A Chocolate Chip Cookie-off!

With as much time I spend meandering about the baking blogs, I've come across about a gazillion recipes that all look good enough to eat right off the screen and it feels like I'll NEVER have time to try them all- so I decided to have a cookie off and compare two recipes in one night! Plus- TWICE the goodies! YAY! Amy was a wonderful baking compadre (and she has a Kitchenaid, I'm just sayin...). She came armed with her best recipe courtesy of Thomas Keller a al Ad Hoc at Home. The book had some DELICIOUS looking recipes in there and she had tried the recipe before with a smaller, less accomplished mixer. I came armed with a recipe from My Baking Addiction for the Extraordinary Chocolate Chip Cookies. Jamie did not disappoint!

So she graciously let me start with my recipe. Nothing too extravagant in the recipe. The strange thing about chocolate chip cookies is that no recipe is really that far off from any other. All of the recipes have the same basics- butter, brown sugar, flour, sugar, chocolate chips, eggs, you get the idea). The key is in the ratios of all of the wonderful ingredients. I followed the recipe to a T being that it was the first time I was preparing it. I came up with some changes that I would make after tasting them. First things first though- they came out looking like I DID grab them off of the computer screen! It was insane. The taste was also surreal! The only small change I would make is to use either all salted butter, or one stick (of the two). This time was all unsalted and I think I would have like a bit more salt in there. I also would have mixed the chips better, used all dark chocolate chips (or at least part), and maybe a tinge less brown sugar- like one or two tablespoons less. These are all factors of taste though, so give it a go and make the changes you see fit.

Also worth noting: Amy has a wonderfully developed kitchen. I feel like my kitchen is a pre-teen girl going through "the change" and she doesn't quite have all of her confidence or her umm, fully developed equipment :) Amy's kitchen, on the other hand, is a mid 20's woman who's got all of her equipment in check and knows how to use it- especially her mixer. Man oh man! We got to break it in that night and it was quite a treat! Also? She has a cookie scoop. I never knew I needed a cookie scoop having used my hands to form cookies for the past 25 years. What a TREAT! Almost as much as the Kitchenaid! (Who am I kidding- there was no comparison! But it's nice to know that such a small tool can make baking so much easier) Another treat in Amy's kitchen? Silpat FTW!

After a mouth-watering dinner (Thanks Chris!!!) Amy moved into the ring for round two. I was in charge of reading the recipe from the book and played director. Her recipe called for cold butter (not a normal thing for baking since it adds more crunch), and some more delectable dark chocolate (60% and 72%). Let me tell you, the taste was divine. Absolutely untouchable. I definitely felt like I was eating cookies from an upscale chef at an upscale restaurant. It was how chocolate cookies should taste when they grow up! It was as if in this grown-up cookie the flavors aged so gracefully, while the cookies looked like they needed a little face lift (quite literally as they didn't have much leavening to them), but it's what's on the inside that counts folks! And that's exactly where these cookies ended up- on my inside- YUM! Maybe it was the cold butter that left them a smidge flatter than we would have hoped, but upon consumption, there was no question that Thomas Keller knows what he is doing.

My conclusion: If you like a traditional cookie, try Jamie's from My Baking Addiction. If you have a more refined palate- go big or go home and check out Thomas Keller's wonderful cookbook from his restaurant Ad Hoc. Oh, and I am SO very sorry about the lack of photos. I guess I'll have to force my self to do this again! Any takers? I would love to test out some more recipes!

Lemon cupcakes with Berry frosting

So today I decided to give it a go with something completely *gasp* chocolate free. It's obscene, I know. But if you're going without chocolate, why not Lemon with Raspberry and Blackberry frosting? So I used a recipe from my Cake Mix Doctor recipe for the cupcakes and decided to use the berry frosting recipes a la Patisserie Natalie via Cake Spy. Aren't her photos just delightful? I had to try the frostings if only because they were SO pink!

So I got started on the cupcakes and with little fan fare. I think (in hindsight, I KNOW) I filled the cups too high. Dang. They ended up spreading and it look practically like a cake. I then decided to break off all of the spread part just for fun. Also because I was really frustrated with myself that I filled them up so high. So annoying. Later on I realized that I completely forgot to add sour cream. How did I forget an entire CUP of sour cream?! I don't know. The cupcakes ended up tasting fine, but I would have liked to see how they would have tasted with the sour cream, more pound cake ish I think.

Anyways, while those cooled I moved on to frosting. I loved that I got to make the berry sauce from fresh berries. So I did that on the stove and left them in the fridge to cool while I moved on to sifting the powdered sugar. For the record, I hate sifting. I think I hate my sifter though because it's a squeeze sifter which is just means that I run out of patience about 30 seconds into the sifting and end up tapping the sifter until the job is done. Really- I have no patience for the darn thing and find myself longing for my mom's sifter- as old as it is. :)

So I sifted and mixed it with the butter and it was a lovely level of creamy. Then i split the butter and proceeded to split the mixture and make the blackberry portion. After mixing the right amount, I tasted and it tasted like it was practically ALL butter. I ended up adding the extra blackberry mixture that I had and about 2 extra cups of sugar just to minimize the butter enough to taste like frosting. I was pretty bummed.

I learned my lesson and for the raspberry portion I started by taking out about 1/3 of the butter mixture before adding the fruit and powdered sugar. I still ended up adding about 1/2 cup more sugar, just to thicken it up a bit. It tasted really berry-y and delicious and I would probably just use the raspberry frosting next time. I think would actually like to retry the blackberry frosting and cut the butter.

All's well that ends well, and I'm just glad that they ended up tasting fine. I would do both of these recipes again though and I had fun :) Ooo, funny sidenote: I ended up using a wide smooth frosting tip when I piped them and my brother said it looked like Care Bear poop. That's just a wonderful visual! Hah! Enjoy your Care Bear poop cupcakes! :)

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is where I can chronicle my adventures into baking- my new hobby. So far I've been baking 1-2 times a week and working with recipes I've found all over the web. For the most part I bake whatever sounds good- from cupcakes to cakes to cookies and to infinity and beyond. Mostly I've done cakes and had some pretty good luck. My goal is to find the best recipes from all of the sites for the classics like chocolate, red velvet, white, yellow, or funfetti. When I see a recipe that calls my name, I'll bake it.

Today I saw some Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies on Doughmessticated and couldn't help but wonder how that would change the flavor of the most classic cookie in the world! So I tried them out.

The recipe starts with melted butter- FINALLY. Most recipes call for room temperature butter. I'm a major last-minute baker and my butter is cold. As I saw in a baking book somewhere, cold butter makes for a more "cold" consistency- i.e. not as soft and squishy. Anyhoodles, the melted butter means I don't require planning. YAY!

There were more pretty basic ingredients: brown sugar, sugar, flour, baking soda, salt. It also had heavy cream, which I see a lot in cakes, but haven't seen in cookies, so I was intrigued. It called for bread flour and I used AP flour, so that may have something to do with my final product. Now, I don't know the difference between the two types, but I know that there is a difference and I thought it had something to do with leavening, so I added a bit more baking soda and salt, just for fun.

So I whipped these bad boys up and the dough is kinda sticky, but a good consistency. They baked to a pretty thick cookie, which looks amazing. These are easily the prettiest cookies I've made. I think it was the buttermilk that gave them this slightly matte sheen that cracks with the baking process. I swear- they're so pretty they look fake! I was pretty stoked to see them look so pretty, but the first dozen came out a little hard. The recommended timing was 12-17 minutes and I did 13:30 and it was too long. The next batch I did 12:30 and they were beautiful!!! Highly recommended.

Taste test has come through and the flavor is just divine. I just wish they actually were chewy. I haven't tasted the second two batches since they've cooled completely, but I am hoping for a softer result. Maybe it was the AP flour substitution for Bread flour- who knows? Even the well done cookies are just delightful with milk- trust me, I tried.

Best of luck should you try these lovelies! Let me know what works for you!

Original Recipe link