Levain Bakery-Style Funfetti Cake Batter Sugar Cookies from The Domestic Rebel

Levain Bakery-Style Funfetti Cake Batter Sugar Cookies - made dough February 20, 2023 from The Domestic Rebel

1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups cake flour

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 cups white chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups rainbow jimmie sprinkles

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and granulated sugar on low speed for 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium and beat for 30 seconds. Increase speed to high and beat another 30 seconds or until mixture is light and fluffy. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract, mixing after each addition until just combined.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together cornstarch, baking soda, salt, cake flour and all-purpose flour. Add to butter mixture in 2-3 additions, mixing on low speed after each addition until just combined. 
4. Fold in chocolate chips and 1 cup sprinkles, mixing on low speed until evenly disbursed.
5. Chill dough for 30 minutes then divide dough into 6-ounce portions, shaping roughly into balls. Roll in remaining sprinkles. Chill while oven preheats.
6. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough balls about 3 inches apart. Bake 10-13 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for 10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. 

I keep saying I'm not a fan of sprinkles in cookies and I keep making cookies with sprinkles. Why? The simple answer is I've either been gifted sprinkles and/or I bought those multi-sectioned jars of sprinkles for various reasons and I wanted to use up the still-full sections. I'm in pantry-clearing mode of random ingredients so that's what's driving my recipe testing these days.

I've tried several recipes from The Domestic Rebel, more specifically her "Levain Bakery-Style" ones. If anyone's ever been to Levain Bakery (they're mostly in New York City but starting to spread out although they've yet to open in the West), you know Levain Bakery doesn't offer some of these flavors so they're not meant to be copycat recipes. Instead, they denote thick chewy cookies which Levain is famous for.

what the bottom looks like while the top is softly set

When I'm baking for military care packages (which is most of my baking), I usually don't make them as big as Levain's. I make them more normal-sized so I get more out of the dough and have more cookies to send for sharing. But I almost always make the taste test cookie as big as the original creator intended so I can experience how they're supposed to be.

Nearly all of the time, I have to bake my cookies longer than the recipe calls for or else they'd be too raw. I like cookies underbaked but not raw-underbaked. In this case, I baked the taste test cookie for 15 minutes as at the 13-minute mark, it was still clearly raw. It still looked a bit raw at the 15-minute mark but I took it out then and let it keep "baking" on the hot baking sheet. When the taste test cookie was still barely lukewarm, the texture was still too soft-mushy for me. The next day though, completely cool, the texture was more preferable. I don't think it would've hurt to bake the cookie a bit longer but the texture was still rather good once it had cooled completely. Taste-wise this was also delicious, although I'm not much of a white chocolate or sprinkles fan. Still, the combination looks pretty. 

Crumbl copycat Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies from Lifestyle of a Foodie

Crumbl copycat Kentucky Butter Cake Cookies - made dough January 18, 2023 from Lifestyle of a Foodie 

1 stick (8 tablespoons or 1/2 cup) butter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Butter sauce

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup powdered sugar

2 teaspoons water

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla; mix to combine.
3. Add flour, baking powder and salt; mix on low speed until just combined. 
4. Portion dough into 6 equal balls and gently flatten to thick discs. Equally space on baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
5. Make the butter sauce: while cookies are baking, melt butter, powdered sugar, water and vanilla extract in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir until sugar is fully dissolved; do not let sauce boil. Remove pan from store and let sit for 5 minutes to thicken. Using a pastry brush, brush each warm cookie with the butter sauce and let set then lightly sprinkle with powdered sugar.

I've made an actual Kentucky Butter Cake before and I've had the original Crumbl Kentucky Butter Cake cookie before as well. I remember both being good because, you know, butter....

Crumbl offered the Kentucky Butter Cake again a few weeks ago and as serendipitous chance would have it, I had the cookie dough for this copycat recipe in my freezer. That doesn't happen often so I decided to bake these off the same day I got the original cookie from Crumbl so I could do a side-by-side taste test. 

First of all, I liked the Kentucky Butter Cake cookie from Crumbl a whole lot more this time around than how I sounded when I did the initial review from last year. Not sure why as I don't think anything's really changed from that original formula. But the Crumbl original was fantastic, perfect texture and amazing butter and butter cake flavor.

Second of all, the copycat recipe made fantastic cookies. As in incredibly, amazingly delicious with an almost exact replica of the texture. I only made half a glaze recipe for the cookies and omitted the powdered sugar since I was mailing these in care packages. That didn't detract from the copycats at all. 

Once again, the recipes from Lifestyle of a Foodie is on point. I don't have to wait for Crumbl to have the Kentucky Butter Cake again as sporadically as they do. I can make this recipe and get my fix whenever the mood strikes,

Crumbl Kentucky butter cake from May 2022

Crumbl Kentucky butter cake February 2023

Crumbl Kentucky butter cake February 2023

Crumbl Kentucky butter cake February 2023

Top cookie is Crumbl's, bottom cookie is from the copycat

Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies from Modern Honey

Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookies - made dough January 28, 2023 from Modern Honey

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 to 2 cups sweetened flaked coconut

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar for 3-4 minutes, until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs and vanilla, mixing until just combined.
3. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt. Fold in coconut and chocolate chips.
4. Portion into golf-ball size dough balls, flatten slightly to "hockey pucks", cover and chill for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough on baking sheets and bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

For coconut lovers, this is a great riff on the traditional chocolate chip cookie. The edges are crisp and the middles are chewy like any good chocolate chip cookie while the coconut adds both chewiness and sweetness.

Using semisweet chocolate cuts the sweetness from the cookie itself and the coconut. I still prefer milk chocolate but you can use either.

Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies from Butternut Bakery

Dark Chocolate Fudge Brownies - made February 17, 2023 from Butternut Bakery

3/4 cup (170 grams) unsalted butter

6 ounces 60% bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso

1/2 cup (100 grams) dark brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup (92 grams) whole wheat flour

1/3 cup (25 grams) dutch-process cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

4-5 ounces 70-80% dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 8 x 8-inch pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add the chopped bittersweet chocolate.
3. In a heavy saucepan, melt butter, stirring constantly, until butter is browned. Pour hot butter over chopped bittersweet chocolate and whisk to combine until chocolate is melted. Whisk in espresso powder then brown sugar and granulated sugar until combined. Let cool for several minutes before whisking in eggs and vanilla extract.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together whole wheat flour, cocoa and salt.
5. Add dry ingredients to chocolate mixture and stir to combine. Add half of the dark chocolate. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into an even layer. Top with remaining dark chocolate. Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs, not raw batter.
6. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

One of my old college roommates, Caroline, gifted me a number these organic, Fair Trade chocolate bars, both 71% and 48% cacao, this past Christmas. I love getting high quality baking ingredients as gifts (really, they're the best things you can give a baker) and I started using them in various baking experiments. 

These brownies look frosted in some pictures but they're not. I chopped up one of the 71% cacao bars and sprinkled them on top of the brownie before baking. They melted over the top so they look like pure chocolate frosting.

I'm not a dark chocolate person per se although I do prefer dark chocolate brownies to milk chocolate brownies. But I prefer milk chocolate in straight chocolate form over semisweet or bittersweet or dark chocolate.

These were good but, you guessed it, I still prefer my go-to brownie recipe as being thicker, more dense and more fudgy. At some point, I will likely give up trying out new recipes for brownies as I simply prefer my go-to recipe over any other.

I think what threw me with these is the slightly gritty texture. That's from the whole wheat flour. Or my imagination. These had a slightly softer crumb than my go-to recipe. The pools of chocolate melted over the top contributed to their richness. Scattering chunks of chocolate bars yields a different result than scattering chocolate chips over the top. At room temperature, chocolate chips remain solid in their original form. Chocolate bars soften, melt and even when they re-solidify at room temperature, they still tend to remain soft. At least, these new chocolate bars I used did.

Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies from Handle the Heat

Browned Butter Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough January 29, 2023 from Handle the Heat

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and browned

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar

1 cup (200 grams) lightly packed dark brown sugar

1 1/2 cups (190 grams) all-purpose flour

1 cup (127 grams) bread flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla

10 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup toffee bits

1. In a large bowl, mix together hot browned butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, bread flour, baking soda, salt, espresso powder and baking powder.
3. To the cooled butter mixture, whisk in eggs, yolk and vanilla until combined. Gradually stir in the dry ingredients, mixing with a rubber spatula. Stir in the chocolate chunks and toffee bits. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls. Cover dough balls with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 24 hours but no more than 72 hours.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space cookies on baking sheets and bake for 12 to 14 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for 2 minutes before removing to wire racks to cool completely.

I continue to try new chocolate chip cookie recipes, partly because I like including them in my military care packages for Soldiers Angels as chocolate chip cookies are one of the most requested cookies from our service members. But also partly because I just like trying new recipes for chocolate chip cookies. They're easy to make and honestly, it's hard to make them badly.

With the challenges of trying to avoid the Flat Cookie Syndrome, it's also rewarding when you flex (or don't have to flex) the recipe to get the cookies to come out as I like them.

These came out as they should so I didn't have to do any adjustments. I'll always make a note if I do. I did weigh the dry ingredients for accuracy but I also kept an eagle eye on the dough to make sure it was the consistency I wanted, not too soft and sticky and not dry or crumbly.

These were fantastic. I'm not necessarily a brown butter acolyte and I like cookies both with browned butter or with "normal" butter creamed into the mixture. But these were good as the recipe directed. Texture was also just how I like it: dense, chewy and moist.

Better Than Box Mix Brownies from Persnickety Plates

Better Than Box Mix Brownies - made February 1, 2023 from Persnickety Plates

1 cup butter, room temperature
2 1/4 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 9 x 13-inch pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a small pot, melt butter over medium heat. When melted, add sugar and whisk until combined. Continue cooking for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Do not let boil.
3. Remove from heat and pour into large mixing bowl. Add cocoa powder and whisk to combine.
4. Add eggs, salt, baking powder and vanilla extract. Mix until completely combined.
5. Add flour and mix to combine. Fold in chocolate chips.
6. Pour into an even layer into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Do not overbake. Let cool completely before cutting.

These did live up to their name that they're better than box mix brownies. But in all honesty, I don't like the artificial taste of box mix brownies so it was a low bar.

They were good, chewy, not quite cakey but not as dense or fudgy as my go-to brownie recipe. The chocolate flavor is also not as rich. They're essentially cocoa brownies because that's where the chocolate flavor comes from. Unlike the Oreo Brownies which also relies on cocoa powder for the flavor, these weren't as rich. These use more cocoa in proportion to the other ingredients so it seems a little more dry, even though I underbaked them.

As you can see from the pictures, I omitted the chocolate chips in these brownies. I wanted to taste them plain. Plus, unless they're melty, I don't enjoy the solidity of chocolate chips inside my brownies. It's a texture thing.