Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

I've got a LOT of chocolate chip cookies on this blog, and right now this one is my favorite. The recipe all started when I wanted to make sugar cookies using my new Heilala Vanilla. Long story short, I had to use some of the dough for chocolate chip cookies, and wow. These were so good. 

Sweet & chewy with layers of caramel and browned butter flavors, with creamy dark chocolate chips. Mmm. A cookie exceptional enough to warrant its own post here. 

Browned Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients 

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
• 1/4 cup Crisco
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 tablespoons water
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar 
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ teaspoon baking soda
• 2 ½ cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 10 ounce bag of Nestlé Dark Chocolate Morsels
• 1 ½ cups chopped pecans (optional)

Instructions

1. Prepare the browned butter by placing 4 tablespoons of the butter into a small heat-safe mixing bowl.  Place the remaining stick of butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir with a silicone spatula until it's foamy on top and you can see the butter solids turn a deep golden brown color. Pour hot browned butter over the 4 tablespoons of butter in the small bowl. Allow to cool completely before proceeding. 

2. Cream cooled butter, Crisco, egg, vanilla, & water in a medium size bowl. (This may take a little while for the wet ingredients to emulsify and turn creamy.)

3. In a large bowl, stir together with a whisk the sugars, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and flour.

4. Combine the creamed mixture with the dry mixture just until it comes together (do not over mix). Add the chocolate chunks and pecans & mix to incorporate.  Refrigerate dough two hours or over night. (I also scoop all my dough and freeze the dough balls on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.  Once frozen, I transfer them to a gallon zip-top bag.)

5. Preheat oven to 375°F. Scoop dough into balls that are about 2 tablespoons and place them one inch apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet. 

6. Bake 8-11 minutes, or until puffed and light brown around the edges.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies

Butter -- some browned, some not

All of the wet ingredients get mixed together first.

I love seeing all of the flecks of browned butter at this stage.

Sugars, flour, salt, soda, and baking powder get mixed.

Nestlé Dark Chocolate Chips are my current fav.

I almost always scoop and freeze my choc chip cookie dough.

Some of these have nuts and some don't. All delicious though.

Pecan Praline Butter Refrigerator Cookies

Pecan Praline Butter Refrigerator Cookies

This recipe started with Cupcake Jemma's Vanilla Pecan Cinnamon Buns. I've made those two or three times, and they are spectacular. Part of the recipe involves the pecan praline butter that's in this recipe. You end up with leftover pecan praline butter, so I decided to mix some into one of my favorite cookie recipes, Colorful Sugar Cookies/Chocolate Chip Shortbread. 

This was the result, and I love them. They are crisp, buttery, nutty, sweet. Mmm. So good. 

So, if you love pecans and crisp cookies, these may be for you.

Pecan Praline Butter Refrigerator Cookies

Ingredients:

• 14 tablespoons butter, softened

• ½ cup pecan praline butter*

• ¾ cup granulated sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• 1 egg

• 2 ¼ cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

• ¾ teaspoon baking soda

• ½ cup chopped toasted pecans

Instructions:

• Cream butter, pecan praline butter, and sugar.

• Add vanilla and egg.  

• Sift dry ingredients together and add to mixture.

• Stir in nuts.

• Divide dough in half and form each half into a log and wrap in parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour and up to a week.

• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

• Unwrap the dough log and using a sharp knife, cut ⅜” to ¼” slices.

• Arrange slices about an inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.

• Bake at 325°F for approximately 18 minutes. 

• Remove to wire rack to cool.  Then store in an airtight container.

  
  

  Makes about 4 dozen small cookies

*Pecan Praline Butter:

• 150g toasted pecan halves

• 150g light brown sugar

• pinch salt

Place a non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Add the 150g light brown sugar. Heat sugar until it melts. You can stir it with a silicone spatula, but be careful to scrape off any sugar build up along the way. Sugar needs to be completely liquid. Add the 150g pecan halves and pinch of salt to the melted sugar and stir to coat the pecans. Once pecans are basically covered in molten sugar, carefully scrape all of it onto a parchment-lined pan and allow to cool completely.

Once praline is completely cool, break it apart into the bowl of a food processor, and process until you have a relatively smooth paste. Scrape into a bowl or clean pint size mason jar and set aside.

Makes about 1 cup

I keep the leftovers in a mason jar in the fridge.

Peach Hand Pies

Peach Hand Pie

Peach Hand Pies

I really wish I had something interesting enough to write here, but honestly, this is just another great recipe that I want to be able to keep track of, so here it goes on the blog.

INGREDIENTS

Crust:

• 225 g all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal measurement; for Morton's Kosher use rounded half teaspoon)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 90 g butter, frozen 
• 100 g Crisco shortening, preferably cold
• 120 g ice water

Peach Filling:

• 100 g white sugar
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 3 medium/large peaches, cut into 1 cm cubes or smaller

Topping:

• 1 egg for egg wash
• 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar

INSTRUCTIONS

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Crust: 

• In a medium sized bowl place the flour, sugar, and kosher salt. Stir with a whisk to combine.
• Take the frozen stick of butter and roll it in the flour mixture, then grate it directly into the flour mixture. Toss lightly to coat the grated butter with the flour.
• Cut the Crisco into thin slices, or chunks about 1-2 teaspoons in size. Toss with the flour and butter and pinch the larger pieces so they are approximately 1/2 to 1 teaspoon size chunks. 
• Pour the ice water into the mixture and use a fork to stir and toss the mixture. Once all water has been added, use a bowl scraper or large silicone spatula to fold dough and incorporate all of the ingredients. 
• Once it's mostly combined, use your hands to kneed lightly to create a cohesive ball of dough.
• Place dough onto a lightly floured surface. 
• Press and form it into a sort of square and then roll it into a rectangle that's about 3/8 inch thick. 
• Fold each short side up the the middle and then fold in half so you have a four-layer rectangle. 
• Roll the rectangle out again to 3/8 inch thickness and fold again the same way.
• Wrap the folded dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

• Remove the dough out of the fridge and cut it almost oil half -- you want one of the pieces to be slightly larger than the other (You need to top pieces to be larger than the bottom or accommodate the peaches).
• On a lightly floured surface, roll the smaller piece of dough into a rectangle. Using a ruler and a pizza cutter, trim off as little as possible to even out the edges. Mine was 22 cm by 30 cm after I trimmed off the edges. It doesn't have to be exact, but you want to end up with 6 decent sized hand pies. Cut that rectangle into 6 equal rectangular/square pieces. Place on a parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet and place in the fridge.

• Roll out the other piece of dough in the same way, but it will be larger. Trim to even out the edges. Mine was about 25 cm by 33 cm after trimming. Then cut into 6 equal rectangles/squares. Cut 4-6 vent holes into these top pieces. 

Filling:

• Prepare the peaches at this point. Don't do it before because you'll loose too much juice if you let the peaches sit too long. 
• Stir together the sugar, corn starch, and kosher salt.
• Place peaches and lemon juice in a medium bowl and stir. Then add the sugar mixture and stir to incorporate. 

Assemble and Bake:

• Build one pie at a time. Spoon about 1/4 cup or so of peaches onto the center of one of the bottom rectangles/squares. Just make sure you leave a 3/8-inch border free of peaches and juice. Use a pastry brush to brush some egg wash around the edge. 
• Place one of the top pieces over the peaches, stretching a bit if needed to make the edges of the top match the bottom piece. Use a floured fork to crimp all of the edges. 
• Repeat with the remaining dough and filling. 

• Brush the tops of all pies with the egg wash and then sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
• Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes, or until pies are golden brown.
• Place pan on a cooling rack and allow pies to cool at least 10 minutes before enjoying.

Makes 6 hand pies

Berry Crumble Bars

Berry Crumble Bars

I have Instagram and Feasty Travels to thank for this recipe keeper. Sugar cookie crust with a thin layer of berry jam, and an oat crumble topping. Genius. I adjusted this recipe by adding a little salt to the cookie bottom and the crumble topping, and I also used mixed berry jam for mine. I think just about any jam, especially homemade, would taste great in these bars. 

The texture of these bars is similar to that of a brownie: edges are thick and chewy, and the center pieces are moist and tender. I think they're the perfect level of sweet, and just super flavorful with the berries, oats, butter, brown sugar, and vanilla. Mmm. Give 'em a go.

Berry Crumble Bars

Adapted from Feasty Travels


Ingredients:

Sugar Cookie Crust

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling

• 1 cup berry jam (I used mixed berry jam)

Crumble Topping

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup rolled oats
• 1/3 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons butter, melted

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

• Line an 8"x8" pan with parchment paper and set aside.

• In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until fluffy.

• Add the flour, baking powder and salt and mix just until combined.

• Spread cookie dough evenly into bottom of prepared pan.

• Stir the berry jam until it's loose, and then use an offset spatula or back of a small spoon to spread evenly across the cookie layer in the pan.

• Make the crumble topping by first mixing all of the dry ingredients in a medium size bowl. Add the melted butter and mix with a spoon and then with your hands. Squeeze the mixture a bit to get some chunky crumbles.

• Sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over the jam.

• Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 48-53 minutes, or until top is well browned, and edges have puffed up the sides of the pan. (The edges end up pretty chewy, like brownie edges, and the center is more soft and tender.)

• Remove pan to a cooling rack to cool for about 15 minutes before pulling out of the pan by the parchment paper and setting on the rack to cool completely.

• Cut into bars when completely cool. Enjoy. 

• Store leftovers in an airtight container.

I ended up with quite a few tools to wash.