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One-Bowl Mocha and White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Simply Sensational Cookies by Nancy Baggett is just chuck full of ideas you have to try. Have to. What kind of dessert person are you? Honor that addiction. Show some pride. And, get some variety in to boot!
Mocha is flavor many of us relish or need. Witness those lines at Starbucks each morning. Mocha and chocolate requires some finesse. It turns out, that it is white chocolate that is best married to mocha.
These cookies are rapidly created in one bowl using the microwave for some initial heating and mixing. It’s the perfect last-minute dessert or a way to fend off the kids in the afternoon. Give them the recipe and let them learn how to use the microwave. The cookies are fool proof, the batter is delicious, and the memories of these gems will linger a long, long time.
One-Bowl Mocha White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: about 30 2 ½-inch cookies
Ingredients:
- ¾ cup [1 ½ sticks] unsalted butter cut into chunks
- 2 ½ ounces unsweetened chocolate, coarsely broken up or chopped
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon instant espresso powder dissolved in 1 tablespoon warm water
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ⅓ teaspoon salt
- 1 ½ cu unbleached all-purpose white flour, plus more if needed
- 10-11 ounces of white chocolate morsels
Preparation:
Position a rack in the middle of the oven; preheat to 350°F. Grease several baking sheets or coat with nonstick spray; or line them with baking parchment.
In a large microwave-safe bowl with the microwave on 50 percent power, melt the butter and chocolate just until mostly melted, stopping and stirring every 30 seconds. Then vigorously stir until the butter and chocolate completely melt. Thoroughly stir in the sugar and espresso-water mixture. Let cool till warm. Vigorously stir in the egg, vanilla, baking powder, and salt until the mixture is well blended and smooth. Stir in the flour and white chocolate morsels just until evenly incorporated. If the dough is slightly soft, let stand to firm up for 5 to 10 minutes. Stir in 1 tablespoon more flour to stiffen the dough more, if necessary.
Using a 1”-inch-diameter spring-loaded ice cream scoop or heaping soupspoon, drop the dough into mounds about 2 ½inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake (middle rack) one sheet at a time for 9 to 12 minutes, until the cookies are lightly tinged with brown and not quite firm when pressed in the middle.
Let stand until the cookies firm up just slightly, about 2 minutes. Using a wide spatula, transfer the cookies to wire racks. Cool completely. Cool the baking sheets between batches or the cookies may spread too much.
Source: Simply Sensational Cookies by Nancy Baggett
One-Pot Honey-Oatmeal Cookies
The introduction to Simply Sensational Cookies by Nancy Baggett has three subpoints:
- · Times change.
- · People change.
- · Cookies do, too.
This is not just another cookie book. This is a very wonderful, refreshing, and important book. It’s about more than mere change. This book revolutionizes cookies. And in the course of doing that, you’ll find an array of absolutely fantastic new cookie concepts.
A distinguished writer, Nancy recounts the cookie culture she grew up in. The same as mine. You’d make chocolate chip cookies, maybe a double batch, but use just a few chocolate chips because, as Nancy says, those were frugal times. This book has a “scandalous” recipe with 1 pound of chocolate for 30 chocolate chip cookies.
And they happen to be very good.
Nancy has looked at old cookie ideas and recipes and reworked them. The flavors are bigger and better. To save time, she has many easy one-bowl recipes. A food processor is a vital tool for her, both to save time and to create textures that were simply unknown a generation or two ago.
Ah, texture. Nancy is very big on texture. She wants cookies that snap when they should, shatter properly if they are supposed to be brittle, and are dangerous to your clothing if they are of the gooey variety. She has many of those.
Literally, Nancy has tackled cookies from every perspective: look, feel, taste, ingredients, preparation, and flavor components. The recipe below, One-Pot Honey-Oatmeal Cookies, is a great example. First of all, they taste wonderful. Second, they are damn near indestructible. These are the perfect cookies to put in your backpack or bicycle pack and take on a journey. Two hours in, when you need energy, these are lovely ways to boost you up. And, they are beautiful.
When you make them, there’s a step there to let the dough just rest for 5-10 minutes. That’s the top left picture up there. I never saw that in a cookie recipe before, and it’s quite the example of how Nancy has truly developed new techniques here to bring these cookie flavor and textures to perfection.
Oh, flavors? Here are some of the recipes I have marked to try [and to blog, don’t worry]:
- · Best Every Dulce De Leche Bars [they are!]
- · Cranberry Orange Spice Shortbreads
- · Crispy Soft Cinnamon Vanilla Monster Cookies
- · Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
- · Chocolate, Grapefruit and Tarragon Wafers
- · Cranberry and Fig Conserve-Stuffed Blue and Cheddar Cheese Cocktail Sandwich Cookies
There are sweet cookies here, savory. Dessert items and wonders to grace an appetizer tray. The final section on Frostings, Filling, and Finishing Touches is filled with ideas to last a lifetime.
You’ll see many of Nancy’s cookies here over the next year. But, why wait? Get your copy of Simply Sensational Cookies now and join the revolution.
One-Pot Honey-Oatmeal Cookies
Yield: 40 2 ½ inch cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 ½ cups [3 sticks] unsalted butter, cut into chunks
- 1 ⅔ cups packed dark or light brown sugar
- ⅓ cup clover honey or other mild honey
- ¼ teaspoon regular table salt or ¾ teaspoon coarse salt, divided
- 4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 ¾ cups unbleached all-purpose white flour
- 2 cups of water
Preparation:
Baking Preliminaries: Position a rack in the middle of the oven; preheat to 325°F. Generously grease several large baking sheets or coat with non-stick spray.
In a very large saucepan or pot, melt the butter until fluid over medium heat, stirring. Remove from the heat. Stir the sugar, honey and salt into the butter. If using regular table salt, add it all; if using coarse crystal salt, add ⅛ teaspoon and reserve the remainder for garnishing the cookies.
Continue stirring the mixture, mashing out any lumps of sugar until completely smooth. Thoroughly stir in the oats and baking powder. Let the dough stand until cooled slightly.
Stir the our into the dough until evenly incorporated. Let it stand to firm up for 5 to 10 minutes. Using soupspoons or a1 ½-inch diameter ice cream scoop, scoop up the dough and drop in even 1 ½ inch mounds, spacing two inches apart. Pad down the mounds into 2-inch rounds. If garnishing with coarse salt, add a few crystals to the cookie tops.
Bake [middle rack] one sheet at a time for 10 to 13 minutes or until the cookies are brown at the edges and lightly tinged on top. Watch carefully, as they may brown very rapidly at the end.
Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks. Let the cookies firm up for about 2 minutes. Using a wide spatula, transfer the cookies to the wire racks. Let cool completely.
These can be stored airtight for up to 1 week. They can be frozen, airtight, for one month.
Source: Simply Sensation Cookies by Nancy Baggett
