Blue Ribbon Sugar Cookies from the Semisweet Sisters

Blue Ribbon Sugar Cookies - made dough May 12, 2024 from The Semisweet Sisters

4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup + 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon almond extract, optional

sugar for sprinkling

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder; set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.
3. Add eggs and vanilla extract (and almond extract if using), mixing until combined.
4. Add dry ingredients in 3 additions, mixing on low speed after each addition, until combined and no floury streaks remain.
5. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and flatten slightly. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough balls. Bake 11-13 minutes or until edges are set and light golden brown and middles no longer look raw or shiny. 
7. Remove from heat and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. 

As much as I like chocolate, I have to confess, when it comes to cookies and possibly even cakes, I tend to gravitate more towards sugar cookies and vanilla cakes. Good chocolate is rich and a little goes a long way. Good vanilla baked goods just makes me want to keep eating and keep the flavor going. So yeah, greed and gluttony probably play a role in my vanilla preferences.

These sugar cookies are exactly the type of cookie I enjoy the most: they're thick, they taste buttery and vanilla-y and their texture is just perfect. Slightly underbaked so they're dense rather than cakey. I know that's not everyone's preference but it's mine.

The key to good sugar cookies is the quality of ingredients. There is no strong flavor profile like chocolate or spices to overwhelm the cookie. The flavor relies on fresh butter (not margarine or "butter-flavored" shortening) and real vanilla extract. Please don't even side eye imitation extract.

Some people, who are not me, like almond extract. *shudder* Needless to say, I left it out of my baking and liked these (and any) cookies without it. If you need to bring cookies for a summer gathering, these work well since there isn't any frosting or chocolate chips to melt.

Buttermilk Chocolate Cookies from Tasty Kitchen

Buttermilk Chocolate Cookies - made dough June 9, 2024 from Tasty Kitchen 

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup butter, melted

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2/3 cup buttermilk

2 cups chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the cocoa powder and melted butter, mixing on low speed until smooth.
4. Add granulated sugar, vanilla and buttermilk, mixing until combined. Add dry ingredients in two additions, mixing on low speed after each addition, until combined. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Portion into golf-ball size dough balls and flatten slightly into thick discs. Evenly space on baking sheets and bake 10-12 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw.
6. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

This is a good chocolate cookie recipe to make if you have some extra buttermilk that you want to use up. I usually only buy buttermilk when I make my banana bread and I always have extra to use so I keep a pinterest board where I pin recipes that use buttermilk. Whenever I have buttermilk to use up, I go to that board.

I rolled one baking sheet of dough balls in granulated sugar and left the other uncoated. Mostly because I couldn't remember if I was supposed to roll them or not and I didn't bother checking the recipe. You can do either but my taste test cookie was the non-coated one.

These are a bit rich for me. Or else my sweet tooth and my chocoholic tooth were on strike when I tried this. The outside had a slightly crisp shell and the inside was dense and fudgy. All hallmarks of a good chocolate cookie, right? They didn't spread much and had a soft bite. So I think my sweet tooth was just off as I had a couple of bites and was good. I didn't feel the need to finish the cookie. Weird, I know. It's not the cookie, it's me.

Crumbl copycat Cookie Butter Cookies from Lifestyle of a Foodie

Crumbl copycat Cookie Butter Cookie - made dough July 3, 2024 from Lifestyle of a Foodie

1/2 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup cookie butter plus 4 tablespoons, separated

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup cookie butter, for drizzling

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and drop 8 dollops (1/2 tablespoon each) of cookie butter on it. Freeze for 20 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, 1/2 cup cookie butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar. Add egg and vanilla extract; beat to combine.
4. Mix in flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt, beating on low speed until just combined.
5. Scoop into golf-ball size dough balls, make an indent in the center of each one and place a frozen dollop of cookie butter in the middle. Fold the cookie dough over to completely seal in the cookie butter, pinching in any seams; roll into a smooth ball.
6. Evenly space on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for several minutes then drizzle with melted cookie butter. Sprinkle with Biscoff cookie crumbs. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

There was no Crumbl tester this week so I'm not doing a Crumbl run. I've already had the Snickerdoodle Cupcake and Sugar Shark that are on this week's menu. So, instead, I give you this Crumbl copycat from Lifestyle of a Foodie, my go-to site for reliably great cookies, especially Crumbl copycats. 

I didn't fancy these up like the recipe directed in terms of drizzling the baked cookies with melted cookie butter and sprinkling with Biscoff cookie crumbs. I was sending these out in military care packages and the fancy version would've been messy to package and mail.

But that's okay as these were delicious "plain". It's been awhile since I've had the Crumbl original Cookie Butter Lava but according to my notes, the edges were crisp on the original and the middle was soft.

The texture on these was more evenly crisp throughout although they weren't hard and they were still chewy. They didn't quite have that soft texture of a typical Crumbl cookie. But still, taste-wise, they were pretty good. Can you really go wrong with a cookie butter cookie stuffed with cookie butter? I think not.

Do NOT skip the step of dolloping cookie butter and freezing it for the inside of the cookie. It'll make "stuffing" the cookie dough ball much easier. Freeze the dollops (don't be skimpy with those dollops either) then pat a golf-ball-size portion of dough into a ball, flatten into a thick circle, place the frozen dollop of cookie butter in the middle and enclose it with the cookie dough, pinching the edges sealed and rolling into a smooth ball.

You can see above the dough broke open during baking on a couple of them but fortunately, the cookie butter didn't leak out. I don't mind this look and I probably had a little too much cookie butter stuffing for the cookie. I didn't mind that either.

Easy One Bowl Nutella Blondies from Cake Babe

Easy One Bowl Nutella Blondies - made July 4, 2024 from Cake Babe 

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 ounces Nutella

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together melted butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.
4. Whisk in the egg and egg yolk for 30 seconds then add the vanilla extract. Mix to combine.
5. On low speed, add the dry ingredients and mix until just barely combined. Fold in chocolate chips until evenly disbursed.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into an even layer.
7. Drop the Nutella by spoonfuls over the batter and use a butter knife to swirl the Nutella through the batter.
8. Bake for 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in a non-Nutella part comes out clean. Do not overbake.

I have mixed feelings about this bar cookie. On the face of it, it lived up to its claim of being easy to make and using only one bowl. But I wonder if the original recipe directions and ingredients were correct? By that I mean the ingredient list includes the spices but the directions don't mention actually adding them to the batter.

I added them to the directions here to avoid confusion but in hindsight, I think this would've been better without the cinnamon and the nutmeg. Not just because I'm not a fan of nutmeg (cinnamon is fine) but this is better just as a straightforward Nutella blondie. Nutella and a brown sugar blondie stand well on their own and don't need an additional flavor profile of spices. Not to me anyway.

I baked this for exactly 25 minutes and they were fine, not overbaked, but they were cakey. If I'd taken them out a couple of minutes earlier, they might've had a more "fudgy" texture, which I would've preferred.

All in all, this was good but I'd give the nod of the Nutella-Swirled Chocolate Chip Blondie recipe from Averie Cooks as more of a favorite.

Crumbl Cookies review #76: Pumpkin Cake (tester)

Crumbl Cookies review #76 - Pumpkin Cake (tester), visited July 16, 2024

I'm really glad when Crumbl has a test product (can't always call them a test "cookie" anymore) that I want to try, especially during the weeks where I've already tried the flavors I would've been interested in (the Cannoli cookie, the Vanilla Crumb Cake, the Cookies and Cream and the Milk Chocolate Chip) and it's a pass on the rest.

 

Presumably they are testing out the Pumpkin Square in advance of releasing it to the regular, nationwide menu this fall. 

Overall, I liked this cake. I don't know that I would agree with the Crumbl description that it was "fluffy". It was slightly dense, probably from the brown sugar cinnamon butter that was supposedly marbled into the cake but seemed more like it lay on top at the top of the cake as the top was slightly more dense than the bottom. But I like that sort of texture in a pumpkin cake so that was fine with me. If they want it a little more fluffy, I'd cut back on the brown sugar cinnamon butter "marbling" but most pumpkin cakes tend to be dense.

I appreciated that the frosting wasn't so thick either, not like they do on some of their cookies. Instead, this was only just slightly heavier than a glaze but not so thick as a trowel of frosting.

Flavorwise, this was what a good pumpkin cake should be, not overly spiced but just right with the cinnamon. Thankfully I couldn't taste any nutmeg as I don't care for nutmeg. This had an upcharge of $1.49 at my store. Regular cookie price is $4.49 so it was $5.98 plus tax. I liked it and I'm glad I tried it but, similar to how I feel about the Cinnamon Square, it's good if you just want a little cake but this is something I could make myself. I'd only get this again if I felt like having a pumpkin cake, didn't want to go to the trouble of making a larger one of my own and don't mind spending almost $7 on a little cake. 

Six Degrees of Chocolate Chip Cookies from Bake at 350

Six Degrees of Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough May 14, 2024 from Bake at 350

17 ounces cake flour

17 ounces bread flour

2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons kosher salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (optional)

2 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature

20 ounces light brown sugar

16 ounces granulated sugar

4 eggs

4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 & 1/2 pounds (at least 60%) chocolate chips/discs  

1. In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour, bread flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Set aside. 
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the eggs one a a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla. 
3. In low speed, add in half of the flour, mixing just until incorporated. Repeat with the remaining flour. Stir in the chocolate chips. 
4. Portion dough into 3-ounce portions, cover and chill for 36 hours.
5. After 36 hours, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough balls.
6. Bake for 16-19 minutes, depending on size. Bake until the edges are golden brown and the center are set. Remove from oven and let the cookies rest on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Use a very large mixing bowl or else just make half a recipe for this one. I have a 5-quart Kitchen Aid mixer and even that was too small for this recipe. Which I unfortunately learned halfway through mixing in the dry ingredients.

The dough itself barely fit once it was mixed and before I added the chocolate chips. I ended up dividing the dough between two mixing bowls and adding the chocolate chips (mostly chunks) separately. Which actually turned out pretty well as I added semisweet chocolate chunks (the Pound Plus from Trader Joe's) to one bowl and milk chocolate chips/chunks to the other bowl. I personally prefer milk chocolate but many others prefer semisweet. I was able to do both for this recipe.

I made the dough balls big so the cookies turned out big. They did spread but not too thin. They came out the size you typically find in a bakery. Plus, honestly, I don't see the point of small chocolate chip cookies. I mean, why? 

This is the type of chocolate chip cookie I do recommend using chocolate chunks rather than regular chocolate chips. It's an indulgent cookie so no reason not to go all the way with chocolate chunks instead of chips.

The edges were crisp and perfectly caramelized. The middle is chewy. I was almost surprised at the chewiness before I remembered this has bread flour and that probably contributed to the texture. This is the kind of cookie I would give to any chocolate chip cookie lover, preferably on the same day they would eat it. I'm picky about freshness like that.

I ate the test cookie the same day I baked it so I don't know how these taste the next day. But my experience says the chewiness from a freshly baked cookie *might* turn from chewy to rubbery. I could be wrong but I'd still suggest baking off only enough cookie dough balls that you need for the same day of consumption. Keep the rest of the dough balls in the freezer until you need them.