The Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toffee Chunks and Brown Butter

The chocolate chip cookie. The baseline from which all other cookies must be judged, and yet a category so generous that it includes several robust sub-categories: crispy thin chocolate chip cookies, oversize jumbo chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip cookies containing alternatives to chocolate chips, and classic Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies. This recipe is a combination of those last two categories, and is my spin on the Cook's Illustrated chocolate chip cookie recipe. These are the chocolate chip cookies I bring into work on Monday, and that I might perhaps bring to your 4th of July picnic.

The secret to the recipe is browning most of the butter to add to the toffee notes of this chewy centered/crispy edged cookie. I took it a step further with a healthy dose of toffee bars, because if there is one thing that is true, it is that the Swedish people are a toffee-loving people. I prefer using Skol bars (or Daim if they are around, which is rare), but most often due to super market availability I end up using Heath Bars. I tend to think that taking the time to cut the larger bars into chunks makes for a better cookie, just like chocolate chunks make a better cookie than chocolate chips, but you can also find Bits of Heath or mini-heath bars that can speed the process up a bit. The end result is still a pretty awesome cookie, larger than your average Tollhouse cookie because, let's face it, nobody is satisfied by a single average size Tollhouse cookie. I challenge you to find a person who sees a larger chocolate chip cookie, and doesn't consider that a positive development.

As far as browning butter is concerned, the ideal is to have a light colored metal pan, as opposed to a nonstick pan. The dark coloring of the nonstick pan can make it a little more difficult to see when your butter is starting to brown and doesn't retain heat quite as well. When the butter is browned to a dark golden brown, it will start to smell nutty, and yes even a bit toffee-like. Your hand should get tired, if not from browning the butter than by the amount of whisking in this recipe. That can't be helped. Delicious will do what it does, and it'll take as long as it takes. Here is a video on how to make brown butter. Remember that it can go from brown to burnt quite fast, so move it from the hot pan to the heat proof bowl fast once it hits peak nuttiness. Brown butter is also the type of thing that you can make in larger batches and save in ice cube trays in the freezer for other recipes (although also remember that you need this brown butter hot enough to melt the rest of the butter for the recipe). You can either discard the milk solids through a strainer or use them. I tend to use them, as I don't mind the little flecks in the cookies and think they have flavor.

Much like I prefer delicious impurity filled grade B maple syrup for its more intense flavors, I prefer dark brown sugar to light brown sugar, but both work well. I tend to think that the darker my mix of brown butter and sugar is, the more complex my flavors end up being. Fun fact- if you have no brown sugar, a quick fix substitution is adding a tablespoon of molasses to white sugar, then pulsing in a food processor to blend. One final note, this is the recipe where I learned how to correctly level flour in a measuring cup. Scoop down and grab a full/overflowing cup of flour. Do not press down. Take a knife, and in one brisk swish, swipe it across the measuring cup. More accurate than filling from the bag or with scoops.    

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toffee Chunks

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (8 3/4 ounces, I prefer King Arthur)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 14 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 3/4 sticks, 10 tablespoons for browning and 4 tablespoons reserved at room temperature)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
• 3/4 cups packed dark brown sugar (5 1/4 ounces)
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 teaspoons good vanilla extract
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 large egg yolk, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips or chunks (12 oz for chunks, I prefer Ghiradelli semisweet or bittersweet)
• 1 cup chopped heath bars (or other toffee bar such as Daim or Skol, etc.)

Instructions

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large (18- by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper or silpat. 
2. Whisk flour and baking soda together in medium bowl; set aside.
3. Heat 10 tablespoons of the butter in a light colored skillet over medium-high heat until melted. Continue cooking, swirling pan constantly until butter is dark golden brown and has nutty aroma, about 3 minutes, depending on the heat of the pan. Remove skillet from heat quickly and, using heatproof spatula, transfer browned butter to large heatproof bowl. 
4. Stir in remaining 4 tablespoons butter into hot butter until completely melted. These extra tablespoon make up for the milk solids that were burned off during the browning process.
5. Add both sugars, salt, and vanilla to bowl with butter and whisk until fully incorporated.
6.  Add egg and yolk and whisk until mixture is smooth with no sugar lumps remaining, about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand 3 minutes, then whisk for 30 seconds. Repeat process of resting and whisking 2 more times until mixture is thick, smooth, and shiny. Setting a timer can be helpful. The waiting process allows the sugar molecules to dissolve into the butter mixture better.
7. Using rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until just combined, about 1 minute. 
8. Stir in chocolate chips and toffee chunks, giving dough final stir to ensure no flour pockets remain.
9. Divide dough 3 tablespoon portions (we use our smaller sized ice cream scoop or a little over an 1/8 cup measure). Arrange 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets, 8 dough balls per sheet, staggered.
10. Bake cookies 1 tray at a time until cookies are golden brown and still puffy, and edges have begun to set but centers are still soft, 10 to 14 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through baking.  Remember for the second set of cookies to give your oven a minute to come to temperature again after removing the first sheet.
11. Let cool on rack for one minute, then transfer baking sheet to wire rack; cool cookies completely before serving. I know that part is hard. If you need to re-load the sheet, let the cookie sheet cool for five minutes before loading more cookies onto it.

Swedish Visiting Cake (Swedish Almond Cake)

Almost every Northern European culture features some version of a traditional almond cake. This cake is so good, simple, and elegant that it needs no frosting other than a light dusting of sugar, and when served fresh is one of the best things you've ever tasted. It goes with everything and is just the right balance between a light and heavy dessert. This version is Swedish, and I particularly like it because it doesn't require almond flour or almond paste, two ingredients that I love but that can get pricey and more difficult to find.  The story behind Swedish visiting cake is that it is supposed to be simple enough to be started when you see someone coming at the end of the lane and out of the oven and ready to be served by the time tea is ready. This is only slightly far from true. You might want to zest the lemon before you see your guest. But otherwise, yeah, you could do this from start to finish, including all prep, in forty five minutes with ingredients you most likely have on hand.

Now, it needs to be stated that my family is Swedish, and it would be very tempting to pass this off as a long running family recipe that my Swedish grandparents made. But actually, it is from Dorie Greenspan's Baking cookbook, with slight alterations. When I first made it for my Swedish mother, she said, "we never made cake when people visited for tea. You'd bake cookies, and then have cookies stored in the freezer to bring out at a moment's notice for guests." And sometimes you would bring those cookies when you went to visit others. Well, this cake is also brought around when you visit others (carries nicely in a cast iron skillet). It  stores well for up to a week, and is just as delicious two days later as it is served warm. Basically, I think my Mormor in particular was more into cookies than cake and that is that. But the idea is the same, as is the importance of constantly having little desserts available for guests who come for tea, a problem the Swedes have put a good deal of time into solving.

One cake is best cut into 8 slices. It serves well with tea (obviously), but also light ice creams like vanilla and with red berries such as strawberries or raspberries. 

Swedish Visiting Cake

Ingredients

1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 large eggs at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
About 1/4 cup sliced almonds


Instructions

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350 degrees.
2. Heavily butter a seasoned 9-inch cast-iron skillet or other heavy ovenproof skillet, a 9-inch cake pan or even a pie pan.
3. Pour the sugar into a medium bowl.  Add the lemon zest and blend and toss the zest and sugar together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic and lemony. Congrats, you've just made lemon sugar.
4. Whisk in the eggs one at a time until well blended.  This is your only levener for the cake, so don't rush it.
5. Whisk in the salt and the extracts.  
6. Switch to a rubber spatula and stir in the flour.  
7. Finally, fold in the melted butter. 
8. Scrape the batter into the pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula, evenly spreading the batter to the sides.  
9. Scatter the sliced almonds over the top and sprinkle with a little sugar (it should take between 2-3 small spoonfuls).  If you're using a cake or pie pan, place the pan on a baking sheet.
10. Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it is golden and the sugar crisps on the outside; the inside will remain moist, almost damp. If you are cooking multiple cakes, rotate once during baking, and remember to check both cakes for done-ness, as a cast iron skillet and a cake pan cook a little differently.  
11. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cake cool for 5 minutes, then run a thin knife around the sides of the cake to loosen it.  You can serve the cake warm or cooled, directly from the skillet or turned out onto a serving plate. 
    
    
    
    
    

Cranberry Cheddar Gougeres

A gougere is a French pastry that is light, airy, and deliciously cheesy. Essentially, it is a cheese puff the way a cheese puff should be. If you have never experienced the delight of biting into a piping hot gougere and have the steam from the oven explode in your mouth or had an entire room consumed by the smell of cheesy goodness cooking in the oven, I insist you stop whatever you are doing and find yourself a gougere to eat, unless what you are doing is making gougeres, in which case, you are on the right track.  

There are many variations on a gougere (which is classically made with gruyere cheese or sometimes other French cheeses), but all of them are based on the idea of a light, airy cheese pastry made with a pot au choux dough, which is a cooked dough that uses moisture instead of a rising agent (like yeast) to rise. All of which makes it sound very fancy and much more difficult than it is.

Usually, you see gougeres in small bite size balls (each 1-2 bites), but when we were in Burgundy recently, TK and I were frequently served much larger almost biscuit sized gougeres that were equally light and delicious.We will get to those later, but for now, here are some of the regular bite sized gougeres in a fun recipe from the New York Times website that adds a little holiday cheer to this classic (and thus made it a perfect addition to our Holiday Party line-up), while speeding it up along the edges for a quick and easy treat. Obviously, cheddar is not particularly French, nor are cranberries, but delicious is delicious. The dough looks marvelously festive before baking with little red cranberry flecks, the cheese kinda takes over the show during baking and the cranberry taste is a relatively subtle sweet note in the dough. Because these are tiny, they don't necessarily require the piping that larger gougeres may need to get that distinctly spiral. Obviously, piping doesn't HURT the recipe, but it can be a mess when all you need is a teaspoon scoop.

This is a food processor recipe, which is both awesome, convenient, and makes it difficult to make more than one batch at a time, unless you are willing to rock multiple food processors which frankly I am not. For the record, you can make this recipe by hand. You have to finely chop the cranberries by hand in the beginning and then stir until your arm can't stir anymore and then stir some more to incorporate the eggs, cranberry, and cheese later, but it can be done. But why would you take a recipe that has given you the gift of a food processor and then not use it? In addition, this is a freezer-friendly recipe. You can make these a week before your party and just heat them up right before you are ready to serve. You won't get the same intense cheese smell filling your house at reheating (only a moderate cheese smell filling your house), but they will still taste delicious and you'll still be able to serve them piping hot with a simple ten minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Cranberry Cheddar Gougeres

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 3 ounces unsalted butter (6 tablespoons)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sifted flour
• 5 large eggs
• 1 cup grated sharp Cheddar

Preparation

1. Turn on food processor and finely chop cranberries by dropping them in through feed tube. Remove cranberries, but don’t bother cleaning bits clinging to the bowl, as they'll end up back in bowl eventually. 
2. Place 1 cup water in a 2-quart saucepan. Add butter and salt, bring to a simmer and cook just until butter melts. 
3. Remove from heat and add flour all at once, stirring vigorously with a wooden spoon.
4. Return saucepan to medium to medium high heat and cook dough, stirring constantly, about a minute or two until the dough forms a ball and does not stick to the sides of the saucepan.
5. Transfer dough to food processor.
6. Heat oven to 425 degrees.
7. Turn on food processor and add 1 egg to the dough. As soon as it’s completely incorporated, add another, and continue adding eggs 1 at a time until you have used 4.
8. Add chopped cranberries and Cheddar and pulse to blend.
9. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or silpat if available. Drop heaping teaspoons of batter, in mounds about 1 inch across, on baking sheets, leaving 2 inches between them.
10. Dipping your fingertips in cold water, gently press down any peaks or tips to the mounds of dough so that the dough is flat and will form a clean circular puff.
11. Beat remaining egg. Brush tops of mounds with egg, taking care not to let any drip down the sides.If after your first batch you find the coloring to be overly dark or slightly burned, you can wait to brush the egg until 7 minutes in to the first fifteen minutes of cooking (or whenever the first time you rotate baking sheets is).
12. Bake 15 minutes, until puffed and lightly browned, rotating baking sheets halfway between cooking.
13. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake another 10 to 15 minutes, until well browned and again rotating baking sheets halfway.
14. Shut off oven, open oven door a few inches and leave gougères another 15 minutes before removing them. If you are serving them immediately, serve right away, they do not need any time to cool and are best hot.
15. Before making your next round, wait ten minutes for baking sheets to cool, replace parchment paper, and repeat process.If you are making these ahead of time, move gougeres to cooling racks. When completely cooled, the gougères can be transferred to a heavy plastic bag and frozen. Reheat them for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

The Perfectly Nutty Brigsten's Pecan Pie with Bourbon Whipped Cream

I am not a fan of Pecan Pie. I think it is too sweet, and weirdly also bitter. I'm also not a huge fan of the almost jell-o like consistency the filling can reach. It's just not my thing, and not my choice of holiday pies. Pumpkin pie really is the reigning monarch of Thanksgiving pies. So it's a little strange that one of the pies I make the most frequently and is most coveted by TK is my pecan pie. It's my exception pecan pie. I like to say I dislike all pecan pies, except for this one which is delicious and perfect in every way. It focuses on the delicious nutty flavor and nothing else. No mouthful of sweet. No orange. Just deep roasted nut flavor.

This recipe comes from my favorite restaurant in New Orleans, Brigsten's. Obviously. Where but New Orleans could convince me not only to re-examine the pecan pie, but to embrace it? And where else would finding out that a restaurant published a couple of recipes online cause me to get so excited I had to make them all immediately? Turns out, the first secret to a great pecan pie is the same one I have long applied to most of my pinenut recipes- always toast your nuts, and the deeper and darker you toast them, the richer and rounder your flavors. This recipe dark roasts its pecans, then grinds them up into a paste of roasted pecan that is added to the curd to soften the corn syrup, add texture, and generally take this pie to another level. The second secret is a flaky crust.

Pie crusts and I have a troubled history. How to make a good pie crust is so deceptively simple from the offset, but so fraught with danger and errors in the implementation. The trick to getting a crust nice and flaky is to only mix the dough enough that you can still see swirls and spots of raw butter. Those little butter spots will become little air pockets that flake out the crust and give it its rich buttery goodness. The trick is getting your dough to where it needs to be without having to overwork your dough and lose the flaky texture. And the way to make that happen is to keep everything as cold as possible throughout the pie making process. Anything I can do to keep my ingredients cold, I do without hesitation, including Brigsten's trick which is to freeze the butter, then grate the frozen stick through a box grater. I take it further and put the flour and butter mixture back in the freezer to refreeze prior to working together, but either way, the grating goes a long way towards minimizing the amount of time you need to handle the dough. Likewise, if at ANY point you feel like your dough is getting too warm, stop what you are doing, return the dough and/or tools to the freezer, give it a twenty minute rest, then come back to it.

I bought a pastry scraper for the sole purpose of assisting with the creation of pie crusts, but you don't need one, particularly if you are rolling out your dough between two sheets of parchment paper. If when you try and pull the flattened dough it starts to stick, return the parchment paper sandwiched dough to the fridge to chill for fifteen minutes, then try again. If using a pastry scraper, keep scraper in the freezer when not immediately using. Slide under the dough to cut it away, being very careful not to stretch the crust. Do not stretch the dough to fit the pan or as you are lifting the pan. Any stretching done to the dough will shrink back down as the pie bakes. You can use leftover dough to fill any cracks or holes in the crust, again being careful not to stretch out the dough.


Brigsten's Pecan Pie

For the dough:

1 cup all-purpose white flour
½ teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
 ¼ cup ice water

For the filling:

½ cup darkly roasted pecans, ground
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
 1 cup medium pecan pieces
 
Bourbon Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

1 cup heavy cream 
1/2 cup sour cream 
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 
1/8 teaspoon table salt 
2 teaspoons bourbon

 

Instructions

 

For the Dough-

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree.
2. Place butter, rolling pin, pastry scraper, pastry cutter (if using) in freezer until moments before you are ready to use.
3. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. 
4. Once butter is ice cold and hard but not quite frozen, use the large holes of a hand grater, grate the butter into the mixing bowl with the flour mixture. If your fingers warm the butter, place bowl in freezer for fifteen minutes before continuing.
5. Lightly blend the butter and flour mixture with your fingertips until the texture is like coarse cornmeal. Be careful not to overwork the dough.
6. Add the ice water and blend until incorporated, moving as fast as possible. Swirls or spots of butter are not a problem and will resolve themselves during cooking and will result in a flaky crust.
7. Form the dough into a ball and blend until thoroughly incorporated. Cover in plastic wrap and refrigerate for forty five minutes.
8. Place dough between two sheets of parchment paper or on a well floured countertop. Roll out the dough, adding flour as necessary and working as quickly as possible, to 1/8-inch thick. If dough starts to get too warm, stop, move disc of dough in parchment paper to fridge for fifteen minutes, then remove and continue rolling.
9. Remove top layer of parchment paper if using. Place an 8 ½ inch pie pan face down on the dough and cut the dough to fit the pan, leaving a border of about 1 1/2 inch.
10. Line the pan with the dough while removing second layer of parchment paper with a pastry scraper if necessary, being sure not to stretch the dough. trim the edges, and fill in any gaps with leftover dough and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use (at least one hour).

For the Filling-

1.  Toast pecans in dry skillet or roast on baking sheet until darkly colored and fragrant.
2. Grind pecans using either a morter and pestle, a coffee grinder, or a small food processor.
3. In an electric mixer with the wire whisk attachment, add the eggs and beat on high speed until frothy, about 1 minute. 
4. Add the sugar, corn syrup, butter, vanilla, salt, and ground roasted pecans.
5.  Beat on medium speed until well blended. 
6. Stir in the pecan pieces with a rubber spatula.
7. Pour the filling into the pie shell. 
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 
9. Reduce heat to 325 degrees and bake until the filling is browned on top and the crust is light golden brown.  20 - 30 minutes.
10. Remove from oven and cool at room temperature for 1 hour before serving. Serves 6-8.

 

For the Whipped Cream-

1. In bowl of standing mixer or with hand mixer, whisk heavy cream, sour cream, brown sugar, and salt until combined. 
2. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to serve, at least 4 hours or up to 24, stirring once or twice during chilling to ensure that sugar dissolves.
3. When ready to serve, add bourbon and beat mixture with whisk attachment at medium speed until small bubbles form around edges, about 40 seconds. 
4. Increase speed to high and continue to beat until fluffy or starts to form soft peaks and doubled in volume, about 1 minute longer. 
5. Serve.

Lenox Almond Biscotti (Basic Biscotti)

Almond Biscotti is a delicious and complex cookie perfect for dunking in coffee and serving either with breakfast, tea, or as a dessert with either ice cream or coffee. The almond scent and taste takes a plain shortbread style cookie and elevates it to the level of Italian dolci, ie, one of the best things ever. Biscotti is one of those things that for a very long time I labeled as "to be bought, not made". This was because I made the following (false) assumptions: a) I would have to make a large batch that I would never be able to finish and b) that it was too difficult to make. On point a, biscotti is meant to be dry and absorbent. It might almost be better after sitting out for a day, which is when the crunchiness that you associate with biscotti really sets in. This recipe lasts for about a week. I can't give you an exact total because I have always finished all the cookies within a week and they have always been delicious and not a hint stale. On the latter point, it is also surprisingly simple to make, once you get over your intimidation factor and the number of times it needs to go in the oven.

The dough is sticky and wet, a little surprising for what you think of as a dry, crumbly cookie. The thicker you make your logs, the flatter and wider your finished biscotti will be. So if you want a more domed biscotti, make your log taller and a little smaller. The log will spread a surprising amount, so be sure and place a solid amount of distance between the two. If you have problems with the logs touching during baking, as I did in these pictures, simply use a pastry scraper or a long serrated knife to separate the two logs along the seam or as close as you can get to it immediately after taking the logs out of the oven to cool. The smell of almond will fill your entire kitchen when making these, which both reassures you that you are on the right track and let's everyone else know that you mean business in the kitchen. Don't worry, we are delicious, the cookies tell you, right when you are trying to figure out what "starts to turn light golden" means. (The answer is right when the edges and tops just start to pick up a slight hint of color, but before the bottoms are thoroughly golden). The almond taste, while decidedly present, is a bit more delicate than its cooking nose would have you think. More of a subtle note than a hit you over the head nutty flavor.

This is your basic almond biscotti. From here, you can dunk half of it in melted chocolate (milk, white or dark chocolate) or vary it up in unlimited manners, including Crystallized Ginger with Orange Zest Biscotti, recipe to come soon, or Pistachio and Cranberry Biscotti, but this is your building block recipe, one of the first recipes I made from Dorie Greenspan's Baking, From My Home to Yours cookbook, adapted slightly because the oven I am using tends to run a little cool (if your oven runs hot, simply take five minutes off the cook time), and because I am not overly fond of the gritty texture of corn meal. This cookbook is wonderful if you are looking for a baking Bible. All the recipes are easy to vary according to taste but still create a sophisticated product on its own. For a dinner party these are great to prepare the day before for coffee at the end.

Lenox Almond Biscotti 

Cooking time: 40 Minutes Active, 1 1/2 hours Inactive
Makes about 30 cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
3/4 cup sliced almonds, blanched or unblanched

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.
2. Optional: Run corn meal through a food processor for 30 seconds.
2. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together. Add the cornmeal and whisk again to blend.
3. Using a hand mixer in a large bowl (or a standing mixer with a paddle attachment if you have it), beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed for 3 minutes, until very smooth.
4. Add the eggs and continue to beat, scraping down the bowl as needed, for another 2 minutes, or until the mixture is light, smooth and creamy.
5. Beat in the almond extract.
6. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they are incorporated. You'll have a soft, stick-to-your-fingers dough that will ball up around the paddle or beaters.
7. Scrape down the bowl, toss in the almonds and mix with a rubber spatula just to blend.
8. Scrape half the dough onto one side of the baking sheet. Using your fingers and a rubber spatula or scraper, work the dough into a log about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches wide. The log will be more rectangular than domed, and bumpy, rough and uneven.
9. Form a second log with the remaining dough on the other side of the baking sheet. The logs will spread during cooking, so make sure there is a solid amount of space between them.
10. Bake for 20 minutes, rotating once, or until the logs are just becoming lightly golden on top but still soft and springy to the touch.
11. If the two logs have starting touching, use a pastry scraper or long serrated knife to quickly separate the logs.
11. Transfer the baking sheet to a wire rack and cool the logs on the baking sheet for 30 minutes.
12. If you turned off the oven, bring it back up to 350 degrees F.
13. Using a wide metal spatula, transfer the logs to a cutting board and, with a pastry scraper or a long serrated knife, trim the ends and cut the logs into 3/4-inch-thick slices.
14. Return the slices to the baking sheet — this time standing them up like a marching band — and slide the sheet back into the oven. If you are concerned about even baking, rotate the thicker and less baked slices with the more golden slices on the pan prior to re-baking.

15. Bake the biscotti for another 20 minutes, or until they are golden and firm. Transfer them to racks and cool to room temperature.

Peppermint Mocha Cookies

These cookies are almost like a tiny little brownie topped with peppermint butter cream. I make them every year for Christmas as my official "festive" cookie. They're a bit more unusual than your standard sugar cookie or gingerbread cookie, but feel right at home among their more traditional holiday brethren, and round out any good cookie exchange with a rich chocolate option. And if you want them outside the month of December, just omit the food coloring, or go with red or blue instead of the admittedly Christmas driven green. They're not that hard to make. They look adorable, and you get to play around with a mallet. Who doesn't want to play with a mallet?

Speaking of which, when crushing your candy canes, try and really crush them down into a fine crumb of candy cane. You want the cookies to have a bit of texture and crunch, but not have such large pieces that they get caught in your teeth while eating. The color of the candy cane will still be evident against the butter cream backdrop. Make sure to ice then top immediately, instead of icing a large number then going back to top with candies. The frosting will start to harden very quickly, and once that happens, the peppermint won't stick. It is easiest to just got frost, top, plate. Frost. Top. Plate. If pressed for time, the cookies can be made the day before you frost. Store in an air-tight plastic container along with a slice of torn up sandwich bread. The sandwich bread prevents the cookies from drying out and keeps the chew. They may stick together very slightly when stacked. This is fine. Remember, you are frosting the cookies, so small blemishes on the top will be washed a way in a delicious layer of mint frosting. Frosting covers all. Be generous with the frosting. It's meant to be a thick, almost cake-like layer of frosting.

The cookies will not spread very much in the oven. They are meant to be about the size of a silver dollar.

Cooking Time: 30 minutes active, 30 minutes inactive Makes 24-30 small cookies

Ingredients

Cookies
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2   cup cocoa powder
1/2   teaspoon baking soda
1/2   teaspoon table salt
8      tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), softened but still cool
3/4   cup granulated sugar
1/2   cup brewed espresso or strong coffee, cooled

1/2   teaspoon espresso powder (optional)
1      teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting
6     tablespoons unsalted butter , softened
2     cups confectioners' sugar
2     tablespoons milk
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract (or to taste)
3 to 4 drops green or red food coloring 
4      peppermint candy canes (or about 10-12 peppermint wheels), crushed into crumbs

Instructions

1. For the cookies: Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 large (18 by 12-inch) baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt together into medium bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl with rubber spatula.
4. Dissolve espresso powder into cold coffee. (If coffee is warm, dissolve espresso powder, then place measuring cup of coffee in a larger measuring cup serving as an ice water bath to cool quickly.
5. Add cooled espresso and vanilla and beat at medium-low speed until combined. Don't worry if it looks curdled, that will fix itself when you add the dry ingredients. Scrape down bowl.



Don't worry, it'll work itself out.



It may curdle when coffee is added

6. With mixer on low speed, gradually add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.
7. Roll dough into thirty 1-inch balls. Place 15 balls on each prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 2 inches apart. 
8. Bake until just set, rotating sheets from front to back and top to bottom halfway through baking, 8 to 11 minutes. 

9. Cool cookies on sheets for 2 minutes; transfer with metal spatula to wire rack to cool completely, at least 30 minutes. (Cookies can be stored in airtight container with a torn piece of sandwich bread or a couple of sugar cubes for up to 4 days.)
10. For the frosting: Take the candy canes, and place inside a gallon ziploc bag. Seal the bag tightly, then place on a cutting board and strike with the smooth, wide side of a mallet until the candy canes become a fine powder. Set aside while you make the frosting.
11. With an electric mixer, beat butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 1 minute. 
12. With mixer running, add confectioners' sugar a 1/4 cup at a time and beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. 
13. Scrape down bowl and beat at medium speed until mixture is fully combined and starting to cream, about 3 minutes. Scrape down bowl.
14. Add milk, peppermint extract, and food coloring and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down bowl once or twice. 
15. Frost a cooled cookie with a rubber spatula or angled spatula and immediately sprinkle with crushed mints. Place on a plate for the frosting to harden, and continue frosting the rest of the cookies. (Once frosted, cookies are best served within 3 days.)

Pignoli Cookies (Pinenut Cookies)

Recently, TK and I got to go on the trip of a lifetime to Tuscany. This was my first time in Italy, and now, NOW, I get why everyone talks about Italian cookies and why they are the best things in the world. Now I understand why they are not the same as the powdered sugar balls you get every Christmas, and that deceptively simple looking cookies pack a ton of surprising and wonderful flavor. The answer, boys and girls, is almond paste.

I dislike Marzipan. I think it is overly sweet and somehow texturally off. So perhaps it is not surprising that I have shied away from almond paste. Maybe I just needed to grow into it. You can't always expect a nine-year old to get a subtle thing like almond paste. But now, I have figured out that almond paste is both what makes my favorite coffee cake from Germany delicious AND the secret behind pine nut cookies. You don't necessarily look at the pine nut, flavor enhancer to pestos everywhere, as a sweet thing. But it really works in combination with the sweet almond paste and meringue of the egg whites.

You would be amazed at how difficult it is to find good Italian recipes. There is a glut on the market for all things Italian, but so many of them are based off of what Americans consider Italian food to be, or even worse, as easy food for people who don't know how to cook. Every corner than can be cut is cut. This is not to say that my quest for a good Italian cookbook can't be met. I'm just really really intimidated by what happens when you search for "Italian cookbook" on Amazon, and the reviews are no help because so many of the people looking are not really looking what I'm looking for. I don't want easy Italian food. I'm not really interested in the best marinara. I want to learn how to make that delicious pear and ricotta cake that blew my mind.

So here is my first attempt at pignoli cookies. There are both crispy and chewy varieties of pignoli cookies. I fell in love with the chewy, straight up almond paste ones that were a ball of pine nuts. It seems much easier to find recipes for the crispy and more meringue ones. This are the other, more chewy cookie. I am pushing it away from the original recipe and towards my goal by adding more almond paste and cooking for less time (the main difference between a chewy pignoli cookie and a crispy one). So just trust me on this one, and try this recipe. 

Make sure you get pure almond paste, not marzipan, and NOT almond filling. Also lean towards the almond paste that comes in a can or tub rather than the tube, which tends to be dryer. This is surprisingly easy to make, as it is a food processor recipe. The dough will be extremely sticky. it'll stick to your fingers, everything. The pine nuts will give it its shape and cookie-ness. Don't worry if it sticks to your hand. These cookies mean business, and are a messy affair.

Pignoli (Pine Nut) Cookies

After blending with sugar/flour

Chunky from the can

Ingredients

12 oz of pure Almond paste (NOT Almond filling and NOT Marzipan)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup of powdered sugar

1/4 cup of flour

3 egg whites, lightly beaten

10-12 oz Pignoli (Pine Nuts)

Cooking Time: 30 minutes active, 40 minutes inactive Makes 24-30 cookies


Instructions

1. Add almond paste to food processor. Paste will break up in chunks. Pulse processor several times then grind until chunks are completely broken up. 
2. Pulse the powdered sugar and the flour into the almond paste. Blend until mixture looks like very rough sand. 
3. Beat egg whites lightly for 1-2 minutes in small bowl with whisk.
4. Add egg whites and process until dough comes together.
5. Scoop out a small piece of dough (about a small spoon). It will be very sticky. Slide off of spoon and roll in pine nuts till completely covered, and place 2" apart on cookie sheet lines with parchment paper. 
6. Bake 300 degrees about 25 min. Remove to wire racks to cool, then keep covered. 
7. Freeze cookies if you're not going to use them right away, then take out as needed.

Happy Baking!!!