Pecan Shortbread from Pudge Factor

Pecan Shortbread - made dough October 16, 2023 from Pudge Factor

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (3 ounces) powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour

1 cup (4 ounces) pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, powdered sugar and vanilla on medium speed until well combined and smooth, about 1 minute.
2. Add flour and mix on low speed until just combined, about 1 minute. Fold in toasted pecans with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.
3. Transfer dough to a gallon-size Ziploc bag and place on a flat surface. Leaving the bag unsealed, roll the dough into a 1/4" thick rectangle that completely fills the bag. As you roll, turn the bag occasionally and lift the plastic from the dough to avoid creases. Seal the bag and chill in the refrigerator or freezer for 2 hours or up to 2 days.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Place the chilled ziploc bag on a cutting board and slit open. Discard the plastic bag. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut into squares. Transfer squares to lined baking sheets, spacing evenly. Prick each square with a fork. 
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. until edges are set. Remove from oven and let rest for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Dust lightly with powdered sugar if desired.

Can you tell I'm working my way through a Costco-sized bag of pecans? Hence why I keep baking cookies with nuts in them.

Shortbread is one of the few cookies where I'm good with pecans in them or almonds or macadamias. Shortbread is usually flavored most by the butter but when you add nuts, it takes on the additional flavor profile of the nuts you use. I always, always recommend toasting whichever nuts you're using before adding them to the dough. Trust me, the flavor will be much better.

Shortbread is also one of the rare cookies where I don't recommend underbaking. You want to bake the shortbread long enough for the bottoms and edges to turn golden and the middles to start looking "dry" or very definitely not looking soft or shiny or wet. If you don't bake it long enough, you won't get the crisp snap of a good shortbread and the texture will be somewhere in texture purgatory of chewy but not crisp. Chewy is for other cookies. Shortbread should have a good snap.

I liked these cookies. I love shortbread anyway and these cookies delivered on that buttery flavor amped up by toasted pecans and a good snap and crunch in the texture. These are good for care packages as well as sharing at holiday parties. The visible presence of the pecans can also easily signal away anyone with nut allergies.

Grandma Lilly's Brownies from Lisa Yockelson

Grandma Lilly's Brownies - made October 22, 2023, modified from Brownies and Blondies by Lisa Yockelson

1 1/2 cups unsifted cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped black walnuts, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 9-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot water, melt butter and unsweetened chocolate, whisking until completely melted and smooth.
4. Beat sugar into melted butter-chocolate mixture. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing until combined. Add vanilla extract and mix to combine.
5. Add dry ingredients and beat until combined. Do not overmix.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into an even layer. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Back to my baking books for this one. I'm either trying to get the number of "recipes need to try" down on my pinterest boards or getting more use out of my baking books. This is from my cookbook library and a very old slim book I bought long ago in a used bookstore. Lisa Yockelson is one of the premier cookbook authors who offers a plethora of reliably good brownie recipes.

I will confess though that my palate isn't discerning enough to tell the difference between all the different recipes she has for brownies. Whether it contains more or less flour, cocoa, unsweetened chocolate, sugar, eggs or whatever. I just know they're typically going to be fudgy and good.

This was as well, although I made the recipe in a 9 x 9-inch baking pan, not the 9 x 13 one that the original recipe called for. Baking in the larger pan would've made the brownies too thin for my liking. 

The two drawbacks to this one though is it made a crust and it was more sweet than chocolatey. Some people like a crust on their brownies but not me. I also prefer more of a chocolate flavor than a sweet one. This is still a good fudgy brownie so it was worth trying. I have more brownie recipes from her books to try and will be testing those out, mostly just to do something different than my usual go to brownie recipe. 

Gideon's Bakery Cookies and Cream copycat from Buuck Farms

Gideon's Bakery Cookies and Cream copycat - made dough October 13, 2023 from Buuck Farms 

1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups (165 grams) bread flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup salted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (165 grams) dark brown sugar

1/4 cup (55 grams) granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste

1 teaspoon Lorann butter vanilla bakery emulsion

1 family-sized package Oreos, chopped and divided

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together all-purpose flour, bread flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar for 5 minutes, scraping down the sides and bottom of bowl as needed.
3. Add the egg, yolk, vanilla bean paste and butter vanilla emulsion. Mix an additional 3 minutes. scraping sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
4. Add dry ingredients in two additions and mix on low speed after each addition until just combined.
5. Stir in about 1/3 of the chopped Oreos with a rubber spatula until combined.
6. Portion the dough into 6 giant 6.5-ounce cookie dough balls.
7. Chill in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. 
8. Add the remaining Oreos to a bowl. Roll the dough into a ball and roll in the chopped Oreos, covering completely except for the bottoms. Press the Oreos into the dough to make sure they stick. Cover and chill for 12-24 hours.
9. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and remove dough balls from refrigerator while oven preheats. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
10. Bake 2 cookies at a time, leaving enough space between the two for the cookies to spread, for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and bang the baking sheet on the counter 4-5 times to collapse the cookies. Bake another 3 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for 15 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

This is the last of the three Gideon's Bakehouse copycat recipes I tried from Buuck Farms Bakery. It was the easiest of the three to make and turned out just as well as the Coffee Cake one.

I didn't make it as large as I was supposed to as I didn't need three types of super large cookies to send in military care packages (two would do) or I didn't think I could fit very many cookies into the boxes. 

But I still made these decently large. They didn't spread much since I baked from frozen dough. These were delicious. The Oreos covering the top added a nice crunch and the cookies were moist and chewy.

When baking with Oreos, don't use the Double Stuff Oreos. Just use the regular ones. Too much filling, which the double stuff has, melts and bakes greasy. I learned that the hard way.

Crumbl Cookies review #58 - Salted Caramel Pretzel Pie (test cookie)

Crumbl Cookies review #58: Salted Caramel Pretzel Pie (test cookie) - visited October 18, 2023

I am clearly never going to be able to post my Crumbl reviews in "real time", aka when the actual cookies are available. But I keep plugging away as most cookies come around again and I've noticed my blog traffic spikes up on those past reviews when the cookies make the menu again.

Which is why I keep faithfully trying out the test cookies and reviewing them as someday I assume they'll make the regular menu. And when a cookie contains caramel, it's not such a sacrifice.

Last week's test cookie was the Salted Caramel Pretzel Pie. My test store (Sparks, NV) executed this one beautifully as you can tell from the pictures. I'm a huge fan of Crumbl's salted caramel. They do it really well and the flavor and texture are on point. I liked the cookie base as well but it was a trifle too underbaked for me, which is rare. Not seriously underbaked and you have to be careful with shortbread bases as they can easily become dry. But this wouldn't have hurt spending an extra 60 seconds in the oven. It was still good though.

I'm not usually a pretzel person but they worked well in this cookie. Probably the part I enjoyed the least was - you guessed it - the caramel mousse. The flavor was good but I'm not much of a custard-mousse person. The texture was not as fluffy as a mousse but lighter than their usual cream cheese frosting. 

If this makes the regular rotation, I wouldn't mind getting it again but I'd probably take off half the caramel mousse as a personal preference.

Gideon's Bakery Copycat Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies from Buuck Farms Bakery

Gideon's Bakery Copycat Giant Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough October 14, 2023 from Buuck Farms Bakery

1 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (165 grams) dark brown sugar

1/4 cup (55 grams) granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups (165 grams) bread flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups mini semisweet chocolate chips, divided

1 1/2 cups milk chocolate chips

4-ounce semisweet chocolate bar, chopped

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

flaky sea salt

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar for 5 minutes, scraping down the bottom and sides of the bowl to keep mixture even-textured.
2. Add egg, yolk, and vanilla bean paste and mix an additional 3 minutes.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together all-purpose flour, bread flour, cornstarch, baking powder. baking soda and salt. Add to butter mixture in 2-3 additions, mixing on low speed after each addition until combined. Do not overmix.
4. Fold in 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips, 1/2 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips and the chopped chocolate bar.
5. Portion dough into six 6.5-ounce cookies and roll into balls. Cover and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
6. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining 1 cup each of semisweet chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips and mini semisweet chocolate chips.
7. Roll each dough ball into the chocolate chip mixture. Press the chocolate chips into the dough so that they stick. Coat the entire dough balls except for the bottoms. Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.
8. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Bake 2 cookies per sheet, leaving plenty of room between cookies. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until edges are set. Remove the cookies from the oven and bang the baking sheet on the counter 4-5 times to flatten the cookies slightly. Use a small rubber spatula to gently press any runaway edges into a neater circle. Press extra chocolate chips into any bare spots and sprinkle the cookies with flaky sea salt if desired. Let rest on baking sheets for 15 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

This is the second of three copycat recipes for Gideon's Bakehouse cookies that I've tried from Buuck Farms Bakery. I'd actually made a Gideon's Bakehouse copycat recipe for chocolate chip cookies several years ago from a different source. 

But Buuck Farms Bakery seems to have more copycat recipes for Gideon's Bakehouse than other sources so I thought I'd try several of them as I was in a big-cookie baking mood. The funny thing is, back in 2019, I'd never heard of Gideon's Bakehouse and didn't know what it was. I had some vague notion it was a bakery "somewhere in Florida" and their appeal included covering the entire outside of a cookie with the add-ins, which, in this case, were chocolate chips. I hadn't realized it was a Disney bakery and highly popular with Disney aficionados and others. 

It appears to have a devoted following, much like Levain Bakery and other famous bakeries. I've never been to Gideon's Bakehouse so copycat recipes will have to do for me.

There's something really appealing about oversized chocolate chip cookies literally covered with three kinds of chocolate chips: semisweet, mini semisweet and milk chocolate chips. What's not to love?

Even if you cover the dough balls completely with chocolate chips, the cookies spread during baking so there will be gaps. No problem: once you take the cookies out of the oven, gently press more chips in the open cookie spaces. I didn't need a completely covered cookie but still covered a fair amount of the surface with chips.

I forgot about my double panning trick when I baked these so the bottom did get more brown than I preferred. These weren't dry-overbaked but they could've used less baking time. They were dense and, surprisingly, not as sweet as I expected. Maybe all those chocolate chips got in the way of the brown sugar flavor coming through. Or I prefer more cookie and fewer chips. I might like the concept of this cookie (overloaded with chips) more than the cookie reality. The other copycat I tried in 2019 was better to me, probably because I didn't load up with the chips as much.  

Gideon's Bakehouse Copycat Coffee Cake Cookies from Buuck Farms Bakery

Gideon's Bakehouse Copycat Coffee Cake Cookies - made dough October 17, 2023 from Buuck Farms Bakery

Double Baked Butter Crumbs

6 tablespoons butter, melted

3 tablespoons brown sugar

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

3/4 cup (95 grams) all-purpose flour 

Cookies

1 cup butter, cold and cubed

3/4 cup (165 grams) brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste or 1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups (165 grams) all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups (165 gams) cake flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Streusel

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 cup (110 grams) brown sugar

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons butter, soft but not melted

1. Double Baked Butter Crumbs: preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In a small mixing bowl, stir together brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon and flour until well combined.
3. Pour in the melted butter and mix until crumbly. It should have the consistency of wet sand; add extra melted butter if too dry.
4. Pour mixture onto prepared sheet pan and spread into an even layer.
5. Bake for 15 minutes then cool. Break up any extra large pieces but leave a variety of shapes and sizes. Set aside.
6. Make the cookies: in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the brown sugar, granulated sugar and cold cubed butter for 5 minutes or until the mixture is light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl to keep mixture even textured.
7. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla bean paste and mix for 2 minutes.
8. In a separate bowl, whisk together all-purpose flour, cake flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. 
9. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 2-3 additions, mixing on low speed until just combined. Do not overmix.
10. Portion dough into 18 2-ounce portions of dough onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Chill for 10 minutes.
11. Cinnamon streusel: combine all streusel ingredients and mix together.
12. Assemble cookies: take the chilled dough balls and flatten into rounds. You'll need 3 rounds for each cookie. Take one round and spread with about 2 teaspoons of the streusel mixture, almost to the edges of the round. Top with another round and spread another 2 teaspoons of streusel mixture. Top with a third round and roll into a tall ball. Repeat with remaining rounds to end up with 6 giant cookies.
13. Roll each cookie dough ball in the butter crumbs, coating sides and tops completely. Cover and freeze for 15 minutes.
14. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 2 cookies per sheet, spaced apart to allow for spread. Bake 15-20 minutes. 
15. Remove from oven and while the cookies are still hot, use a spoon or small rubber spatula to press the edges into place and create more of a perfect circle. Fill in any empty spaces with leftover butter crumbs and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Let cool on baking sheets for at least 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

This is a longer-than-usual post as this cookie has a longer-than-usual number of components and parts to it. I actually had to make it over several days as I didn't have time to spend on it all at once. 

First you make the butter crumbs mixture, bake it, let it cool then break it into pieces and crumbs. You'll need that for later.

Second, you make the cookie dough and weigh it out into 2-ounce portions which you roll into balls, chill then roll out into flat rounds. Or round-ish shapes. I faithfully weighed the dough into 2 ounce pieces but I only ended up with 14 2-ounce balls, not 18. I chilled the dough balls for a few minutes then sandwiched each ball between small pieces of parchment paper and rolled to flat shapes.

Third, you make the streusel while the small dough balls are chilling. My streusel wasn't a crumb mixture; it was more of a streusel paste. Which I spread over a flat piece of dough, covered with another piece, spread more streusel over it then topped with a third rolled-out piece of cookie dough.

Once the streusel is sandwiched between the three layers of cookie dough, pinch the edges to seal then ball up to make a smooth dough ball. You want to make sure the ball is sealed up well so none of the streusel paste leaks out during baking.

Depending on how soft or warm your dough ball is, you might want to chill it for a few minutes before covering with the butter crumbs. If your dough is too sticky, it'll be hard to handle. If it's too chilled though, it's harder to keep the butter crumbs stuck to it.

Do your best to cover all but the bottom of the dough ball with the butter crumbs. Your butter crumbs can/should be in various sizes and pieces, even with some small to large-ish crumbs.

The tricky thing with baking such large cookies, especially if you bake it from chilled or frozen dough (which I did) is the bottom will bake faster and brown almost well before the rest of the cookie which can lead to a harder bottom crust.

You can deal with this by double panning the baking pans to help the cookie bake more evenly. Or line a wire rack with a silpat and bake in a single baking sheet. Either way should work.

Final verdict? This was freaking delicious. Yes, a pain with more steps than your average cookie but this isn't an average cookie. The inside was moist and chewy, the streusel adds more moisture and cinnamon-brown sugar flavor while the butter crumbs add a nice crunch on top.

I've never had the real thing from Gideon's Bakehouse which is a specialty bake shop in Disney Springs in Florida and they don't ship online so it's unlikely I'll ever get a taste of the real thing. So I don't know how it compares to the original. But this copycat serves up a pretty good cookie.