to lightly oil your hands so the dough doesn’t stick to your palms when you’r rolling it. After making the balls of dough, roll them in powdered sugar to coat evenly, dusting off any extra, and put them on the cookie sheet at least an inch apart.

Now put them in the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes (mine were perfect at 11). Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a minute before moving them to a rack to cool completely. These cookies look like cookies you see in the magazine. They cracked beautifully and looked so pretty with the contrast of the white powdered sugar and the dark chocolate insides. Enjoy these treats with a glass of milk!

Salted Chocolate Cookies

March 5, 2012February 2, 2017

If you are into salt, and want to venture into the world of fancy salt, a good start is Maldon. This salt is the saltiest, crunchiest salt I’ve tasted, and made from the sea! Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, there are members of my family who are in love with salt. So when my dad came across a recipe for salted chocolate cookies, we decided we had to make them the next time we were together, which happened to be this past weekend. I mean, come on, the recipe even calls for Maldon.

Another wonderful thing that comes from this recipe is the discovery of the wonderful blog Orangette. I knew I would like this blog immediately for 2 reasons: 1) the salted chocolate cookies you will see below. 2) it is written by Molly Wizenberg, one of the founders of Delancey in Seattle. If you live in Seattle, I recommend that you immediately stop reading this blog, get in your car, and go to Delancey. Delicious salads, delicate and scrumptious pizzas, and lovely desserts. It’s ok, the blog will be here when you get back. Just go.

Now that you’re back, let’s continue. So these cookies are rich and light at the same time, and I am recently of the impression that salt makes everything better, so it’s a good sign that they’re decorated with fancy salt. Right?

Salted Chocolate Cookies

Makes 5 dozen cookies

Ingredients

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup plus 2 Tbl unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
8 Tbl (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup plus 2 Tbl sugar, plus more for rolling the logs
2 large eggs
¼ tsp table salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk
Maldon salt, for finishing

Instructions

First thing you’ll need to do is melt your chocolate. After you’ve cut it up, put it in a heatproof bowl that will fit securely on a small saucepan you’ve got. Put about 2 inches of water in the saucepan, bring it to a simmer, and put the bowl of chocolate on the pan. The bowl shouldn’t be touching the water, just getting the steam. You also want to make sure that no moisture gets into the chocolate as this will make it seize, which isn’t really good for anyone. Anyway, heat the chocolate and stir it occasionally until it is melty and smooth. Remove it from the heat (carefully, the bowl will be hot) and set it aside to cool.

Now, in a medium mixing bowl (not your electric mixer, mind you, if you’re planning on using one), combine the flour, cocoa, and baking powder. Set aside. In your electric mixer, beat the butter on a medium speed until it’s nice and creamy. Slowly pour in the sugar (perhaps even while the mixer is going, just be careful not to get sugar everywhere), and continue to mix until the butter/sugar mixture is smooth and soft. Now add the eggs one at a time, mixing well to incorporate after each one. Add the salt and vanilla, and, making sure it’s cool (you don’t want it to cook the eggs), the melted chocolate. Beat to incorporate all of these things into one beautiful mixture.

Now beat in the milk, and lastly, the flour mixture. Beat on low speed until it’s just incorporated. Here’s a little note about electric mixers: sometimes I turn mine up higher to fling off the stuff stuck on the paddle or whisk and get it mixed in. I should not do this unless the recipe I’m following specifically tells me to turn the mixer up high. Why? Because by doing this, I’m adding air to the dough/batter, which can make the cookies (or whatever I’m making) a different texture than they were intended to be. So now you know.

Now comes a fun/weird part. Dampen a counter and lay out a big piece of plastic wrap (dampening it – wiping it with a wet sponge – will help keep the plastic wrap in place while you work) and dump 1/2 or 1/3 of your dough onto it. Now you’re going to have to mush and mold and roll the dough using the plastic wrap to shape a log. The size of the log totally depends on how big you want your cookies to be. Mine was probably about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Anyway, after you’ve smooshed it into a good log, you can wrap it up in the plastic wrap, twist up the ends, and stick it in your fridge to chill overnight.

When you’re ready to make some freaking cookies, preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Also, remove your dough from the fridge. You’ll need that. Now, the recipe says to put parchment paper on your work surface, make a pile of sugar on it, and roll the dough in it. That did not work for me, though I did try. It probably would have worked better to put a cup of sugar in a shallow bowl and dunk the logs in that, but because I already had sugar all over my work surface (I also just used a cutting board instead of more parchment paper), I just decided to sprinkle sugar over the logs. Anyway, however you do it, coat your dough logs with sugar, and then slice them with a sharp knife into 1/4-1/3 inch slices. Put the cookies on the cookie sheet about an inch apart, and sprinkle each cookie with some Maldon salt. Note: the amount of salt we put on the cookies increased with each batch because we love the stuff so much.

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes. The cookies should still feel soft to the touch, but look set. After allowing them to cool on the sheet for a minute, transfer them to a wire rack to cool. This recipe made SO MANY COOKIES. Seriously. Like… 5 or 6 dozen. And they are hard to stop eating, so be warned. Make them for a party or a gathering or something.