Posts tagged ‘cookies’

April 26th, 2013

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

by Chrissy

Bold claim, I know. But these cookies are the business.

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From a young age I loved baking chocolate chip cookies. If I’m being honest, it was probably more of an obsession…but who needs to know that.

And I wasn’t a fat kid, if you were wondering, based on the last comment. Who knows how I dodge that one, but maybe it had something to do with the variety of sports I played.

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At the age of 10, the recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag was ingrained into my memory, so I could bake them on a whim whenever I felt like it. I just had to be sure that there was some softened butter conveniently lying around on the counter.

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Sheesh. Just check out that melty, chocolaty goodness. It’s pure heaven biting into one of these, fresh from the oven.

Best Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies_LYK1When I finally got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas, I felt that it further honed my baking skills and recipe repertoire (you know with Pop Tarts, mini doughnuts and bite-sized brownies). The only drawback, was that this miniature oven made like 1 medium-sized cookie or 4 little cookie nibbles and I had 5 other siblings.

You do the math.

I would be baking baby cookies with a light bulb for HOURS if I didn’t realize the real oven was the way to go when it came to chocolate chip cookies. Baking anything with a light bulb just sounds like slave labor, because it is.

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With years of cookie baking under my belt, I’ve tried a variety of recipes–dozens and dozens of recipes—but I am confident in saying that this one suits my fancy.

These have the perfect amount of chocolate chips. They are chewy but not too under-baked and doughy. They are slightly cakey and hold their shape, rather than turning into a crispy pancake in the oven.

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Sidenote: the crispy pancake cookie, in my opinion, is the absolute worst kind, because they look so flat and sad. Also, when you try to take them off the sheet they are all baked together and crumbly. Which means that you automatically have to eat them up right away, since you can’t let those precious cookie pieces go to waste, and you don’t want there to be evidence of the ugly cookie disaster that just went down.

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But these little beauties, they are perfect in every way. Follow this recipe, and you’ll have no shame in baking these up for friends, or perhaps bringing them along when meeting the parents for the first time (don’t worry, it went over very well Smile ).

Just watch yourself, because you may have mad riots coming your way when the last cookie has found the bottom of someone’s belly.

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Enjoy these tasty morsels, fresh from the oven, with a glass of milk, or even a week later if they are stored in an airtight container.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Print Recipe!

Makes about 3 dozen, medium-sized cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 cup packed light-brown sugar (I used half dark and light brown sugars)

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the softened butter with both sugars and beat on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, for about 1 minute. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat on medium until well mixed, for another minute. Gradually, add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with a silpat or parchment paper. *We use a 1 ½-Tbsp sized cookie scoop and they make perfect medium-sized cookies.

Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, about 9 to 12 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. You can store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to about 1 week.

 

From the Little Yellow Kitchen,

Chrissy

February 14th, 2013

Happy Valentine’s Day! {Tea Party & Heart Cookies}

by Chrissy

Happy Valentine’s Day! We love and cherish you all!

We’ve been busy celebrating this fun holiday, filled with love and friendship.

Our pal, Pearl, and her Mom, threw our friends a lovely Valentine’s tea party and it was perfectly wonderful.

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{décor by Lindsey}

Spiced Butternut Squash Soup, topped with heart-shaped toast, covered with Kale Greek Yogurt Dip from TJ’s.

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Heart-Beat Salad –  with heart-shaped beets (get it?!) grapefruit, pomegranate seeds, red onion and mixed berry dressing.

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Assorted tea sandwiches:

Gorgonzola, date, pecan and honey (top).

Smoked salmon, cucumber, cream cheese (middle).

Pesto caprese in puff pastry (bottom)

And we also contributed some of these tea sandwiches.

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Tea time consisted of an aromatic Lavender flavor, and a Mango flavor.

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Funfetti Cake hearts & Earl Grey Shortbread.

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Chocolate Covered Strawberries? Classic. Some even had shredded coconut and toffee, which are personal favorite toppings.

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Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffles. Rich and deeeelicious.

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Since we clearly didn’t have enough sweets, we decided to bake some of those frosted fluffy sugar cookies. You know, the kind that you can find at the grocery store, which are sinfully addicting. Yea, those.

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Besides the dough being a little wacky, and forgetting to add food coloring until the end, (which is why they have a marbling effect, which I believe worked out in our favor) they are great!

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And the frosting? Helloooo Duncan Hines store-bought chocolate and vanilla. You saved our busy week.

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Just frost them up and throw some fun decorations on top. Let them sit out over-night, allowing the frosting to set a little more; then, carefully, pack them up and give them away!

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Bring them to work, to neighbors, to family, to friends, to frenemies, to the homeless dude who needs a little cheering up, to your barista, to someone totally random, or to your loved one.

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Well, get on it and spread some love! “We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

So, no excuses Smile.

From the Little Yellow Kitchen,

Chrissy

 

December 2nd, 2012

Mini Persimmon Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

by Lauren

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You may have noticed my absence in the last couple of weeks. I guess I have a little explaining to do.

I had my thyroid removed two weeks ago and have been slowly but surely recovering from surgery.

My fantastic mama has been taking care of me for the last couple of weeks, feeding me in my temporary habitat (the corner of the sofa), watching 4-hour marathon movies like Gone with the Wind, massaging my neck, browsing Pintrest for wedding ideas, and much more.

It really hasn’t been too bad. My amazing family and friends sent flowers and cards, making me feel more loved than ever. I’m happy to report that everything went smoothly and I’m finally going to be back in action on the blog (and in life)!

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Alright, time for a little food blogging confession. Up until these went into the oven, I was under the impression they were “biscuits” and my mom and I planned to serve them with dinner.

I should have known better. The recipe was inspired by a simple biscuit recipe Persimmons.com and sure enough, it’s based in the UK.

UK biscuits = US Cookies. Whoops. I suppose cookies with dinner never hurt anyone.

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These itty bitty one bite wonders are pretty addicting. They are perfect for those over ripe persimmons that you just don’t know what the heck to do with.

Puree them in your blender and make tiny flavor packed cookies!

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Mini Persimmon Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
Inspired by Persimmons.com

Ingredients 
1 1/2 cup flour
1 cup sugar 
1/2  teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt 
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg 
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon 
1/4  teaspoon ginger 
3/4 cup butter
1 egg, well beaten
1 cup persimmon puree
1 3/4 cup rolled quick oats 
1/4 cup dried cranberries

Directions
Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon into mixing bowl.  Beat in butter on low speed until a crumbly mixture forms.  Add egg, persimmon, rolled oats and nuts, beat until thoroughly blended.
Drop by heaping teaspoonful, about 1½ inches apart on ungreased cookie pans.  Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until golden brown. Make about 3 dozen cookies.

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From the Little Yellow Kitchen,

Lauren

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