Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made chocolate chip cookies again. But this time they were big and I put ice cream between them.

Sunday is my day off, so I put in the hard yards for 45 minutes then sat back like a king and savoured every bite. But it wasn't as civilized as I just made it sound. It was more like a frantic face-stuffing.

Ice Cream Sandwiches
Make these Chocolate Chip Cookies, but halve that recipe.
Chill the dough to make it nice and firm, if necessary.
Make four big cookies.
After they'd cooled, I used the lid of the ice cream container as a mould for the ice cream (the lid of So Good Soy ice cream is the perfect size).

Sandwich the ice cream between the cookies, roll the sides in sprinkles, nuts, or chocolate chips, and put them in the freezer for just a lil while.

Cool Things

I baked Chocolate Chip Cookies today.

Yeah, I know, BOoooOOoooo, boring, been done, spice things up!

They're really good, though.

Here they are:

And, I would also like to show you my baking box. My mom has always had a baking box for as long as I can remember. It's more like a Baking Box than a baking box... it was the be-all and end-all of baking supplies, a bottomless box of tricks waiting to be wielded in the kitchen. It's just a shoebox, but I'm obsessed with it.

Lastly, I got a little book to write my recipes in. I'm consolidating all the recipes I've jotted down in various Official Recipe Notebooks.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Blossoms)

I've been thinking about peanut butter a lot lately. Thinking about putting it in my mouth. A few nights ago, my friends and I had a girl's night and I felt I ought to bring something sweet for after the veggie burritos. I decided on peanut butter squares, I made them, and they sucked. To be fair to the squares, they tasted quite nice, but the consistency and appearance were downright disappointing. So, I will not give you the recipe, nor will I write another lick about it. I'll provide you with a photo, though:

The failure left me feeling unfulfilled. So, onto another peanut butter treat! A tried and true and tremendous recipe for peanut butter cookies. It's my Mom's, and the original recipe is actually for Peanut Butter Blossoms. However, most unfortunately, Hershey's Kisses aren't available Down Under (except at USA Foods, where the going rate for a little bag containing five Kisses is $5 or something), so when I make them they're just plain old peanut butter cookies.

They're never as amazing as Mom's, of course. Mom isn't as enamoured of baking as myself, but when the mood strikes and she whips up a batch of something, they're always perfect! She must have inherited that from my Grandpa, who actually makes the actual best chocolate chip cookies in the actual world.

But mine are still good.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Blossoms)
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening (my mom always uses shortening, I use butter/margarine)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sugar (plus a little extra sugar for rolling)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
2 tablespoons milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 F (175 C) (after the dough is chilled)
2. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl
3. In a large bowl, mix shortening/butter, egg, vanilla, sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter, and milk
4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing all the while
5. Chill the dough for 2 hours or more

6. Roll into perfect little balls and roll the perfect little balls in sugar
7. Bake 8-10 minutes

8. If you are doing Blossoms, press a Hershey's Kiss into the center of each cookie right after they come out of the oven

I bet some readers cried when they got to instruction #5. I HATE it when I have to chill dough, because I want the cookies now now NOW NOW.

Cookie-Brownies

Or, if alphabetical order is important to you: brownie-cookies. Or, if you like to smoosh words together: browkies, crownies, bookies.

This combines my famous (in some circles) brownie recipe with the chocolate chip cookie recipe in the previous post. Ya make the cookie dough and the brownie batter and ya ker-plop the dough into the batter. In the end, it's a pan of brownie and cookie marble treat.

My friend Jessie recently tried one and said "This must be what angels eat."
I responded, "If you're eating one, it must be so!"
Smooth-talking Bean.

Jo Bean's All-Time Favourite Brownies
1 cup butter, very soft
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
1 cup flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder (I like Nestle!)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Mix sugar, butter, vanilla, eggs
2. In seperate bowl, mix flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt
3. Combine wet and dry

Chocolate Chip Cookies
(This is the recipe from my previous entry, halved)
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Combine flour, baking soda, salt in small mixing bowl
2. Beat butter, sugars, and vanilla
3. Add egg
4. Gradually add dry mixture

Now, to make these two entities into one!

1. Preheat oven to 190 C (350 F)
2. Pour brownie batter into pan
3. Drop dollops of cookie dough randomly into the batter

4. Bake for quite awhile-- my oven is foolish, but they were in there for a good 45 minutes

(If there's a leetle bit of cookie dough left over, either (a) get it from the bowl into your mouth using your finger or (b) make a little cookie pie like I did!)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm going on a picnic tomorrow. So it was absolutely imperative that I bake chocolate chip cookies this evening.

To be honest, I have yet to make the perfect batch of c.c. cookies. But this recipe rates high in my books, and the end results are scrumptious enough to make over and over again. I still tweak it from time to time, and I hope it grows up to be a great recipe that yields countless broods of beautiful cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cup flour (plus a possible 1/4 cup extra if you want a stiffer batter-- I like a nice, thick cookie dough, so I'm all about that extra 1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (115 grams), slightly softened
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup chopped nuts (totally optional)

1. Preheat oven to 375 F (190 C)
2. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt
3. Beat butter, sugars, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl
4. Add eggs
5. Gradually add dry mixture
6. Drop by the tablespoon onto a greased tray (I usually do 12 per tray)
7. Bake 6-8 minutes, or until just the tiniest bit golden along the bottom edges

Dough!


Beginning their transformation from dough balls to cookies


Plate o' treats.


I used the last glob of dough to make a tray of teensy cookies.

Nom nom.