Thursday, July 9, 2015

Pop Up Shop: Annie the Baker Cookies

Annie the Baker Cookies - pop up shop on July 2, 2015
I’ve written before about my culinary school classmate, Annie, who, after we graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in St Helena, went on to become the executive pastry chef at Mustard’s Grill then eventually opened her own business: Annie the Baker Cookies. She sells online and at local farmers’ markets in Napa Valley as well as supplies local businesses with her cookies.

I’m happy to say I was able to get her into our pop up shop at work as well. I love our pop up shop for exactly this opportunity it provides to small businesses to have a different avenue with which to sell their wares and get additional exposure. Annie went through the normal pop up shop vendor vetting process and set up shop the day before our 4th of July holiday. I have to admit I was a little bit concerned about the timing as I didn’t know if a lot of people would be taking off early for the holiday and whether there would be enough people on campus. Annie bounced numbers off me on how many cookies she should bring – 400 or 500? She normally sells 300-350 cookies during a typical morning at the Napa Valley Farmers Market. I thought it was better to err on the side of caution, meaning it was better to have leftovers than to run short. Plus, let’s be honest, I’m a fan of Annie’s cookies so I would have been more than happy to buy up the leftovers. Because I’m a good friend like that….

It was the super busy period for my group but I managed to pop out early when Annie’s pop up shop was supposed to initially open at 11 so I could lend moral support and buy cookies for my hardworking team. They were just finishing the set up so I was her first customer and promptly bought an assortment of a dozen cookies. I had the double intent of sharing the goodness with my coworkers but also creating some buzz internally so if people liked her cookies, they could go to the pop up shop and buy some as well. I had also arranged for my friend K to come visit me for a late lunch that day as she’s met Annie and tried her cookies before so K could also provide some cookie business and moral support. 

It turns out all of my precautions and concerns were for naught. When K arrived around 1, Annie had been open for close to 2 hours. Pop up shop hours are 11-3:30. We stopped by to say hello and her cookie jars were about half full with most of the cookies and I knew she had backup containers to refill the jars so I figured we were fine despite the people now clustered around the pop up shop buying cookies. I was thrilled and relieved Annie was getting business and her pop up shop appeared to be a success.


Ha, turned out that was an understatement. When K and I returned after getting salads, we were greeted with only 2 cookie jars left that had any cookies. Everything else was sold out and it wasn’t even 2 o’clock yet. While we were standing there getting an update from Annie on how things went, more people kept coming by and buying up the last of her cookies. By the time we left (and we didn’t stay that long), she was down to a handful of cookies.Not surprising if you like great cookies and have tried Annie’s. She told me she had brought 425 cookies. She was sold out by 2:15 and had to close up shop early when she ran out of cookies to sell. K wasn’t even able to get her favorite (and mine) of the Milk Chocolate Toffee Cookies as Annie had run out. Good thing I had bought the dozen earlier that morning as that was all I was able to get as well. No, I didn’t eat all 12 since I shared but I ate the Milk Chocolate Toffee before K had even arrived because – you know – cookie.



The cookies I bought to share
Annie and I are kindred spirits when it comes to cookies. We both believe they have to be chubby not thin, chewy not cakey and moist not overbaked. She prides herself on erring on the side of cookie dough more than baked cookie. Apparently she’s not alone because I haven’t met a person yet who doesn’t like an Annie the Baker cookie. I’m hoping she’ll be asked back to have another pop up shop and the people who didn’t get to try them the first time will have another shot at it. If you’re not able to see her at the Napa farmers’ market, she does sell her cookies online and you can choose your own assortment. I will always go with the Milk Chocolate Toffee but it’s good to have choices. 
Peanut Butter Extreme

SugaRainbow

Milk Chocolate Toffee Cookies

Semisweet Chocolate Chip

Tuxedo Cookies

Milk Chocolate Toffee Cookie


Annie the Baker, almost sold out

This cookie got sold while we were standing there

SugaRainbow

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough June 6, 2015 from Big, Soft, Chewy Cookies by Jill Van Cleave
Second recipe I tried from Soft, Thick, Chewy Cookies and this one fared better than the standard one for Chocolate Chip Cookies. It’s all about adding that second “Chocolate” in the title and in the dough. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies are easy to mix together for the dough. The trick is in the baking. You don’t ever want to overbake cookies (or they’ll be dry) and you don’t especially want to overbake chocolate cookies. Because, you know, what a waste of chocolate.

But it’s easy to do since you can’t go by the color of the cookies as they’re baking because, yeah, they’re chocolate. “Golden brown” on a chocolate cookie just doesn’t work. I time chocolate cookies but I confess, sometimes I forget how long a batch has already been baking so I default to the appearance test. You want to bake the cookies only just until the middle no longer looks raw and shiny. The cookies will be puffed up but there shouldn’t be too many cracks yet. It’s okay (more than okay) if the middles sink a little after you take the cookies out. If they stay puffy, chances are you’ve overbaked it. It’s okay to underbake chocolate cookies since the chocolate will set as the cookies cool and that’s how you end up with a moist fudgy texture.

These weren’t super-duper chocolatey (see Essence of Chocolate Squares for my chocolate standard) but were chocolatey enough to earn their moniker. They did live up to the source cookbook title in that they were soft, thick and chewy. 

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, cut into pieces
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
¼ cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips
  1. Melt chocolate in the top of a double boiler over barely simmering water. Set aside to cool. 
  2. In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg, milk and vanilla and blend. 
  3. Add melted chocolate and stir until just combined. 
  4. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Add to creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. 
  5. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover and chill or freeze until firm, several hours or overnight.
  6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and space dough balls evenly. 
  7. Bake until middle no longer looks raw, about 12-15 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

Big Soft M&M Cookies

Big Soft M&M Cookies - made dough June 27, 2015 from Pinch of Yum
I had to use up the rest of the bag of red, white and blue M&Ms, right? No better time than now to try out this recipe for M&M cookies. I almost didn’t choose this recipe to test out because they had no butter in them, just shortening. I am not a fan of shortening. Butter girl here.

I recognize the value of shortening in a cookie recipe, don’t get me wrong. It helps the cookies keep their shape better and don’t add the same melting properties of butter. But when it comes to flavoring a cookie, it ain’t butter. And I’m snobby enough not to go with butter-flavored shortening because – shudder – the only thing worse than not having a butter flavor is having a fake butter flavor. Fake butter. Let’s not go there.

Those prejudices aside, this turned out better than I expected. Loved the thickness and texture. Wasn’t as enamored of the flavor of course but still, it was fairly decent. The M&Ms add the chocolate component and the candy shell gives it a bit of crunch without having to add nuts (nuts in most cookies = all kinds of wrong). Plus they’re seasonally correct and they look cute.
Happy Birthday, America.
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2½ cups flour (+ 2-3 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1½ cups M&M's
  1. In a large bowl, mix the brown sugar, white sugar, shortening, eggs, and vanilla with electric mixers on low speed until well mixed. 
  2. Add the 2½ cups flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix until just combined.
  3. Add the extra tablespoons of flour until the dough feels thick and almost dry to the touch. Stir the M&M's into the dough. 
  4.  Roll into large balls and press extra M&M's into the tops. Chill or freeze until thoroughly chilled.
  5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and space frozen dough balls evenly. 
  6. Bake for 8-10 minutes (they will be slightly underbaked). Remove from cookie sheet after a few minutes and place on cooling rack. Cool completely.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Pop Up Shop: Chantal Guillon (macarons)

Chantal Guillon - June 4, 2015
Next to Cream in Palo Alto is a French macaron shop. I normally wouldn’t pay it any attention since I’m not a fan of macarons but my friend Lisa raved about them and said they were really good. I always intended to go by there “someday” and check it out but parking is a pain in that part of Palo Alto and I never really made the effort to go.

But the pop up shop at work is fantastic because the shops come to us. All I have to do is step outside my office building, walk some yards and there I am. Since such little effort is required on my part, I had to at least try a couple even though I still have such a prejudice against macarons. Just about all of the ones I tried have been too sweet for me and that includes the height of macaron uppity-ness, meaning Laduree of Paris.

When it comes to my prejudice of the hapless (and to me, over-hyped) macaron, I am clearly in the minority. The Chantal Guillon pop up shop turned out to be quite popular and one of the most well-patronized pop up shops I’ve seen. Even though I went fairly early, there was already a line, one which had grown longer by the time I made my purchases and left. Good for them.

I decided on two macarons – the red velvet and the salted caramel. They had a bunch of other flavors but those were the only two I wanted to try. I liked the macaron cookie part of the red velvet macaron; the outer layer was crisp with just the right amount of chewiness. The flavor was good too. But alas, the filling was too sweet for me. 


With the salted caramel, I had the opposite evaluation. I loved the salted caramel filling but the cookie part was too sweet and didn’t have the crispiness of the red velvet cookies. In essence, my perfect macaron would have been the red velvet macaron with salted caramel filling. 

I’m glad I tried them and I’m glad the pop up shop did so well but I have to admit, I still don’t get the hype around macarons. However, if you’re going to have one, it’s ideal to have them from someplace good and apparently Chantal Guillon is one of those good places. 



Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Red Velvet Sugar Cookies

Red Velvet Sugar Cookies - made dough June 27, 2015, recipe modified from Creme de la Crumb
Know the great thing about red velvet baked goods? They’re good across multiple holidays. The first obvious one might be Valentine’s Day – all that red frou frou schmaltzy hearts stuff going on. Then you can also make red velvet desserts for Christmas. Pair with green decorations and you have a seasonal winner. But wait, there’s more – patriotic holidays! The red is a natural foil to go with blue and white. Well, as natural as anything with red food coloring in it is going to be; but you get my meaning.
I’ve been wanting to try this recipe for red velvet sugar cookies for awhile. I have a plethora of red velvet recipes but have not made a sugar cookie version until now. At first I was going to just halve the recipe as the full recipe seemed like it made a lot and I’m (usually) all about the portion control. But I decided in for a penny, in for another 5 pounds.

The dough was really easy to mix together but I ended up using a little more red food coloring than the recipe called for before the dough was a red color that lived up to my finicky standards. Because you can’t have a wimpy red or anything verging on pink. Or red swirls in a chocolate dough. It has to be red. At first I worried it might be a tad too dry. Be sure to add the flour slowly, especially the last cup. Add in ¼ cup increments and make sure to incorporate it completely. If your dough is getting too dry, ease up on the last ¼ cup. You also don’t want to beat this too much after the flour is added while you’re trying to get the red food color evenly dispersed. In fact, if I were to make this again, I would add the red food coloring right before the dry ingredients. If, by the time you incorporate all of the dry ingredients, you’ve lost some redness, just add a few more drops of the food coloring and beat just until the additional color has been incorporated. At least this minimizes the (over) beating of the cookie dough trying to get the flour added and the right shade of red accomplished.
Anyway, the dough was great to work with, not too sticky and not quite too dry so I could shape it easily into large dough balls then press down with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. Don’t press down too hard as you don’t want thin cookies. These spread very slightly but not much so make them the thickness you want your cookies to be. I shaped the balls and pressed into thick discs before freezing them, stacked with wax paper between the layers, in a freezer bag.
No need to thaw them before baking. Simply remove from the freezer and arrange them on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper while your oven preheats. Allow at least an inch or inch and a half between cookies. And make sure you watch the baking time since, if you’ve achieved the right shade of red, you can’t tell if these are done just going by the color. Because, you know, red. And because the dough is thick and not really “wet”, you can’t quite go by how the middles look and whether they’re no longer raw shiny cookie dough because they don’t even get quite like raw shiny cookie dough when baking. I baked these for no more than 10-11 minutes, max, in my oven then took them out and let them cool on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes before moving them to wire racks.
Let them cool completely before frosting. I didn’t use the frosting recipe in the original blog but made up my own to go with a more traditional cream cheese frosting: just butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla. And the sprinkles; don’t forget the sprinkles which will turn these from Valentine’s Day and Christmas into 4th of July cookies. I had the blue and white sprinkles plus the red colored sugar from the FireworksPudding Cookies so these were easy to decorate by literally sprinkling the colors on top of each frosted cookie.
Because of the frosting, these aren’t ideal cookies to bring to hot summer barbecues and picnics in the blazing sun but if you do, make the frosting at the last minute or refrigerate the frosting before using on the cookies then serve shortly after frosting. I would not advise frosting the cookies then refrigerating them as, while refrigeration might preserve the frosting, it’ll also dry out your cookies. And you don’t want that. If you have an evening barbecue in anticipation of watching fireworks, then these would work just fine. All you need to do is keep them out of direct sunlight and store at cool or room temperature.
I love the texture and thickness of these. Can’t say they were really very chocolaty because they weren’t nor were they all that sweet but the sweetness of the cream cheese frosting goes well with the moist, chewy texture of the cookie and provides the sweetness you need. This is one of those cookies that I got a lot of compliments on at work so I wasn’t the only one who liked them. Or, maybe because one full recipe made almost 3 dozen large, thick cookies and I only ate a taste test cookie, more people got to try them. Either way, it’s a keeper.
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 3/4 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon water
2 eggs
5 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon red food coloring

Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
4-5 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup whole milk or enough to achieve desired consistency
Sprinkles, optional, for garnish
  1. In a large bowl cream together butter, vegetable oil, 1½ cups sugar, powdered sugar, water, and eggs.
  2. In a medium bowl whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. 
  3. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until combined. Add red food coloring 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing after each, until desired color is achieved. Cover and chill for 1 hour. 
  4. Remove dough from fridge and uncover. Roll dough into balls (slightly larger than a golf ball) and place on a lightly greased baking sheet about 3-4 inches apart. 
  5. Place remaining ¼ cup sugar on a plate. Use the bottom end of a tall glass cup (or the bottom of a small jar) for pressing the cookies. Spritz the bottom of the glass/jar with cooking spray then dip the bottom into the sugar. Use the bottom sugar-coated end of the glass to press cookies to about ½ inch thickness. Let the edges of the cookie dough squish out past the edges of the glass. 
  6. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a clean flat surface or a cooking rack. 
  7. When completely cool, place in airtight containers (if stacking, separate layers with parchment or wax paper) and keep chilled in the fridge. 
  8. For the frosting, cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add salt, vanilla, powdered sugar and milk; mix until smooth, alternating between powdered sugar and milk until you achieve the desired consistency. Frost cookies and garnish with sprinkles, if desired.