Crumbl copycat Pink Velvet Cookies from Cooking with Karli

Crumbl copycat Pink Velvet Cookies - made dough October 30, 2022 from Cooking with Karli

1 1/2 cups salted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons cake batter flavoring

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

pink food coloring

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

milk to thin if needed

1. Cream together butter and sugar until well combined, light and fluffy. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl.
2. Beat in eggs and cake batter flavoring until combined. Add two drops of pink food coloring.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder. Add in 3 additions to butter-sugar mixture, mixing on low speed after each addition until just combined. Add a few drops of food coloring as you mix until desired color is achieved.
4. Scoop dough into 1/3 cup portions and roll into balls. Flatten slightly into thick discs. Cover and chill while oven preheats.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line baking sheet with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled dough discs on baking sheets. Bake 9-11 minutes or until middles no longer look raw. Do not overbake. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.
6. While cookies are cooling, make frosting: in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together butter and cream cheese until well combined and creamy. Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar, one cup at a time, beating after each addition. Thin with milk, a teaspoon at a time, until desired consistency is achieved. Frost cooled cookies.

As you can tell from the pictures, I didn't make the frosting recipe I included above and instead kept these cookies (or rather, this cookie as pictured since it was the taste test cookie) as plain/unfrosted. Mainly because I planned to mail the rest of the batch in care packages and I can never send cream-cheese-frosted cookies anywhere that's going to take more than a day to arrive, even in the coldest temps of winter. Too much risk of it going bad before arrival.

These cookies also turned out more pink than I intended. I was going for a pastel pink and overshot it by a couple of drops. When coloring your dough, try to add the food coloring early in the mixing process, primarily before you add the dry ingredients. The subsequent mixing helps spread the food coloring more evenly throughout the dough. You just can't have too heavy a hand (oops). 

Regardless, I loved this cookie. I don't know exactly what pink velvet is supposed to taste like - I said the same thing when I tried the original Crumbl version - but if it means a damn good sugar cookie that's colored pink, then here you go. I liked the thickness, the slight crispness at the edges and, best of all, the soft chewiness and texture of the middle. I'm sure this would taste good if it was frosted but it holds its own without the frosting as a great cookie.

A Roundup of Thanksgiving Desserts

We're a week out from Thanksgiving (my head just exploded) and I haven't done a recipe roundup in awhile so I thought it'd be apropos to do one now for Thanksgiving, in case anyone is still thinking about what to make and wants to do some grocery shopping this weekend. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and it's also got the best food, yes??

So here are my favorites of the season with links to the recipes for your ease of use:

(Okay, cornbread isn't technically a dessert but this Sweet Potato Honey Cornbread is so good, I would gladly swap dessert calories for an extra piece of this. And considering what a dessert fiend I am, that says something.)

Sweet Potato Honey Cornbread

Butter Pecan Tartlets 

(better than pecan pie in my opinion and cuter to boot)

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake with Caramelized Pecans and Cranberries 

(a good alternative to pumpkin pie, seriously)

Apple Cobbler 

(a perennial fall and winter favorite dessert, Thanksgiving or not - don't forget the ice cream)

You'll notice that none of these are pies. And you'd be right. I have yet to master the art of the flaky pie crust. This year, I'm going to Dominique Ansel's bakery for pie (stay tuned).

Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies from Butternut Bakery

Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough October 27, 2022 from Butternut Bakery 

2 1/4 cups (290 grams) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (220 grams) unsalted European-style butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (150 grams) dark brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup (160 grams) dark chocolate

3/4 cup (130 grams) milk chocolate, chopped

Flaky sea salt for sprinkling

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes.
3. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla, beating for 2-3 minutes until well combined. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even-textured,
4. Add dry ingredients in two additions, mixing after each addition until just combined. Do not overmix. Fold in chocolate chunks.
5. Portion dough into 6 ounce balls (3/4 cup each), shaping tall. Chill overnight.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough balls and bake 13-16 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and sprinkle with flaky sea salt if desired. Cool for several minutes on baking sheets before transferring cookies to wire rack to cool completely.

If you want large, thick, chewy, awesome chocolate chip cookies, here you go. I've tried a couple recipes from Butternut Bakery and her Chewy Sugar Cookies are still one of my favorites for sugar cookies.

I have a high (think Olympus heights) bar for chocolate chip cookies, considering how many I've made over the years. I'm happy to report this is a good one. They're made to be big so the recipe only makes 6 large cookies.

You can make them smaller, of course, but I like making them large when called for as it does bake up differently, based on the size. You get that soft, chewy middle while the edges are crisp which happens more easily with larger cookies since the middle bake more slowly while the edges turn golden. 

Brown Sugar Refrigerator Cookies

Brown Sugar Refrigerator Cookies - made dough October 25, 2022 from Golde's Homemade Cookies by Golde Hoffman Soloway 

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg, beaten slightly

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup nuts, chopped, optional

1. In a large bowl, cream butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and mix to combine. Whisk the flour and baking soda together then add to creamed mixture, mixing until just combined. Add vanilla and mix to combine. Fold in nuts if using.
2. Shape dough into 2-inch thick logs, about 12 inches long. Wrap each log in plastic wrap and chill or freeze.
3. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
4. Slice logs into 1/4-inch thick slices and evenly space on baking sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes until golden. remove to wire rack to cool.

I thought these would be distressingly plain and they kind of are. Or at least they would be if you ignored the random brown sugar splotches in some of the cookies, a sure sign there were brown sugar lumps in the dough that melted during baking.

Rookie issue, right? But, in my defense, my brown sugar bag must've had some kind of air hole in it (thanks, Target) so the brown sugar dried more quickly. I didn't want to throw the bag out so I microwaved it slightly and broke up as many hard, dry lumps as I could before adding to the butter and beating the heck out of it. As you can see, I didn't get them all.

However, the saving grace of these cookies is they tasted pretty good. Light, airy and crisp with a great brown sugar flavor. Yes, they're plain and would blush against fancy cookies plus they spread more than I liked but they're good if you want plain and delicious. They would also be good as sandwich cookies with a vanilla, Nutella or cookie butter filling.

Another Arroz Caldo recipe

Another Arroz Caldo recipe - made October 26, 2022 modified from Salu Salo

2 pounds skinless chicken thighs, cut into chunks
salt and pepper
2 tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb-size ginger, cut into strips
1 onion, chopped
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 1/2 cups uncooked rice, washed and drained
1/8 teaspoon saffron
7 cups chicken stock
4 soft-boiled eggs
chopped green onion, for garnish

1. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper. 
2. Heat oil in heavy pan over medium heat. Fry garlic until browned then add onion and ginger. Cook, stirring constantly, until onion is softened.
3. Add chicken and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until meat is no longer pink.
4. Add fish sauce and stir. Add rice and saffron. Stir to combine.
5. Add chicken stock and stir. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until chicken is tender and rice is cooked. If mixture becomes too thick, add more water or chicken stock as needed.
6. Add soft boiled eggs. Season with taste with fish sauce or salt. Serve hot, garnished with chopped green onion and lemon wedges.

I modified this slightly as I only had bone-in chicken thighs, not boneless, and I didn't have any onions, not even a dusting of onion power in my Penzey's spice drawer. And I'd given my jar of saffron to my mom. Plus I didn't have any green onions on hand or any fresh ginger, just powdered ginger. Okay, fine, I modified it more than slightly.

Fortunately, unlike my sweet tooth which insists on picky heights of culinary dessert snobbery, my bar for savory foods is much, much lower. As in, arroz caldo, or Filipino rice porridge with chicken and soft-boiled eggs, is a perennial favorite and it's hard to make it badly. Even my culinary talents extend to cooking chicken and rice in (powdered)ginger-infused chicken broth and letting it boil until aforementioned chicken and rice are done. Comfort food at its finest.

Triple Chocolate Oreo Cookies from Crazy for Crust

Triple Chocolate Oreo Cookies - made dough October 23, 2022 from Crazy for Crust

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

2 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup milk chocolate chips

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

8-10 Oreos, chopped, about 1 1/2 cups

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Add vanilla and eggs, mixing until just combined.
2. Beat in melted chocolate and cocoa powder until just combined. Add salt, baking soda and flour, mixing on low speed until just combined. Stir in milk chocolate chips, semisweet chocolate chips and chopped Oreos, until evenly dispersed.
3. Portion dough into golf-ball-sized dough balls, cover and chill for 1 hour or more.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space dough balls. Bake 8-9 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

Mine didn't look as good or as chubby as the ones on Dorothy's (Crazy for Crust) blog but I imagine they tasted the same because her recipes are always good and so were these cookies.

Light and crisp at the edges and satisfyingly chocolatey-chewy in the middle. I could've made them more dressy by pressing Oreos chunks and chocolate chips on the outside once they came out of the oven but since I was packaging these for mailing, it was better to keep the chunks and chips inside the cookies.

Chewy Brownies from Bigger Bolder Baking

Chewy Brownies - made October 26, 2022 from Bigger Bolder Baking

1 cup (8 ounces, 2 sticks) butter, melted

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (177 grams) dark brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (227) granulated sugar

4 large eggs

4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup (142 grams) all-purpose flour

1 cup (115 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl, mix melted butter, oil, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla on high speed with an electric hand mixer or on medium high speed in a stand mixer.
3. Add flour, cocoa powder and salt, mixing on low speed until just combined. Fold in half of the chocolate chunks.
4. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Generously top with remaining chocolate chunks.
5. Bake 45-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center of brownies come out with a few moist crumbs. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

You know how I've been waiting and waiting until the weather cools down before I put in a bulk order for unsweetened chocolate so it could survive the mail without arriving as a melted mess? Well, it finally cooled down enough for me to order but when I went back to my usual sources for high quality unsweetened chocolate, it was to find they've all gone markedly up in price. As in, I'm better off financially buying Bakers unsweetened chocolate from Target, 4 ounces at a time, for a few bucks than trying to buy 5 lbs of unsweetened chocolate for $100. Eek. All that waiting for nought.

Fortunately, I found this recipe from Bigger Bolder Baking that uses unsweetened cocoa powder and is amazingly like my go-to brownie recipe in terms of rich chocolate flavor and firm, dense, fudgy-but-not-fudge texture. Seriously, the pictures don't do this one justice. 

I'm thrilled I have an alternate recipe for great brownies that uses cocoa powder. I'm usually skeptical of cocoa-powder-only brownies as they tend to be more cakey or not taste as good. But this one breaks all my prejudices against cocoa brownies. Honestly, it was so good I made it twice in one week for care packages. Plus it bakes up nice and thick as well. If you don't want to break the bank on buying high quality unsweetened chocolate, this is a perfect alternative. Further plus is unsweetened cocoa powder (the good kind) isn't as expensive and is easier to source as fair trade. 

Dream Cake Bars

Dream Cake Bars - made October 24, 2022 from Golde's Homemade Cookies by Golde Hoffman Soloway

Pastry

1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

1/4 cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons brown sugar

Topping

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar, packed

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped (I used toasted almonds)

3/4 cup coconut, shredded

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 8 x 8 pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, mix flour, butter and 2 tablespoons brown sugar. Knead into light dough. Press gently into pan and bake for 10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, beat the eggs lightly with a fork. Add the remaining topping ingredients and mix thoroughly. Spread topping over partially baked pastry. Return pan to oven and bake an additional 25-30 minutes, until golden. Cool completely before cutting.

I'm still making my way through this particular baking book I've had forever and rarely used. So far the recipes have just been "okay". Not bad, not particularly excellent but literally "okay".

I had hoped this one would break the okay barrier since it has the elements I like in a bar cookie: shortbread crust, brown sugar and coconut. I substituted toasted almonds for the walnuts since I don't like walnuts so as to increase its chances of meeting the approval of my picky taste buds.

Alas, to no avail. They weren't bad but they weren't spectacular either. The brown sugar flavor was good and I like the coconut-almond combination. The shortbread crust was a bit too floury and dry rather than being shortbread like the crust on my favorite lemon bar recipe. So this still goes into the "okay" column in my book.

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies

Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies - made dough October 19, 2022 from Everything Chocolate by America's Test Kitchen

1 1/4 cups (6 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups (3 3/4 ounces) old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup pecans, toasted and chopped

1 cup (4 ounces) dried sour cherries, chopped

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chip-size

12 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups (10 1/2 ounces) packed dark brown sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 
2. In another bowl, stir together oats, pecans, sour cherries sand chocolate chunks.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and brown sugar on medium speed until combined, about 1 minute, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
4. Add egg and vanilla; beat until combined. On low speed, add flour mixture and beat until just combined. Add oat mixture and beat until just incorporated.
5. Portion dough into 1/4 cup measures and roll into balls. Flatten slightly with bottom of glass. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
6. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and evenly space dough balls. Bake until edges have set and middles no longer look raw, 20-22 minutes. Let rest on baking sheets to 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

I substituted toffee bits for the dried sour cherries in these cookies. Since I was mailing them in care packages that would likely take 2-4 weeks to arrive, I didn't want to risk using fruit, even if dried, in case they turned moldy on the trip. Toffee bits are safer for longevity.

These did not make pretty, uniform cookies as you can see. They strike that "homemade" look given how misshapen some of them are. The dough was a little soft when I portioned into dough balls and I wasn't going for the perfect cookie look so I hadn't bothered  to make them perfectly round smooth dough balls, something that's hard to do with oats in the dough anyway.

But don't let appearances fool you as these were really quite good. Not too sweet, a good amount of chewiness and, for those of you who don't like cinnamon which is often used to spice oatmeal cookies, this recipe doesn't have any so all you get is buttery, brown sugary goodness and caramelized oatmeal and chocolate flavor.

I omitted the pecans in the recipe since I don't believe in nuts in most cookies but you could also add them for a little more crunch and flavor. Otherwise, this is a good, straightforward oatmeal cookie. They do spread a bit though so don't look for thick or soft cookies from this one.