Chefs Like Cookies Too!

Sorry for the tardy post, friends! Last week flew by as we were gearing up to announce the 2012 FOOD & WINE Best New Chefs. Held at Times Square's hidden gem, The Liberty Theater, the event didn't disappoint. In addition to the incredible fare served by Best New Chef alums, my personal highlights included the 2012 BNC announcement, custom Belvedere Vodka cocktails, and of course, the dance party. With a little help from DJ Questlove (of The Roots, for those of you who live under a rock) we danced under the glow of custom made FOOD & WINE marquee lights until our feet couldn't dance anymore. Here's a glimpse of the event. Photos courtesy of my super talented friend and photographer Allan Zepeda. (Keep scrolling for the cookies:)

Oh yes, that's me on the right... I'm either dancing or screaming in pain from my heels. 

Aside from assisting the art department with signage and set-up, I was lucky enough to score a spot for my favorite cookies in the BNC gift bags. These "Kitchen Sink" cookies are simply delicious, nothing fancy. They're actually a spin off of my original Hurricane Cookies, with a couple new ingredients:) The chefs I made them for, however, are supreme culinary royalty: Daniel Boulud, Michael Anthony, Gavin Kaysen and Top Chef alum Richard Blais to name a few. For a complete list of the new 2012 Best New Chef class, click here. Check out the Kitchen Sink cookie recipe below. I made and packaged over 100 of them, eating a few dozen along the way. Make them this weekend with whatever fixings you've got in your pantry. Whether it's coconut, walnuts, raisins or even leftover Easter candy, this cookie's a keeper. 

You can buy the gift bags and ribbon at any craft store

Kitchen Sink Cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour 

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon salt 

3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed 

3/4 granulated sugar 

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened 

2 eggs 

2 teaspoons vanilla extract 

1 cup peanut butter chips 

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips 

1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats 

1 cup Corn Flakes 

1 cup pretzels, roughly chopped

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 375° F. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper or baking liners and set aside.

2. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until fully incorporated. Add in vanilla extract.

3. Slowly beat in flour mixture. Stir in peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, oats, corn flakes and chopped pretzels. Use a small ice cream scoop to make even sized dough balls. Place onto baking sheets, leaving at least 1 1/2 inches between each ball.
4. Bake for 11 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and just set in the middle. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes.

Get the recipe card HERE

Gettin' Crafty

Candies and Chocolates: $80

I have a slight (serious) obsession with housewares. Vases, cake stands, platters, pitchers and more...I love them all. Seeing as I live in a shoebox apartment with my husband and our two dogs, I don't have room for much more. But, just because I don't have room for them doesn't mean I can't swoon all over the best NYC has to offer. In my opinion, the John Derian store in the East Village has it all. If I could, I'd buy about a thousand of these decoupage trays. To do that, however, I'd need about a million bucks. 

Lucky for me, I can get crafty with the best of them. I know the world of decoupage might bring up images of crazy craft ladies or Girl Scout camp, but to me it's a simple solution to achieve an otherwise un-achievable serving tray. 

I set out to replicate a John Derian tray and purchased a clear 5x8" glass tray for about seven bucks from here. One thing to remember with decoupage is that the thinner the paper you use, the better the final product. If there are slight curves in the glass, and if your paper is stiff, it will wrinkle when you start 'podging. 

I used white tissue paper and a magazine (FOOD & WINE, of course!). Food images always create beautiful color patters. Before you pass over that photo of beets or green beans, try cropping it to create a beautiful abstract image. I cut about 20, 1" petal shapes, but feel free to cut any shape, size, or color. To add a different shape and texture, I cut the white tissue paper into 20, 1" circles. 

To truly mimic the fancy decoupage trays, you MUST have silver or gold paint. I love gold accents, so I taped off and painted random sized gold stripes.

Now this is where things get exciting. I wanted to make my tray a little different, so I printed out my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe on plain copy paper and cut it into thin strips. Then, using a paintbrush and the Mod Podge, I glued the recipe strips (face down, of course) then painted over them to seal it all in. 

The rest is up to your imagination! I arranged the clippings by color and created a wave pattern. A couple tips: Don't use too much glue or your paper will wrinkle and make sure to seal it all in with one final thin layer of glue. 

Trim and seal the edges with the Mod Podge, then paint the edges with your gold or silver paint. You could also use a metallic paint pen. 

And there you have it! Your very own decoupage tray. Now, how great would it be to give someone this homemade gift (recipe included). You should probably throw in the cookies, too! 

C'mon Irene!

Here in New York, we had many days to anticipate the coming of Hurricane Irene. Well, she was big and she was slow. Thankfully, the Upper West Side never lost power, which meant I could bake up my own storm! So with the hurricane anthem "C'mon Eileen Irene" playing constantly in my head, I came up with these tasty "Hurricane Cookies." I figured that it's better to be safe than sorry, so for these survival cookies I threw pretty much everything but the kitchen sink in the mixing bowl. The great thing about these cookies is that you can toss any sweet/salty snack in the cookie dough, so get creative! Not sure I could have lived off of these cookies if we had lost power, but they're all I've eaten today so who knows....(For my co-workers, you get to enjoy these on Tuesday.) 

Hurricane Cookies
INGREDIENTS

These are the add-inns I chose....

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375° F. In small bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper or baking liners and set aside. 

2. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until fully incorporated. Add in vanilla extract. 

3. Slowly beat in flour mixture. Stir in peanut butter chips, chocolate chips, corn flakes and chopped pretzels. Use a small ice cream scoop to make even sized dough balls. Place onto baking sheets, leaving at least 1 1/2 inches between each ball.
4. Bake for 11 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and just set in the middle. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes.

Yay! Cookies!

Tried and True Cookbooks

Today is my day to brag about my most coveted cookbook!

My grandmother gave me this 1946 copy of the Toll House Tried and True Recipes signed by Ruth Graves Wakefield herself! This book means so much to me not only because it was given to me from my Nana, but because I love vintage cookbooks. There's actually a great story behind those Toll House Semisweet Morsels that adorn your chocolate chip cookies. It all started in Massachusetts at the home (and former toll house) of Ruth Wakefield. She accidentally stumbled on the chocolate chip cookie while writing her cookbook. You can read the full story on the NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE website. 

All this cookie reading inspired me to make some chocolate chip cookies myself! I decided against making the Toll House recipe and instead worked on perfecting my peanut butter chocolate chip cookie recipe. These cookies are seriously delicious and one of the major tweaks I have made is to swap out the semi-sweet chocolate chips for some good old milk chocolate chips.

Usually, I rarely use milk chocolate while baking. In this case, the peanut butter needs a smooth and subtle companion and the milk chocolate is perfect! I also decided on a 50/50 butter and shortening combo. I struggle with using shortening in baking often. Butter certainly tastes better, but shortening gives cookies a light & fluffy texture. Butter melts at around 90 degrees, while shortening melts at a much higher temperature (around 117 degrees). This means that a cookie dough with all butter will bake flatter and crispier than a sturdier dough made with shortening. To be fair, I usually do half butter, half Crisco. This way I get the best of both worlds! (On a side note: NEVER substitute shortening for butter when making a cake or frostings..ick!)  
Cookie recipe below...

Peanut Butter Chip Cookies (makes around 30 cookies)
INGREDIENTS
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 t. baking soda
2 t. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t. pure vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter (or crunchy if your feeling really adventurous)
1 cup milk chocolate (chop a couple milk chocolate bars up or use chips)
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a medium sized bowl, whisk flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs in one at a time, then add the peanut butter and vanilla until just incorporated. 
3. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in a little at a time, mixing until incorporated. 
4. Using a spatula, scrape down the sides of your bowl, then fold in the chocolate chips. Place in the fridge for at least 1 hour. 
5. Use this time to line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. 
6. Scoop the dough with a mini-ice cream scooper or by rounded tablespoons onto the baking sheet (at least 2 inches apart). 
7. Bake for 11-13 minutes, or until the edges and tops of the cookies begin to brown. Rotating the pan halfway through makes for a more consistently baked batch. 
8, Cool, then place in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Enjoy! 

Here's a shot of a few of my vintage cookbooks. It resembles a cake I recently made for a husband surprising his wife for her 30th birthday! She loves books and even co-authored the book featured on top. 






This one is the cake, in case you couldn't tell:)