chocolate chips

Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup cream cheese, softened (use cream cheese in a block or spreadable, don't use fat-free, light or whipped)
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
2 1/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks (I used 1 cup chips and 1 1/4 cups chunks)
Directions:

To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, cream cheese (measure it by smooshing it into a 1/4-cup measure), sugars, egg, vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use an electric hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes).
Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
Add chocolate chips and chunks, and beat momentarily to incorporate, or fold in by hand.
Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping mounds (I made 28). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly with your palm, cover with plasticwrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
Preheat oven to 350F, line a baking sheet with a Silpat Non-Stick Baking Mat or spray with cooking spray and place mounds on baking sheet, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet). Bake for 8 to 9 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if slightly undercooked, pale and glossy in the center. Do not bake longer than 10 minutes as cookies will firm up as they cool (The cookies shown in the photos were baked with dough that had been chilled overnight, allowed to come to room temp for 15 minutes, and were baked for 8 minutes, with trays rotated at the 4-minute mark. They have chewy edges with soft, pillowy centers). Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
Cookies will keep airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.

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Christmas Mince Pies

Makes: 24
Preparation time: 15 minutes plus chilling time
Cooking time: 20 minutes
You will need:
500g plain flour
¼ tsp baking powder
185g unsalted butter, chopped
60g caster sugar
2 egg yolks
1–2 tbsp lemon juice or iced water
250g fruit mincemeat
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Icing sugar, to dust (optional)
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Grease two 12-hole small patty pans.
2. Make the pastry by sifting the flour and baking powder into a bowl. Rub in the butter using fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar. Add the egg yolks and enough lemon juice or water to bring the ingredients together to form a dough.
3. Knead the dough gently on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Halve, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes. Roll out one of the pastry parcels between two sheets of baking paper until three to five millimetres thick. Using a six and a half centimetre round cutter, cut out 12 rounds. Place the rounds into the prepared pans.
4. Spoon two teaspoons fruit mince into each. Re-knead the scraps and chill before rolling out again and using to line pans. Repeat with remaining dough, reserving some pastry for decorating the tops.
5. Re-roll scraps of pastry and cut into small stars. Top each pie with a star. Brush with egg white. Bake for 20 minutes, until golden. Leave to cool completely in the pans. Serve warm or at room temperature, dusted with a little icing sugar, if you like.


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Chocolate cookies

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup finely ground toasted pecans
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ingredients for decorating:
• 4 ounces high-quality dark chocolate, such as Lindt, chopped
• 1/3 cup toasted pecans

Instructions

1. How to toast pecans: Toast pecans at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 5 minutes. Watch carefully to make sure they don’t burn – they burn easily. Cool them off completely. To make finely ground nuts, place toasted pecans into food processor and process until finely ground.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar until creamy. Add vanilla and continue beating. Add 1/2 cup finely ground pecans and beat to combine. In a separate bowl, combine flour and salt, then add mixed flour and salt to the creamy butter-sugar mixture. Do not overmix, just enough to combine all ingredients and form a cookie dough.
3. Shape dough into 4 logs of different thickness (to make cookies of different radius – large and small). Wrap each log in plastic wrap and put wrapped cookie dough in the freezer for 30 minutes, then in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven to 325. After cookie dough has been in the freezer and in the refrigerator, unwrap plastic and slice each log into thin cookie slices. Place cookie slices on parchment-lined ungreased baking sheet, spacing 1 inch apart. Bake for about 15 minutes, don’t let the cookies get brown. After about 15 minutes of baking, let cookies cool for a couple of minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely.
5. To decorate cookies, melt chocolate in a small skillet over medium heat, just until chocolate melts, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
6. Using spatula, brush half of the cookie on one side only (no chocolate on the bottom of the cookie) and along the cookie side. Dip the chocolate side of the cookie into coarsely chopped pecans. Return to rack. If you like, You can leave some cookies just covered with chocolate, without pecan crumbs. You can also leave some cookies just plain (no chocolate, no pecans on top of chocolate). Repeat with remaining cookies. Let cookies dry on rack for at least 1 hour, for chocolate to harden. 

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cookies with Amaretto

This cookie dough keeps very well frozen in the freezer, and you can make several smaller logs, so that each time you want to bake cookies, you just take out one log of cookie dough and slice it. The cookies themselves, once baked, can be stored in an air-tight container for a month. My husband and I have been eating these cookies for 2 weeks, and what a pleasure that was!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1 teaspoon amaretto liquor
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (sifted or aerated – see my note below!)
• 3/4 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted

Makes 40 cookies.
Important note about properly measuring flour using measuring cups:
The proper way to measure flour using measuring cups is to aerate it first. This is done either by sifting flour, or aerating it by fluffing it up and whisking it well, then spooning it into the measuring cup, then carefully removing any excess flour with a knife. If you just stick that measuring cup in the bag of flour and scoop some out, you will get a lot more flour than what the recipe calls for. Do aerate the flour, or you will end up with dry dough!
1) In a large mixing bowl, using mixer, beat butter, sugar, amaretto, salt until smooth and creamy.
2) With mixer on low speed, add flour and mix until dough forms.
3) Using rubber spatula, mix in almonds.
4) Form dough into a rectangular log (or 2 rectangular logs). Wrap each log in plastic wrap. Once the log is wrapped in plastic wrap, it is easier to continue shaping it as a more perfectly shaped rectangular log. Freeze the log for 40 minutes in freezer, then 20 minutes in refrigerator.
5) Preheat oven to 325. Using sharp knife, cut dough into 1/4 inch thick slices, place them on un-greased baking sheet 1 inch apart. Bake until edges are golden, about 12 minutes.
6) Cool on baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

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chocolate chip almond cookies

There are many cookie recipes with chocolate chips out there, and here I am, adding yet another one to the pile. There is nothing original in this simple chocolate chip cookie recipe here, and my key ingredients are simplicity and being able to make them fast. This is the recipe I turn to a lot lately, every time I crave for chocolate chip cookies and don’t want to spend more than 10 minutes on preparation.

Ingredients for chocolate chip cookies:

• 1/2 cup almonds (optional)
• 1 stick unsalted butter room temperature
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

1) Preheat oven to 350. Spread almonds on a cookie sheet and toast for about 10-15 minutes to desired toastedness. Let them cool completely.
2) In a food processor, grind toasted almonds until very finely ground, almost powder-like or very fine coarse-meal. Do not over-process, or you will end up with almond butter. Set aside.
3) In a large bowl, using mixer, blend butter with brown sugar until creamy. (Note: The butter should not be melted: I usually take a stick of butter out of refrigerator and keep it at room temperature for about an hour). Because your butter is somewhat soft but not too soft, you might have some chunks of butter flying away while using the mixer, but eventually everything will be creamy.
4) Add vanilla and an egg and continue beating until creamy again. Add finely ground almonds from step 2 and mix to incorporate. Add baking powder, flour, and 1/8 teaspoon salt and beat on low speed for a minute, then on average speed for a couple of minutes until all dry ingredients are incorporated.
5) Using spatula, fold chocolate chips into cookie batter.
6) Place spoonfuls of cookie dough onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes at 350. Mid-time through baking, I like to pull the cookie sheet out and flatten the cookies with the butter knife: because the dough is made with colder butter, they don’t spread out as much, and flattening them out just a bit helps their appearance. Don’t flatten them out too much, though. Remove from oven and let cookies cool. The best texture that I like is achieved when cookies are bright brown on the bottom and not browned on top (baking 15 minutes exactly at 350). If cookies are undercooked and the color on the bottom is too light brown, they will be too soft.

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Soft and chewy chocolate chip cookies

The cookies don’t flatten/spread. That happens if you measured flour incorrectly, packing too much flour into a measuring cup. Do not overpack flour into measuring cup, fluff it up or use scale. It can also happen if you did not allow butter soften enough at room temperature and your butter is too cold. Allow the refrigerated butter soften at room temperature for an hour or so.
Ingredients:

• 2 and 1/4 cups (500 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature (let the butter from refrigerator sit on the counter for about an hour or so)
• 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (220 grams) packed light-brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Makes 3 dozens. You can also easily half the recipe.
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside.
2) Using electric mixer, in a separate bowl combine the butter with both sugars. (The butter should be soft at room temperature, but it should not be liquid – do not use microwave). Beat butter and sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the salt, vanilla, and eggs and continue beating on low speed. Beat until mixture is light, fluffy and very creamy, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined: do not overmix. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3) Form tablespoon-size balls of cookie dough and drop them on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, about 2 inches apart.
4) Bake until cookies are golden and set around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10 minutes. The softer you want your cookies to be, the less amount of time you should bake, that is, no more than 8 minutes. Cookies will still look like they are not set in the middle – that’s OK. They should not be golden brown on top. Once removed from the oven, they will continue cooking for a little bit.
5) Remove from oven, and let them cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Cut cookies if they’ve merged. Transfer to a wire rack or a sheet of foil, and let cool completely.
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.


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