Some say that the only thing better than a chocolate chip cookie is a cookie with even more chocolate in it. I have a hard time passing up a classic, but there are certainly occasions when more chocolate is in order. These Double Chocolate Coffee Toffee Cookies look simple and pack a lot of flavor, giving you a great cookie as well as providing you with a chocolate fix when you’re in the mood.
The cookies are a chocolate cookie made with plenty of cocoa powder and a good dose of coffee (instant coffee or Starbucks Via are both good choices). They are studded with pieces of toffee and milk chocolate chips. The cookies that have a great chocolate flavor and the coffee notes only serve to deepen it, highlighting the unsweetened cocoa powder in the dough. That dark chocolate flavor means that the cookies aren’t too sweet, so I opted to use milk chocolate chips in these. Milk chocolate adds some extra richness to the cookies in addition to adding even more chocolate flavor. You can use semisweet chocolate chips, if you don’t have milk chocolate, and can even use dark chocolate chips if you prefer the dark side! As for the toffee, you can buy prepackaged toffee bits in many supermarkets, or you can buy a chocolate covered toffee candy bar (such as Heath) and chop it up yourself.
The cookies are tender, slightly chewy and very satisfying – especially if you manage to grab one when they are still slightly warm from the oven. They’re not brownie-like cookies when it comes to texture, but the definitely have a brownie-like depth of flavor to them! The cookies will keep well for at least two or three days when stored in an airtight container, and they make great ice cream sandwiches if you’re inclined to save a few for a warm day.
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What do you think of when you think of classic American home cooking? Meatloaf? Fried Chicken? If I had to guess, I’d say that it depends a lot on what part of the country you grew up in and what the culture was like there. The country is huge and incredibly diverse, so while you’ll find classic American apple pies all over the country, you’ll find that the things that make up a home cooked meal just like mom used to make aren’t just “classic” dishes, but run the gamut from Greek Orzo Salad to Deep Fried Turkey. In One Big Table, you’ll find hundreds of these home-style recipes that, together, make up the food that is put on the American dinner table every night of the week.
This book is huge and, with 600 recipes, that is no surprise. The recipes are from all over the country and have been collected from home cooks everywhere. To give it even more flavor, the book is peppered with photos of the families that contributed the recipes, as well as with photos of American history as it relates to food. This means that instead of seeing photos of plated dishes, you’ll see photos of workers in a tuna canning factory near the turn of the 20th century, along with a history of tuna and other ingredients or products. The histories are what really makes the book interesting and they show you how all of these recipes are built from the same framework.
The book covers every part of the meal, from appetizers, snacks and salad dressings all the way through meats, veggies and desserts. There are recipes from just about every food culture out there in here in addition to things that are easily identified as American classics. The recipes all come with notes about who contributed them and what their stories were, and the recipes themselves are well organized and easy to follow along with. This isn’t a book that you’ll find easily to flip through if you’re simply looking for an Italian dish to make for dinner because the recipes simply aren’t grouped around cultural lines, but it is fun to read through and you’ll definitely find plenty of dishes that you’ll want to try – and dishes that might even become regulars on your dinner table!
Samoas are one of the most popular Girl Scout cookies for good reason: they have a fantastic combination of flavors. The cookies consist of a butter cookie base that is topped with a rich coating of caramel and coconut and drenched with chocolate. The Girl Scout cookie version – also known as Caramel de Lites – is good, but homemade might be even better because you can have them when you get a craving for Girl Scout cookies and they’re out of season and if you simply prefer homemade goodies to store-bought.
The other good thing about making your own homemade Girl Scout cookies is that it opens the door to use those same flavors in other treats, like a Thin Mint Cheesecake, Samoas Cheesecake Bars, Homemade Samoas Ice Cream or even a batch of Samoas Scones. These scones are my way of infusing the tastiness of Samoas into breakfast without admitting that sometimes I want a cookie with my coffee in the very early morning.
The scones are fairly plain on their own, slightly sweet and with a nice buttery flavor. They are topped with a combination of caramel and coconut, then dipped in and drizzled with semisweet chocolate. For my homemade Samoas cookies, I usually use a fairly firm caramel candy, but I recommend either using homemade caramel sauce or an ice cream topping-type of caramel because you want the scones to still be easy to bite into without the caramel on top getting too hard (better too gooey with these than too firm!). Prepare them about an hour or two before you want to serve them to give the chocolate time to set up, or pop them into the fridge for a couple of minutes before serving if you are cutting it close, timing-wise.
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Cake-like, cream-filled whoopie pies are enjoying a huge surge of popularity right now as a retro treat at bakeries and restaurants. They’re easy to make at home, too, and while they’re usually just made free-form on a baking sheet (much like regular cookies), some cake pan manufacturers are now coming out with whoopie pie pans to speed the process along and help to give home bakers a more uniform result. This Wilton Heart Whoopie Pie Pan is a great example. The nonstick pan has 12 heart-shaped cavities that are like shallow muffin tops. Just spoon your whoopie pie batter into the pan and it will bake up into matched sets of pies that are just waiting to be filled. These are a cute treat for Valentine’s Day and you get a very professional looking treat at the end of the process.
If you do want to make whoopie pies for Valentine’s Day, you might want to opt for a Red Velvet Pie with a Cream Cheese Filling – a recipe below is similar to what is pictured above – for the most festive look. Here are a few more whoopie pie recipes to get you started:
I have an extensive collection of baking cups and have a wide variety of sizes and colors that I choose from each time I bake. For holidays, it is usually easy to choose a themed cupcake wrapper, but for everyday baking, it can be nice to use something a little more understated, especially for baking a batch of simple bran muffins that doesn’t cry out for brightly colored cupcake wrappers. I actually really like brown baking cups because they compliment a wide variety of baked goods and also look good in photographs and that is what let me to pick up a package of Beyond Gourmet Unbleached Baking Cups in the first place.
These baking cups are made from completely unbleached, chemical-free paper and have a very natural brown tone to them. They perform just as well as most other muffin papers I’ve used, releasing muffins easily when it comes time to serve. I like the light brown color for baking muffins in particular and would still probably opt for something brighter for most cupcake recipes. The fact that they’re environmentally friendly and unbleached is a big plus for a lot of shoppers and it is nice to know that there are some good options out there for baking even if you’re not specifically interested in brown baking cups!
