Filed under: Dessert
I made these Neiman Marcus Chocolate Chip Cookies on Friday for the first time, and they will now be my go-to chocolate chip cookie — I think they are perfect. If you’ve never heard the urban legend about this $250 recipe, go to Snopes.
The key to the cookie is the espresso powder, which doesn’t lend a coffee flavor but rather tempers the sweetness of the sugar. It’s not that the cookies are less sweet, but rather more deep and well-rounded in their sweetness, not raw- or sharp-tasting. I used Medaglia D’Oro Caffè Espresso Instant — I love their regular espresso coffee so I figured the instant couldn’t be too bad. I used slightly less chips than the recipe called for, only because that’s what I had on hand.
As you can see, my cookie dough spread a lot. I over-softened the butter in the microwave, and didn’t throw it back in the fridge to firm up a bit before baking. I also used too much dough for each cookie — I used a heaping soup spoon, thinking it would be similar to the recipe’s 2 tablespoon measure, but I think it may have been almost double that. Next time I’ll just use a heaping teaspoon, and make sure my dough is not too warm.
Regardless, the cookies are awesome. Everyone that’s had one has loved it — even J. agreed they are the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever baked.
May 3, 2009
This is my last Passover recipe for 2009, and it served as a birthday cake earlier in the week. Originally I thought I’d be serving chicken for dinner, so I was looking for a pareve dessert. That limited my options, but I found this Passover Coconut Cake that looked like a good starting point. Although my meal later changed to a vegetarian Noodle Kugel, I stuck with the idea of a non-dairy cake.
I found that the finely shredded, dried coconut suspended in the whipped egg whites took on a cake-crumb consistency, which was a welcome result. The cake was not too sweet, which I like. The original recipe calls for baking it in a 9×13-inch pan, but I used two round cake pans instead.
I’d planned to melt and drizzle some chocolate on the top of the cake before serving, but we wound up eating it as a mid-afternoon snack instead of after dinner, and I was caught unprepared. Everyone liked it anyway (most importantly, the birthday girls enjoyed it). A ganache would probably be good on top, and I think the batter would work well as muffins.
Macaroon Cake
Adapted from Passover Coconut Cake
6 eggs, separated
1 c. white sugar
2 c. unsweetened, dessicated coconut
8 oz. dark chocolate, chopped (or about a cup of chocolate chips)
Preheat oven to 350° F.
With an electric mixer, beat eggs whites until soft peaks form — about 5 minutes. Add sugar and beat another minute or so. Set aside.
In a small bowl, beat yolks until they begin to lighten in color. Mix in coconut and chocolate. Then fold mixture into the egg whites and sugar.
Grease 2 round cake pans with non-stick spray. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the tops are lightly browned and a toothpick stuck in the center comes out clean.
April 16, 2009
Lauren passed this recipe on to me, and said that it’s requested throughout the year, not just on Passover. That’s pretty high praise! As I assembled my ingredients this afternoon, I realized I’d bought chocolate that was close to, but not quite, what the recipe called for. It still turned out wonderfully, very fudgey with just the right amount of flaky crumb. My only complaint is that the fully-cooked brownie does feel a little greasy (not a surprise considering the amount of butter). This is not your typical Passover recipe, that’s for sure.
Passover Triple-Chocolate Brownies
Adapted from White Chocolate Brownies in Passover Made Easy
2 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 c. unsalted butter (2 sticks)
4 eggs
2 c. sugar
1¼ c. cake meal
½ c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 3.5-oz. white chocolate hazelnut praline bar, chopped
Preheat oven to 350° F.
In a small saucepan, melt bittersweet chocolate and butter over low heat, whisking to combine. Set aside to cool, about 10 minutes (otherwise you’ll cook the eggs when you add it to the batter!).
In a medium bowl, beat eggs with sugar. Add cake meal and stir to combine. Then slowly add chocolate and butter mixture until a thick, uniform batter is created. Stir in chocolate chips and white chocolate.
Spread batter into an 8×8-inch pan and bake on the middle rack of your oven for about 50 minutes, until the center of the brownies feels firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow brownies to cool completely, and cut into 16 pieces.
April 12, 2009
This recipe comes from an article in the Washington Post, which reprinted Nigella Lawson’s Damp Apple and Almond Cake. I followed the recipe exactly except that I used olive oil to grease the pan rather than canola oil. Many Jews do not consider canola oil kosher for Passover, as it falls under the category of kitniyot.
Because this recipe uses almond flour as its base rather than cake or matzah meal, it doesn’t taste like a typical Passover cake, and that’s a good thing. This is a very easy recipe to make, though it tested the capacity of my Cuisinart, the user manual of which recommends only about 4 cups of liquid batter be processed at a time. I went over that recommendation, and barely made everything fit.
I’d recommend letting the cake cool for a half hour before releasing the springform pan (the recipes says 10 minutes). Also, make sure to run a knife around the edge of the pan before you remove it — I had a small issue with the edges falling away from the cake. Overall it held together nicely, though.
I found the flavor of this cake less intense than I expected. I would have liked to taste more almond, and I wonder if grinding the almonds myself (or toasting them first?) would have accomplished this. (I used Bob’s Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour, which I found at Mrs. Green’s, our local Whole Foods-type market.)
Despite the absence of chocolate in this recipe, it went over well at our seder and those who liked it did not agree with my assessment of it being a little bland. I would make it again, for Passover or if I needed a gluten-free dessert.
Isn’t the single slice pretty, sitting on my mom’s Passover dishes? (more…)
April 10, 2009
I was cleaning out my pantry the other day and I realized I had small amounts of a bunch of ingredients — almond butter, slivered almonds, and brown sugar (two open packages, I hate that!). I decided to try my recipe for Almond Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies again, adjusting it to help clean out my pantry. I liked the result — a tender, somewhat flaky cookie (unexpected, since there’s no white flour used) with nice flavors of both the nut butters and the chocolate chips.
The boys, plus a friend who was here for a playdate, all enjoyed them.
Nutty Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies
1 c. butter, at room temperature
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1/2 c. almond butter
1/2 c. peanut butter
1/2 c. slivered almonds
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 c. whole wheat flour
1½ c. quick-cooking oats
1 c. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350° F.
With a hand mixer, beat butter, almond and peanut butter, and sugars in a large bowl until creamy. Add remaining ingredients EXCEPT for chocolate chips, mixing on low speed until ingredients are well incorporated. Then by hand, mix in the chocolate chips.
Drop by heaping teaspoonsful onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, until cookies are just golden. Cool slightly before removing from the pan.
January 21, 2009
I combined a dark chocolate fudge cake mix, a tub of milk chocolate frosting, and some Oreos to create this double-decker dessert for J.’s birthday. What you can’t see is that in between the two layers of cake is a little bit of frosting and a layer of whole Oreos, so each individual slice had a surprise cookie inside. I am not very good at icing a cake, but the crushed Oreos around the edge covered all my mistakes, and I wound up with a nice-looking finished product. And a delicious one, at that. Most importantly, the birthday boy loved it!
January 11, 2009
I had planned to make pizza with the boys tonight anyway, so it worked out perfectly that we wound up with our pizza pro friends for a dinner playdate.
It’s interesting to look back at the pictures from earlier this year — neither of my boys put sauce on their pizza then, but tonight both wanted to. They were excited for the whole process of creating their own dinner. And although G. had a brief meltdown because his pizza was not the shape he expected, he recovered and they ate pretty well.
Vicki and Rhys came up with the fun idea of a dessert pizza! It included some ricotta cheese, Saskatoon berry jam (thanks Jodi!), chocolate chips, mini marshmallows, and sprinkles. It was a seriously gooey and almost unbearably sweet, but well-received anyway.
Want to see it cooked? (more…)
December 10, 2008
This recipe, from the December 2008 issue of Real Simple, caught my eye because my mom loves ginger. I thought they’d be a nice twist on a traditional chocolate chip cookie, but unfortunately I think the spice combination was just enough so that they tasted different, but not distinctly spiced. It just made you wonder if something was off.
Of course, they were packed with chocolate chips, so the boys ate them happily (though they never asked for extras when they saw them out on the counter). Otherwise they garnered zero response when served as part of Thanksgiving dessert, so these go squarely in the “fine, but not again” file.
November 30, 2008
I tasted these bar cookies at a fundraiser a few weeks ago thanks to my friend Alison, who donated her significant baking talents to the dessert table that night. The original recipe is from Fine Cooking (December 2006), but if you don’t have a subscription you can find it reprinted in its entirety on rachelleb.com.
I followed the recipe exactly except I subbed an equal amount of Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks instead of butter. This was solely to make the dessert pareve — the bars will be served after our Thanksgiving dinner. I did do a small taste test (just to make sure they turned out OK!) and while they’re not as good as a butter version, they are still yummy and definitely Thanksgiving-worthy. I think the Earth Balance also gives a bit of a greasy appearance and feel to the topping, which isn’t desirable but is an OK trade-off for me to make them go with a meat meal. Still, butter is better.
The recipe is a bit fussy in that it has several steps (make and chill dough, bake once, then add filling and streusel, bake again) but they’re easy to accomplish. Hopefully the rest of my Thanksgiving guests will enjoy them, too.
November 25, 2008
This recipe for Crispy Salted Oatmeal White Chocolate Cookies comes from Deb at Smitten Kitchen, and I’ve been itching to make it for many months. I followed her recipe closely, except I used white whole wheat flour instead of AP (that’s what I keep in the house) and a cup of Ghirardelli Classic White Chips instead of a chopped-up white chocolate bar.
I whole-heartedly agree with Deb’s assertion that “These are scandalously good, yes, scandalously.” I am not a huge chocolate fan, and these chocolate-chip cookie alternatives are the perfect combination of not-too-sweet, a tiny bit salty, and crunchy without falling apart. The salt is not too prominent (you wouldn’t know it was there if I didn’t tell you about it), but it just adds this fabulous extra dimension that makes your eyes roll back in your head. I would say that these are now my all-time favorite cookie, and I have made and eaten many different kinds!
Interestingly, my father-in-law, who is also not much of a chocolate person either, agreed with my excessive gushing about how yummy these are. On the other hand, J. — a die-hard chocolate and super-sweet fan — said they were just “better than no cookies at all.” The boys liked them too, but they’re not too discriminating when it comes to cookies.
One minor alteration for next time: a half cup of the chips would have probably been better — the dough is super-stiff and I could barely get the cup-worth of chips incorporated. Also, I used an inexpensive, finely-ground sea salt from my supermarket, sprinkling a micro-pinch of salt over half the batch of pressed cookies before they went in the oven. The half without salt was very tasty too, but didn’t give me that same pause-from-deliciousness moment that the salted version did.
October 25, 2008
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I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two boys, ages 4 and 6, and husband. Trying to feed my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 