I really kind of sweated about what to make. Bake sales are funny things. Believe it or not, all you guys in foodie land, there are people that just aren’t interested in trying raspberry chipotle brownies, or bacon and chocolate chip cookies. I know, right? Bake sale items are the best if they are comfort food, normal stuff that you used to eat when you were a kid, or things that are very similar. So I thought that peanut butter chocolate chip would be different enough to feed my sense of uniqueness and familiar enough to do well. I will have to tell you the verdict on that later. But I can say that, since a cookie broke when I was removing it from the sheet and I was forced to eat it, these are the perfect balance of chocolate and peanut butter flavor.

*It’s later and the bake sale was called off for some reason.  But the cookies are…awesome!

The cookies are large, moist and slightly chewy with a crisp outside and a tender inside. Warm, the chocolate chips just melt and flow into the surrounding crumb. Right now the entire house smells fantastic..better than ANY Yankee Candle Co. candle. Give these a try and let me know what you think.

It is really important not to over bake these. They will be soft when you take them out of the over. Allow them to stand for at least 5 minutes to firm up before removing them from the baking sheet to cool completely. By using a tablespoon measure you should get cookies that are about 3-4″ in diameter.

Did you know that the traditional design in peanut butter cookies (the fork ### crosshatching) helps them to develop a crisp outside and a tender middle without being cakey?  Now you do.  I forgot where I read that…

What are you waiting for? Gosh!

Bake Sale Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 1/2 cup soft unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup Crisco
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt (more if you are using homemade peanut butter)
• 6 oz chocolate chips (I used Safeway/Tom Thumbs brand organic)

2. Cream the butter, Crisco, and peanut butter together until smooth.
3. Add the brown sugar and white sugar and beat until fluffy and well blended.
4. Beat in the eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition.
5. Add the vanilla and blend.
6. Sift together the baking soda, flour and salt and stir in to make a soft dough.
7. Stir in the chocolate chips.
8. Roll tablespoons of the dough into balls and place on a cookie sheet covered with silpat or parchement.  Flatten with a fork dipped in flour, first horizontally and then vertically to make squares.
9. Bake at 375F for 8 minutes.
10. Cool.

Makes about 4 dozen

images:marye audet (c)2009

Post from: Baking Delights

We had an afterglow at church last night and I am experimenting with some of the cookies I want to do for the cookbook. It was a great reason to spend my entire free afternoon baking cookies, right?

These came out fantastic, moist and chewy with a slight crisp crust. To me, that is the perfect chocolate chip cookie, not crispy not chewy but a combination of the two.

Unlike most chocolate chip cookies these are not their best fresh from the oven. As they cool the cherry and almond flavors develop and they become more complex. When they are hot they taste just like good chocolate chip cookies, but when they have had a chance to cool….they taste like ….well…really, really good.

Oh! I almost forgot. I just melted some chocolate chips with a little butter for the chocolate drizzle.  I thought it was a nice touch. Apparently everyone else did to, I made 8 dozen and they were GONE.

Cherry Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 c flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 c unsalted butter

1/3 c oil

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

1 egg

1 tbs vanilla

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 c chopped, blanched almonds

1/2 c drained and chopped maraschino cherries (dried cherries will work too)

Cream the oil and butter. Add in the sugars and beat until fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time beating well after each. Now, add in the vanilla.

Mix dry ingredients together and add all at once.

Stir in the chocolate chips, the cherries and the almonds. Stir gently but thoroughly. If you freeze the cherries first they will not turn your dough pink!

Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls on a silpat lined baking sheet and bake at 375 for 12 minutes. Take them out of the oven when slightly underdone.

Makes 4 dozen.

Image: Marye Audet

Post from: Baking Delights

What kind of thing? You will have to check back. You should be out of your chocolate coma by then.

O.k. These are from Epicurious. They are…incredible. This is definitly a case for saving the best for last.

For hazelnut base
Unsweetened cocoa powder for dusting
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted, loose skins rubbed off with a kitchen towel, and cooled
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick ( 1/4 cup) unsalted butter
6 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped
2 large whole eggs

For ganache
2 large egg yolks
1 cup heavy cream
1/8 teaspoon salt
12 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped

Make hazelnut base:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter bottom and sides of an 8-inch square metal baking pan, then dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess. Finely grind nuts in a food processor with flour, sugar, and salt.

Melt butter in a 2-quart saucepan, then remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Add eggs 1 at a time, whisking until smooth. Stir in nut flour until just combined.

Spread batter evenly in baking pan and bake in middle of oven until top is firm and dry and a tester inserted into center comes out with crumbs adhering, 15 to 20 minutes. Cool completely in pan on a rack, at least 2 hours.

Make ganache:
Lightly beat yolks in a bowl. Bring cream with salt just to a boil in a small heavy saucepan, then add half of it to yolks in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Whisk yolk mixture into remaining cream and cook over low heat, whisking, until slightly thickened and an instant-read thermometer registers 170°F (do not let boil).

Remove from heat and add chocolate, whisking until smooth. Pour ganache over hazelnut base in pan, smoothing top with offset spatula, and chill, covered, until firm, at least 5 hours.

Cut into squares with a warmed thin knife, wiping off knife after each cut, and remove from pan while still cold.

Serve truffles cold or at room temperature.

Epicurious.com © CondéNet, Inc. All rights reserved.

Post from: Baking Delights

I have a son who loves rocky road ice cream. When I make ice cream he is in the pantry pulling out marshmallows, walnuts, chocolate chips, and anything else he thinks he can get away with trying to get me to throw in there. When I heard that we were going ot have a picnic after church last Sunday I was trying to decide what type of chocolate to supply our pastor with ( he loves chocolate almost as much as I do) and I thought about these rocky road brownies. Perfect!

They must have hit the spot they disappeared before I got to them.

These are sweetly intense little chocolate explosions in your mouth. I use cocoa rather than melted chocolate for brownies because I like the texture better and I do think you get a deeper chocolate flavor that way. This is for a 9″ square pan…I doubled everything but the glaze and used a 9×13. The glaze recipe, by the way, is something I use alot.

Speaking of sweetly intense…. the Home and Dining Channel at B5 is rockin’ this Autumn with some cool contests and just general fun stuff. Be sure to check back so you don’t miss out.There will be The Home & Dining channel’s AMAZING scavenger hunt in October. The prize is …well ….AWESOME so be sure you land here every day next month.

And don’t forget to check Baking Delights daily this week for the Brownie Extravaganza! LOL! OH! Speaking of all the awesomeness that IS B5’s H&D Channel experience..Check out Heather’s new blog about pets, The Food Bowl, 

Rocky Road Brownies

Glaze

Glaze

1/2 c unsalted butter melted

1/2 c Hersheys Special Dark cocoa

1/2 c confectioners sugar, give or take.

Post from: Baking Delights

Chocolate. I like chocolate. I like dark chocolate. I like milk chocolate. I like white chocolate. Chocolate covered cherries…chocolate covered strawberries..chocolate covered raisins…no chocolate covered grasshoppers though.

We host a home group meeting every Wednesday night for our church…Some of you may know them as small groups, or cell groups.  The thing is that if you have people from church coming over, with the possibility of the pastor dropping by, you want to have your house sparkling like..well, sparkling. You want the kids to be perfect, preferably with one of their GOOD school papers laying out in an obvious place so you can yell, ” Thoreau! Get this report on Nuclear Fusion and It’s Role in the Da Vinci Code off the coffee table right now!”…and you want a really awesome dessert. Seriously awesome. A dessert that causes the pastor to mention it in his sermon on Sunday. Thus, chocolate.

Not that I am the type of person to kiss up like that.

Anyway..this cake was good but I felt like it needed something to make it more intense so I changed the amounts of cocoa, added Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa rather than the normal (you can get it on Amazon if it isnt available locally..and it is worth it.) , added chocolate chips, and the praline chipotle glaze rather than plain chocolate.

and this is what was left after the meeting…..

Incredible Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chipotle Praline

10-12 servings

1 c hersheys special dark cocoa

2 c strong coffee

2 sticks of butter (unsalted)

1 1/2 c sugar

1/2 c brown sugar

2 c flour

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 c milk chocolate chips

1/3 c dark chocolate chips

1/3 c semi sweet chocolate chips

Grease bundt pan and dust with 2 tbs of cocoa. Preheat oven to 325F.

Mix flour, baking soda, and salt  and set aside.

Heat coffee to boiling and stir in butter and cocoa, whisking until smooth. Let cool a bit. Stir in vanilla

Mix sugars and eggs in mixer until fluffy, add coffee mixture alternating with flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Pour into bundt pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, or until cake tests done. Let cool 10 minutes. Invert pan on cake plate and leave until cool. remove bundt pan. Spoon warm glaze over cake.

Glaze:

1/4 c unsalted butter, melted

1/4 c brown sugar

stir together in pan over medium heat until sugar is no longer grainy. Remove from heat and add:

2 tsp dried chipotle (chopped,not powdered)

1/4 c coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans, almonds, hazlenuts, pistachios, or whatever.

Post from: Baking Delights