Super Soft Sprinkle Pudding Cookies from Cookies and Cups

Super Soft Sprinkle Pudding Cookies - made dough March 4, 2023 from Cookies and Cups 

3/4 cup butter

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 3.5-ounce packet instant vanilla pudding

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sprinkles

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
2. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla; beat until just combined.
3. Add baking soda, salt and instant vanilla pudding mix; beat until combined, about 30 seconds.
4. Add flour and mix on low speed until just combined. Beat in sprinkles on low speed until disbursed. Do not overmix.
5. Portion into golf-ball-sized dough balls and flatten slightly to thick discs. Cover and chill for several hours or overnight.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly spaced dough discs. Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges are softly set and light golden brown and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

I am surprisingly finding some good recipes with sprinkle cookies. Notice I say "with" and not "for". That's because I'm loving the cookie part without the sprinkles. I'm just not a sprinkles fan. But the flavor and texture of these were excellent. Like a really good sugar cookie. So yes, I'll be making these next time without the sprinkles.

Crumbl Cookies review #32 - Cookie Dough

Crumbl Cookies review #32 - Cookie Dough cookie, visited March 11, 2023

I was going to skip going to Crumbl last week as initially I wasn't interested in any of the flavors. With the exception of the Oreo-based cookies, I find Crumbl's chocolate cookies too rich so I didn't want the Dark Dream. Not a peanut butter fan so pass on the Ultimate Peanut Butter and I'm also not a fan of blueberries in cookies although I like blueberries on their own just fine. I was going to pass on the Cookie Dough but it had such rave reviews, I thought I'd give it a try. 

My own review of it is mixed. I loved the cookie base itself. It's supposed to be served as a chilled cookie but I don't like chilled cookies (most of them have a drier mouthfeel when chilled) so I let it come to room temperature first. Look at that inside texture. That's exactly how I like my cookies. And when Crumbl serves a cookie chilled, it avoids being in the warmer too long and drying out, which is an issue I have with most of the Crumbls in Las Vegas. That's not a problem with chilled cookies since they don't sit in the warmer but are dressed and chilled until they're purchased.

While I loved the cookie base, the frosting didn't do it for me. It's a buttercream frosting that's a cross between the more dense frosting that their cream cheese usually is and the light airy texture of their whipped cream frosting. I prefer a more dense frosting, even if I end up scraping some of it off the cookie. I didn't like this frosting's texture at all; other people raved about it but it's just not my thing. Maybe I would've liked it better chilled but then I wouldn't have liked the cookie as much. 

But I'd get this again and just scrape off the frosting because look at that cookie. The brown sugar flavor was also on point as well as the texture. 

Nutella Hazelnut Chocolate Truffles from Sweetest Menu

Nutella Hazelnut Chocolate Truffles - made March 1, 2023 from Sweetest Menu

200 grams (1 1/3 cups) dark chocolate, finely chopped

1/2 cup heavy cream
1 cup Nutella
1 cup skinless hazelnuts, toasted and chopped fine

1. Heat cream in small saucepan over low heat until hot but not boiling. Place chopped chocolate in medium bowl. Pour hot cream over chocolate, covering completely.
2. After two minutes, slowly whisk until completely melted and smooth. Add 1/2 cup Nutella and whisk until combined and smooth. Add remaining 1/2 cup and repeat. 
3. Chill in refrigerator for 2-3 hours or until set.
4. Scoop small teaspoons of chilled mixture and roll into balls. Roll in chopped hazelnuts, coating completely. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Truffles are technically easy to make. Heat cream, pour over chopped chocolate, whisk to smoothness, add any flavorings, chill, scoop and roll in coating if desired. Simple right?

And it was simple. I just don't know if I loved the end product. Truffles are essentially chilled ganache. I'm not a big fan of ganache, too chocolaty (I know, I know, blasphemy), too rich. I tried to stack the odds in my favor by making a nutella version of this but the chocolate overwhelmed the Nutella. I also rolled them in chopped toasted hazelnuts to cut the richness and add some texture and that partially worked. There was nothing wrong with these; they're simply too "dark chocolate flavor" for my taste. Next time, I'll make them as milk chocolate truffles instead.

Crumbl Milk Chocolate Cookie - the "real" recipe?

1/4 the recipe - revised, made February 17, 2023

8 ounces salted butter
4 ounces granulated sugar

6 ounces brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

16 ounces all-purpose flour

1.25 tablespoons baking soda

1.25 tablespoons baking powder

1 tablespoon vanilla extract (my addition)

11 ounces milk chocolate 

1. Preheat oven to 290 degrees F. (I baked at 350 degrees F).
2. Cream butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar together on medium speed for 10 minutes, until light, fluffy and silky.
3. Add 1 egg and mix on low speed until just combined. Add remaining egg and beat on low speed until just combined.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and baking powder. Add dry ingredients all at once and mix on low speed until just combined. Mix in chocolate chips until evenly dispersed.
5. Weigh out 5.5-ounce portions of dough, roll into balls and tear each ball in half, pressing the smooth ends together so the jagged halves form the top. 
6. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space cookies. Bake for 16 minutes, rotating the pan at the 11-minute mark. Remove from oven and let cookies rest on baking sheets for 5-10 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.  

I don't have a link to provide to the original source of this recipe as by the time I saw it on a random Facebook post, it had already been passed on from one person and one group to another. As near as I can figure out, it's supposedly been posted on Reddit and from a former Crumbl employee who's no longer under an NDA.

I'm a tad skeptical about that as every NDA I've ever signed didn't have an expiration date. Granted, that was all in the tech industry but I imagine food retail places that have proprietary recipes would be just as protective. So take this with a grain of salt (pun intended) whether this is the "real" Crumbl recipe for their milk chocolate chip cookies.

In any case, the person posting it didn't know the exact measurements of the leaveners so they guesstimated those. There wasn't any vanilla extract in the recipe either so I added it my version. Plus I can't stand baking at such a low temperature so I went with the standard 350 degrees instead of 290. So I guess this is just like any copycat trying to imitate the real thing rather than being an exact recipe of the OG Crumbl cookie.

I scaled down the recipe to be one-fourth of the original since I didn't need that many cookies. I was baking for care packages, not retail sale. The part of the recipe that I did follow "exactly" was beating the butter and sugars for 10 minutes. I normally don't beat for that long but I wanted to see what effect that would have on the cookies as most recipes don't call for beating more than 2-4 minutes.

And of course, I don't go by exact baking times but how the cookies look before I take them out of the oven.

What I found that these were good chocolate chip cookies and the added mixing time created the crisp shell on the outside and meltingly-soft texture on the inside. You can also see the big air pockets inside the cookie that comes from beating the mixture for so long. Not sure I liked this version better than any of the others. It's hard to make a faithful rendition of the original when you're a home baker, even with the "real" recipe. I have a Kitchen Aid, not a Hobart (commercial) mixer and I have a home oven, not a commercial baking oven. So I don't take copycats too seriously. If it's a good cookie, it's a good cookie. If I want the real thing, fortunately, I can buy it.

Crumbl Cookies review #31 - Tres Leches and Cowboy Cookie

Crumbl review #31: Tres Leches (December 30, 2022) and Cowboy Cookie (January 17, 2023)

Tres Leches cookie

Time to resurrect my Crumbl reviews again, mostly because I want to have something to refer to so I can remember which cookies I've already tried and which ones I liked/didn't like. I haven't gone as consistently as I used to and I only took these pictures but didn't note which other ones were on offer that week that I may have gotten. I either didn't get anything else or I got something I'd already had before and reviewed. In any case, time to start "fresh" with new-to-me cookies.

After pouring the milk mixture over the Tres Leches

First up is the Tres Leches Cookie. I'd heard some hype about this cookie, something about being customer's choice? I can't remember but I got one anyway to try it out since it seemed a little different from their norm. It was different all right but not in a good way, unfortunately. The hallmark of a typical Crumbl cookie that I like so much is they're slightly underbaked so they're moist and fluffy if not too underbaked and a great texture at room temperature because they're "fudgy" and dense.

Edges were dry

Not so with the Tres Leches cookie. The idea is it comes as pictured with a side serving of the milk mixture that you pour over the cookie and let it soak in. Would you believe that even after adding the milk mixture, the cookie was still dry? The middle was okay but the edges were dry as the desert. Ugh. I hate dry cookies. I even let the milk soak in for awhile all the way to the edges and waited in case that made a difference. It didn't. So the Tres Leches was a big fail for me. Other people raved about it so they might've gotten a less overbaked/dry cookie than I did. 

Cowboy Cookies

The Cowboy Cookie was better although not my favorite or even my Top 10. There was just too much going on in it, between the chocolate chips, coconut, and nuts. I like coconut which was the cookie's saving grace but I prefer milk chocolate over semisweet (please don't @ me for that, lol) and I don't like nuts in my cookies. Yes, I knew all this when I bought the Cowboy Cookie but I thought I'd try it and give it a chance. I'm glad I did just so now I know - pass on this one next time.

Cowboy Cookie

Cinnamon Butterscotch Cookies from Lauren's Latest

Cinnamon Butterscotch Cookies - made dough February 12, 2023 from Lauren's Latest

3/4 cup butter, melted

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cup butterscotch chips

1. Melt butter in medium-sized pot. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar and granulated sugar until well combined.
2. Add in egg, egg yolk and vanilla. Mix until lighter in color and combined.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Stir until combined. Stir in butterscotch chips and let dough rest for 10-20 minutes until thickened.
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Scoop dough into 1 1/2 tablespoon-sized dough balls. Evenly space on baking sheets. Bake 8-9 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through baking. Bake until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

I don't bake with butterscotch chips very often as I find them too sweet. But I have to admit, nothing smells better than anything baking with butterscotch in it.

Since the butter is melted, the dough can get warm and butterscotch melts easily. If you want the butterscotch chips to remain in their solid state, let the mixture cool to room temperature after you mix the sugar and melted butter together.

I don't like the solidity of chips in a soft-dense-chewy texture of a cookie so I added the butterscotch chips while the dough was still slightly warm from the melted butter. Some of the chips obligingly melted slightly so when I scooped out the dough, they became streaks of butterscotch, marbling in the dough.

I liked the effect and the slight incorporation of butterscotch flavor in the dough itself. Enough remained in their chip state to strike a balance. Although this had cinnamon in it, 1/2 teaspoon isn't really enough to make a pronounced cinnamon flavor known so if you want more cinnamon flavor, increase the amount. However, be aware butterscotch is a strong flavor so you don't want the cinnamon competing too heavily with it. 

Overall, I liked these cookies. I like the texture better than the flavor but these were still tasty. At room temperature, sure enough, I didn't care for the solidity of the chips (I have the same issue with chocolate chips in chocolate chip cookies) so next time I might add the butterscotch chips while the dough is warmer and swirl it about to get rid of the chip shapes and incorporate butterscotch swirls into the dough for more thorough marbling.

Magic 7-Layer Butterscotch Chip Cookies from Modern Honey

Magic 7-Layer Butterscotch Chip Cookies - made dough February 21, 2023 from Modern Honey

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (add more flour if omitting nuts)

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, lightly toasted (I left them out)

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar for 4 minutes or until light and fluffy.
2. Add eggs and vanilla extract; mix for 1 minute, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl as needed to keep mixture even textured.
3. Add flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt, mixing on low speed until just combined. 
4. Fold in butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, coconut and pecans or walnuts until evenly dispersed.
5. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls. Cover and chill for several hours or overnight. Freeze if not baking the next day.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 385 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly spaced dough balls. Bake for 9-12 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Gently press additional butterscotch and chocolate chips on top of warm cookies if desired. Let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Whenever I have random amounts of various ingredients to use up, 7-layer magic cookie bars are always a good bet. In this case, I had less than a full bag of butterscotch chips, half a bag of sweetened flaked coconut and a plethora of semisweet chocolate chips. Unfortunately though, I didn't have enough graham cracker crumbs for the base of even a half recipe of magic cookie bars.

So I turned to them in cookie form with this recipe from Modern Honey. I can't claim this to be an accurate replica of magic cookie bars in cookie form as I omitted the nuts (I don't mind them in bar cookies, I mind them in cookies) and these don't have graham cracker crumbs.

So I'd have to call them coconut butterscotch chocolate chip cookies to be accurate. Regardless of their name, they turned out pretty well as the cookies I called them. The dough was soft and sticky when I first mixed as the recipe indicated but since I had omitted the nuts, I ended up adding almost another 1/4 cup of flour than the recipe as listed. Use your judgment if you're making these. You don't want the dough to be too soft. Even chilling won't prevent spread if there's not enough flour.

These didn't spread too much, thanks to my flour adjustment but I also didn't make them too big. Taste-wise, they were also good with crisp edges and chewy middles. If I wanted a more faithful rendition to magic cookie bars though, I would probably swap out some of the flour for graham cracker crumbs to work that graham cracker flavor in there.

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.