Nut-Free Grand Finale Cookies with Regular Oats

Nut-Free Grand Finale Cookies with Regular Oats

Another day, another batch of Nut-free Chocolate Chip Grand Finale Cookies. I only had one cup of quick cooking oats (recipes needs two) so I substituted old fashioned oats. The result? Fabulous texture but fragile! Several broke when I lifted them to a cooling rack. You don’t see those here because, well, breakfast …… #chocolatechipcookies #oatmealraisincookies #grandfinalecookies #nutfreecookies #cookies #cookiesofinstagram

NUT FREE CHOCOLATE CHUNK GRAND FINALE COOKIES

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups quick cooking oats
• 2 cups chocolate chips
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup raisins
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until smooth, creamy and well blended. Add the egg, orange juice and vanilla extract and beat them in, blending thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Add the oats, chocolate chunks, coconut and raisins and mix them in. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough and place on the cookie sheets, leaving some place between the blobs for the cookies to spread. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes then remove to a cake rack to cool completely.

Makes 36-42 cookies

S'mores for all Seasons

S'mores Chocolate Chip Cookies

Summer may be almost over and with it the picnics and going to the beach.

And s'mores over the campfire.

But I had this eureka moment the other day when I thought about incorporating the s'mores ingredients into a chocolate chip cookie. 

I made several versions, some stacked, some stuffed, some with cut up marshmallows, some with shaved chocolate.

But they were all too thick, too soft, too just not right.

This one is exactly what I had hoped: crispy, chocolate-y, marshmallow-y and just the right amount of graham cracker crumbs to give it extra sweetness and a gorgeous golden glow.

S'mores Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 3/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup coconut oil
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 8 ounces chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini-marshmallows 

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet. Beat the butter, coconut oil, brown sugar, white sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture is smooth and well blended. Add the eggs and beat the mixture until well blended. Add the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking soda, baking powder and salt and blend them in thoroughly. Fold in the chocolate chips and marshmallows. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough and place each scoop on the cookie sheet, leaving room for the cookies to spread. Tuck the marshmallows beneath the dough as much as possible. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Makes about 48 cookies

Nut-free Chocolate Chunk Grand Finale Cookies

I have just a few minutes until I turn everything off, including work, so I can watch the World Cup match between the U.S. and Germany.

It will be a nailbiter, especially because of what happened in the last 20 seconds of the last game between the U.S. and Portugal.

So, I wanted to wish our team good luck and send them off with a terrific recipe: the all-American chocolate chip cookie. This is my latest version of my family-favorite Grand Finale cookies, but this one is nut-free and has chocolate chunks.

NUT FREE CHOCOLATE CHUNK GRAND FINALE COOKIES

•    1 cup all-purpose flour

•    1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

•    1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

•    1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

•    1/2 teaspoon salt

•    3/4 cup unsalted butter

•    3/4 cup packed brown sugar

•    3/4 cup sugar

•    1 large egg

•    1/4 cup orange juice

•    1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

•    2 cups quick cooking oats

•    12 ounce package chocolate chunks

•    1 cup shredded coconut

•    1/2 cup golden raisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and sugar at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until smooth, creamy and well blended. Add the egg, orange juice and vanilla extract and beat them in, blending thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Add the oats, chocolate chunks, coconut and raisins and mix them in. Scoop heaping tablespoons of dough and place on the cookie sheets, leaving some place between the blobs for the cookies to spread. Bake for 14-16 minutes or until golden brown and crispy. Let cool on the cookie sheets for 3 minutes then remove to a cake rack to cool completely.

Makes 36-42 cookies

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coconut Flour and More Brown Sugar

Chocolate chip cookies are like politics. You get stuck on a point of view and most of the time you don’t change it. I always sort of knew this but the idea was reinforced recently at our annual family cookoff. Everybody liked different recipes for all sorts of personal reasons.

I like crispy chocolate chip cookies but my sister-in-law Eileen likes them soft.

Ed and his sister Barbara insist that their Mom’s recipe was wonderful. But her chocolate chip cookies were so lumpy and dry they crumbled like sandcastles.

Jesse likes a variety of chips and also other stuff in chocolate chip cookies — the chips are just one diversion for him.

Is there such a thing as the “best” chocolate chip cookie?

As I said, it’s like politics. It depends on your point of view.

Recently, Felicity Cloake wrote a very informative article in The Guardian, explaining all the ins and outs of chocolate chip cookies. Like why some are chewy, some crispy, whether you should let the dough rest and, of course, a discussion on the chips. She also gives a recipe.

She says that the original Toll House Cookie recipe is a good basic recipe.

But I say, it’s not perfect. A tweak here and there to suit your tastes is okay.

BTW, so far, despite Jesse’s great Chocolate Chippers with all Sorts of Other Stuff and the other three cookoff recipes in our family event, all of which were good, the family universally agrees that nothing we’ve tasted thus far surpasses the Grand Finale cookies from my book, Hip Kosher.

Grand Finales are crispy and contain dark chocolate chips, nuts and raisins. Nothing beats them. So, do try them.

Or try the recipe below, a bit more caramel-y because there’s more brown sugar and less white sugar than standard versions. These are soft but moist, neither crispy nor chewy. Vaguely coconut-y because I’ve used some coconut oil and coconut flour.

BTW, this may sound like heresy, but I never use Nestle’s chocolate chips. I think they are way too sweet and not chocolatey enough. I usually buy Ghirardelli but sometimes I use bar chocolate and chop it into pieces.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with Coconut Flour and More Brown Sugar

14 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 cup dark brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup coconut flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups chopped chocolate or chocolate chips

Cover cookie sheets with parchment paper. Beat the butter, coconut oil, brown sugar, white sugar and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer set at medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until the mixture is smooth and well blended. Add the eggs and beat the mixture until well blended. Add the flour, coconut flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and blend them in thoroughly. Stir the chocolate into the dough. For each cookie, mound balls of dough (about 3 tablespoonsful) onto the prepared cookie sheets, leaving an inch or more of space between each mound of dough. Flatten the mounds slightly. Bake immediately or refrigerate for 2-24 hours. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 13-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes about 24-28 cookies

Jesse’s Chocolate Chippers with All Sorts of Other Stuff

We have a winner!

Last week I blogged about our annual Mother's Day cookoff.

Ed baked the cookies from the recipe in that post. And everyone else (except me) made their own versions, including some that had to be prepared the night before so the dough could “firm up” in the fridge.

The kitchen smelled so good on Sunday during the baking that no one wanted to go out even though it was such a beautiful day here in Connecticut. (But we did).

After dinner we judged The Contest! That was dessert.

You can see that this is a Grand Event, meant to be Earnest and Solemn. Take a look at the form Jesse made as a judging tool (except that my grandson used his own method, as you can see from the yellow pad in his hands at The Contest).

I am the serious looking woman in the Wonder Woman apron (a really cool Mother’s Day gift!).

We cut up each of the four different kinds of cookies into halves and ate them in the same order. Nibbling, tasting, cooing, humming and making all the other noises people make when they are eating something delicious.

And then of course (because the Event was so Serious) we all had to eat more and even a bit more, just to make sure we had the tastes and textures right and we had made up our minds what we liked (or didn’t) about each cookie.

And then we scored the cookies.

And all and all, Jesse’s Chocolate Chippers with All Sorts of Other Stuff got the most points.

And he was very modest about it. Unfortunately I didn’t get a photo of him dancing around the kitchen.

Actually we all had different favorites. For different reasons. Which is one of the reasons we all love our annual cookoffs. They are very unserious and so much fun and we can all appreciate each others’ efforts and creativity and every year all of us eat everything.

But Jesse did get the most points and so here is his smashing and wonderful recipe, based on an original formula for Compost Cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar.

Jesse’s Chocolate Chippers with All Sorts of Other Stuff

• 2 sticks butter, at room temperature

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 2/3 cup tightly packed light brown sugar

• 2 tablespoons corn syrup

• 1 large egg

• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

• 3/4 cup large Ghirardelli chocolate chips, chopped

• 1/2 cup chopped Fairway chocolate covered sea salt caramels

• 2 whole Graham crackers, broken into pieces

• 1/3 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

• 2-1/2 teaspoons ground coffee (not instant)

• 2 cups Cape Cod potato chips, slightly broken

• 1 cup broken pretzels

• 1 cup flaked coconut

• 1 cup corn flakes

Combine the butter, sugars and corn syrup in the bowl of a stand mixer (use paddle attachment or regular beaters if you don’t have one) and beat the ingredients on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat for 7-8 minutes at medium speed. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat at low speed just until a dough forms. Add the chocolate chips, caramels, graham crackers, oats and coffee and mix on low speed until the ingredients are incorporated. Add the potato chips, pretzels, coconut and corn flakes and mix at low speed until just incorporated. Place mounds of dough (about 1/3 cup) onto parchment-lined cookie sheets, leaving plenty of room for the cookies to spread. Pat the tops of the mounds slightly. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (up to 1 week). Be sure to bake the cookies when they are cold, not room temperature. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375°. Bake the cookies for about 18 minutes, or until browned at the edges and beige-yellow in the center. Cool the cookies on the cookie sheet.

Makes about 20-24 cookies

 

Our Mother's Day Chocolate Chip Cookie Cookoff

On Mother’s Day we always have a family cookoff. I really really don’t like going out for brunch to a crowded restaurant. I find it is actually easier to just cook something at home instead of expecting four grandchildren of various ages to sit there and behave themselves for what would be an enjoyable amount of time to eat but the grownups wind up eating fast before anyone gets too restless.

I’m not really a cranky old grandma. Just ask my grandchildren!

It’s just easier at home.

So, we’ll have an early Sunday dinner but before that we will be cooking for the cookoff. This year’s theme is “Chocolate Chip Cookies.”

That could mean anything. The only rules are that the recipe must contain chips and CANNOT be the original Toll House cookie and CANNOT be Grand Finale cookies from my book, Hip Kosher.

I am going to try the variation here. Ed always almost comes to tears when he remembers his mother’s chocolate chip cookies. But she never left a recipe. I remember those cookies as being drier than most and also they looked lumpy, not flat. So I included more flour in this recipe than most standard chocolate chip cookie recipes. I am also adding sea salt at the end because, well, because I think sea salt and sweet chocolate cookies are a swell combo.

And because I am experimenting with coconut oil these days, I added a little of that too.

Also, letting the dough chill out in the fridge gives a firmer texture, if you like your chocolate chippers that way.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter almost at room temperature

2 tablespoons coconut oil

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 cup white sugar

1-1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 large eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

12-14 ounces chocolate, chopped

sea salt

Beat the butter, coconut oil, brown sugar and white sugar together with a mixer at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy and smooth. Add the vanilla extract and eggs and beat them in thoroughly. Mix the flour and baking soda and add to the butter mixture. Blend into a uniform dough. Fold in the chopped chocolate. Chill, if desired, for 2-48 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place parchment on cookie sheets and scoop golf ball size balls of dough and place them on the parchment. Bake for about 15 minutes or until lightly browned. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Cool the cookies for 2-3 minutes, then remove them to a cake rack to cool completely.

Makes about 48

Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies

If desserts were football, who would win the Superbowl: brownies or chocolate chip cookies? 

Brownies seduce you from the first dizzying perfume they give off as they bake to the last caress of tender crumbs on your lips. They are edible magnets of melted chocolate mixed with just enough ingredients to give them some form. Brownies are winners for sure. 

But chocolate chip cookies! Mmmm. Buttery and tender, with a compelling crisp edge and oozy half-melted, half-firm chocolate melting on your tongue. Aren’t they the champions of all cookies, outshining all others? The classic you call on when you want to be on top of your game?

At a bake sale, which outsells the other, brownies or chocolate chip cookies?

If you serve either or both, brownies or chocolate chip cookies, are any left over and if so, which ones?

Maybe it’s time to find out. Serve both on Superbowl Sunday. Or on Valentine’s Day. Or anytime. Here’s a recipe for Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies. But there’s another recipe for classic fudge brownies here and click on the link above for a recipe for the best chocolate chip cookies ever. 

Then let me know which won.

Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup butter

2 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup chopped nuts

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a 13-by-9-inch baking pan. Put the chocolate and butter together in the top part of a double boiler set over barely simmering water. Stir 3 to 4 minutes or until the chocolate has melted. When the butter and chocolate have melted and are blended, stir in 2 cups sugar and 3 eggs. Whisk ingredients thoroughly.

Add the flour, salt, nuts and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and stir in the ingredients with a large wooden spoon. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla until thoroughly blended. Place blobs of the cream cheese mixture over the top of the chocolate batter. Cut through the cheese, making swirls and designs with the chocolate.

Bake about 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool. Cut into bars with a sharp knife dipped into hot water. Refrigerate brownies. Makes 32 to 40 brownies.

So which wins the Superbowl of desserts, brownies or chocolate chip cookies?

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Cookies and milk. It’s the snack we got when we came home from school. My mother, who started to work when I entered the 4th grade, somehow found the time to bake cookies three or four times a week.

There were no other snacks during the day. It’s not as if my parents were depriving us or trying to get us to eat less junk. It’s just the way it was for us, and as far as I knew, for everyone else. When I went to a friend’s house I also got cookies and milk, maybe not homemade cookies but Oreos or sugar wafers, sometimes Vienna Fingers (all three with a goodly amount of white icing).

Today is National Junk Food Day, which a lot of people use as an excuse to eat … a lot of junk. But do we really need to set aside a day to do what so many of us already do?

Btw, it’s not really a national holiday. That takes an act of Congress and, no matter what you think about our government, no one in his or her right mind would propose a national day on which we should eat (and have our children eat) junk.

First Lady Michelle Obama is actually trying to take a critical look at childhood obesity (the Let’s Move campaign). Maybe there’s a way to keep the kids, and ourselves, from getting fatter and fatter.

I say, let’s start by having only one snack a day. I say cookies and milk. How about Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies? Here’s an easy recipe:

Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Cookies

3 cups quick cooking oats

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

12 tablespoons (1-1/2 sticks) butter

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup apple juice, orange juice or water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet (or two). Combine the oats, flour, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Place the butter, white sugar and brown sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer (or a large bowl) and beat on medium speed for 2-3 minutes or until creamy and well blended (or use a hand mixer). Add the egg, juice and vanilla extract and blend them in thoroughly. Add the oat-flour mixture and blend it in thoroughly. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop the dough (a mounded tablespoon worth)  onto the cookie sheet, leaving room for the cookies to spread. Bake for about 10 minutes or until set and lightly browned. Let cool slightly, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough. Makes about 4 dozen

For more about National Junk Food Day see: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/food/article/Healthy-ways-to-celebrate-Junk-Food-Day-577270.php

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

Your post brought back some terrific memories for me too. I remember baking cookies with my mother. But it wasn’t chocolate chip cookies because she didn’t like them (can you imagine that!!).

My mother made butter cookies and she would give me and my brothers raw dough to play with and I must say, she must not have had a rule to wash our hands first because I remember that after we played with the yellowish dough it was completely gray and disgusting. We made it into nondescript lumps and she would bake the lumps for us and we would each eat our own. We’re all still around so I guess the dirt didn’t hurt us.

Unlike my mom, I love chocolate chip cookies. I also like oatmeal raisin cookies. In my book, Hip Kosher, there’s a recipe for a chocolate-chip-oatmeal-raisin cookie I called The Grand Finale. I always have some in my freezer because my kids would hate it if I didn’t. Here’s the recipe:

Grand Finale Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/4 cup orange juice

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/2 cups quick cooking or rolled oats

1-1/4 cups chocolate chips

1 cup dried flaked coconut

1 cup chopped almonds

3/4 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Mix the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Combine the butter, brown sugar, and sugar in a large bowl and beat them with an electric mixer set at medium speed for about 2 minutes or until creamy and well blended. Add the egg, orange juice, and vanilla extract and beat them in thoroughly. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the oats, chocolate chips, coconut, almonds, and raisins. Scoop blobs of dough about 2 inches in diameter and place on lightly greased cookie sheets. Bake for 15–18 minutes or until browned. Makes 3 dozen