Oreo Brownies from Tastes of Lizzy T

Oreo Brownies - made January 31, 2023 from Tastes of Lizzy T 

10 tablespoons salted butter (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

20 Oreo cookies

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 8 x 8-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot water, melt together butter, sugar, cocoa powder and salt, whisking until smooth, completely melted and combined.
3. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes. Whisk in eggs and vanilla extract until combined.
4. Slowly mix in flour until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.
5. Pour half of batter into an even layer on pan. Line with 14 Oreos then cover with remaining batter. Coarsely chop remaining 6 Oreos and sprinkle over top. Bake for 33 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and let cool before cutting and serving.

Break out the Oreos for this recipe. Oreos are layered in the middle: you lay down half the batter, arrange the Oreos in a single layer and cover with the remaining batter. Then sprinkle the top with chopped Oreos and chocolate chips.

Despite the chocolate flavor only coming from unsweetened cocoa powder, these were pretty fudgy. If you want to enhance the Oreo flavor, substitute some of the regular unsweetened cocoa powder with black cocoa powder.

If you've got an Oreo lover in your life, these are a good brownie to offer them. The brownies themselves are rich and fudgy while the Oreos add a nice crunch. Plus they just look (and taste) decadent.

Sugar Cookies from 100 Cookies

Sugar Cookies - made dough January 20, 2023 from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer

2 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon (364 grams) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 cup (2 sticks or 227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 3/4 cups (350 grams) granulated sugar plus 1/2 cup for rolling

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and cream of tartar.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Add 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and beat to combine.
5. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just combined.
6. Place the remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a small bowl. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and roll each ball in the sugar. Evenly space on baking sheets. 
7. Bake one baking sheet at a time, rotating pan halfway through baking. Bake until the sides are set and the bottoms are light golden brown, 12 to 14 minutes. Let rest on baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes then transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely. 

I'm so glad I borrowed this book because I've got to tell you, this sugar cookie recipe alone made it worthwhile. Although they came out of the oven puffy, similar to the snickerdoodles from the same book, they did deflate to flat cookies (yes, I'm still in the Flat Cookie Club).

However, these taste sooooo good. I don't know why I liked it so much but they were chewy and did I mention they're delicious?? They reminded me of the chewy sugar cookies you can buy at your favorite bakery or the baked goods section of your uppity grocery store. 

They're more chewy than cakey and the vanilla and butter flavor come through quite well, more so than the sugar. I loved them so much that it's probably a good thing I packaged up all but the taste test cookie for military care packages before I even ate the taste test cookie. Because if I had eaten the taste test cookie first, I wouldn't have stopped at one cookie like I normally do.

I baked off all the cookie dough for this one and mailed them in the care packages so I'm going to have to make these again and hold back a few next time, lol.

Funfetti Cookies from Kroll's Korner

Funfetti Cookies - made dough January 22, 2023 from Kroll's Korner 

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups cake flour

2 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup cold, unsalted butter, cubed

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon cake batter extract

1 cup sprinkles, divided in half

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, cake flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on low speed for 30 seconds. Add the granulated sugar and beat for 1 minute, scraping down the sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
4. Add eggs, egg yolks and cake batter extract, mixing until combined.
5. Gradually add dry ingredients, in 3-4 additions, mixing on low speed after each addition until just combine. Add half the sprinkles, mixing on low until disbursed throughout dough.
6. Portion out dough into seven 6-ounce portions and roll into balls. Roll in remaining sprinkles. Evenly space 4 cookies on 1 sheet and 3 on the other.
7. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, for 9-11 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Let rest on baking sheet for 15 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

You can Valentine-ize these funfetti cookies with Valentine sprinkles or heart-shaped chocolates on top. Or, as you noticed with the sprinkles I used, you can go with a touch of spring and use spring-colored sprinkles. Ditch the chocolate hearts and you can have spring funfetti cookies.

The "fun" of funfetti cookies is you can mix up what color sprinkles to use so you can adapt them to any season. I combined two occasions (spring and Valentine's Day) for these particular ones, partly to use up the spring sprinkles I had and partly to use up the heart chocolates I also still had. 

For the taste test cookie, I left off the heart chocolate so I could get the full flavor of the cookie itself. And I must say it was a good flavor in and of itself. Like a sugar cookie without being too sweet.

I'm not a sprinkles fan so I didn't use a lot of sprinkles in the cookie. If you like sprinkles, feel free to use a heavier hand.

Fudgy Cocoa Brownies from Cafe Delites

Fudgy Cocoa Brownies - made January 28, 2023 from Cafe Delites

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and hot

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 1/8 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 

1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 8 x 8" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Whisk together hot melted butter, olive oil and granulated sugar until smooth and combined. Add eggs and vanilla extract, whisking to combine.
3. In a small bowl, stir together flour, cocoa powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix to combine, stirring until glossy. Add any mix-ins if desired (I added chopped up Rolos).
4. Pour into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake 20-25 minutes or until center is set and toothpick comes out with a few fudgy crumbs. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and let cool before cutting and serving.

Those weird squiggly things you see in the brownies are cut-up Rolos. I had hoped for a more flowy caramel look but alas, Rolos don't provide it at room temperature or in cold winter temps. I would probably have been better off with Caramellos but Rolos were all I had.

These look dark because I used a combination of regular unsweetened cocoa powder from Costco and black cocoa powder from King Arthur Flour. Although I went with a 3:1 ratio, it seems like even a small amount of black cocoa powder turns the brownies dark enough to look like black cocoa brownies.

I'm glad I tried a new brownie recipe but I have to admit, I still prefer my go-to recipe for brownies. Maybe it was the black cocoa or maybe I needed to bake these a tad longer but these didn't have the same chewy-dense texture I prefer in my brownies. Still good and worth trying although next time I would do a different mix-in as Rolos were a bit too chewy for this brownie’s texture. 

Brown Sugar Cookies from 100 Cookies

Brown Sugar Cookies - made dough January 13, 2023 from 100 Cookies by Sarah Kieffer 

2 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon (364 grams) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks or 227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 3/4 cups (350 grams) dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon molasses

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup granulated sugar for rolling

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, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the brown sugar and molasses and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.
4. Add the egg, egg yolk and vanilla and beat on medium speed to combine.
5. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just combined.
6. Place the remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a small bowl. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and roll each ball in the sugar. Evenly space on baking sheets. 
7. Bake one baking sheet at a time, rotating pan halfway through baking. Bake until the sides are set and the bottoms are light golden brown, 10 to 11 minutes. Let rest on baking sheet for 5 to 10 minutes then transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely. 

I loved these cookies. So far, every recipe I've tried from 100 Cookies has turned out really well. I highly recommend this book just for the handful of recipes I've tried from it. 

I didn't roll the cookies in sugar before baking as the recipe suggests since I figured they would be sweet enough without the sugar coating. Plus I wanted to keep the brown sugar caramel flavor in the cookies and not have it compete with an additional sugar coating.

It turned out to be a good call as the cookies were fantastic enough without it. They did deflate and flatten but not as much as other cookies I've made recently. Despite that, these were still good. The caramelized flavor really pulls through.

Stamped (Chocolate) Cookies #28 from Your Baking Bestie

Stamped (Chocolate) Cookies #28 - made dough January 20, 2023, modified from Your Baking Bestie 

1 cup salted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup Dutch process cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder (I used 1 teaspoon)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon espresso powder

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and granulated sugar until well combined, 1-2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla until just combined.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and espresso powder. Add to butter mixture in two additions and beat on low speed after each addition until just combined. 
3. Cover and chill dough for several hours.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Remove dough from refrigerator and pour 1/4 cup granulated sugar in small bowl. Portion dough into balls, roll in granulated sugar and press with cookie stamp. Cut with cookie cutter for clean edges. Evenly space on baking sheets. Bake 12-13 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

I'm listing the recipe as I originally found it on Your Baking Bestie's blog but I modified this to only use 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead of the 2 teaspoons she listed. I wanted to have sharp impressions of the designs in the baked cookie and the more leavener you have, the more your cookies are likely to puff during baking then deflate, leaving a less distinct stamped impression.

At first I was afraid cutting the baking powder by half would yield a more dense cookie but this actually had good texture and "fluff" (not too light but not too dense either) while still keeping a faithful rendition of the stamped designs.

Flavor was good as well. As usual, you want to use a good, high quality cocoa powder so that you can enjoy a good, high quality flavor.

Funfetti Cookies (Valentine version) from Butternut Bakery

Valentine-ized Funfetti Cookies - made dough January 23, 2023, modified from Butternut Bakery 

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg

2/3 cup sprinkles

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together melted butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar on medium high speed until well combined, light and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and egg, mixing until just combined.
3. Add dry ingredients and mix until just combined, scraping down the bottom and sides of bowl to keep mixture even textured. Add sprinkles and mix on low to evenly disperse sprinkles.
4. Scoop into 1-2 tablespoon dough balls. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough balls and bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are golden and middles are no longer raw. Remove from oven and gently place heart-shaped chocolate candy in the center of each cookie. Let rest on aking sheets for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Good news/bad news on these cookies. Bad news first: the white chocolate hearts are Hershey brand for Valentine's Day and were billed as strawberry cream white chocolate hearts. Pretty, right? I did the usual thing of pressing them into the center of the cookies as soon as the cookies came out of the oven.


Now, white chocolate has a lower melting point than even milk chocolate so I expected these would melt into the cookie and would be fragile until they cooled enough to harden again. Except they didn't soften. At all. Which means they're probably waxy more than chocolatey. Ugh. I didn't taste them but I did package them up for mailing. Hopefully the recipients will either not mind or find the chocolate hearts edible enough or (what I would do) will ditch the hearts and just eat the cookies.





The good news is actually excellent news that this cookie was freaking delicious. As in, I'd ditch both the hearts and sprinkles and make the cookies plain. They were that good. Almost like chipless chocolate chip cookies but better. Brown sugar flavor, chewy goodness all around.








They look pretty (and seasonal) but taste even better.