ice cream & cookie sandwiches

One of my favorite combos would be cookies and ice cream, so to make a sandwich with them is just fabulous. Whoever thought of the ice cream sandwich gets a gold star in my book!
We made the cookies from scratch, using the first chocolate chip cookie recipe ever, Nestle Tollhouse.

We then used Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream. It was a good flavor combo, but I like the classic vanilla ice cream in the middle of my chocolate chip cookies. What about making cookie sandwiches with chocolate cookie dough ice cream? or is that going too far? There are so many different cookie flavors and ice cream flavors, the possibilities are endless!

chocolate cookies: part 2

Okay, so I made some more chocolate cookies, again, because I was wanting something sweet and chocolaty, and a limited supply of ingredients. This recipe is also very simple and easy, and quick to make. It came from The Little Black Book of Chocolate and is called chocolate wafers. It says it makes about 24 wafers, but I think I made fewer than that because I ended up eating some of the batter, and probably scooped them a little bit bigger than "walnut size" and ate them right out of the oven, before I got a chance to count them. (Yes, I could have counted them before they went into the oven.) Also, since I just made chocolate cookies that looked very similar to these, I found no reason to take a picture of them. But if you really want a picture of these particular chocolate cookies, I would be happy to make them again, and post a picture. :o)
Chocolate Wafers
1-1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

This is the regular "creaming method", for those of you who come from the professional baking world. For those not from the professional baking world, here's what that means:

1. Cream together the sugar and butter, until "light and fluffy". (I put "light and fluffy" in quotes because it is a phrase I read all the time and think "what does that mean?" of course, I know it means lighter in color, and not little butter chunks mixed with sugar. (Oh, Chef Haymon, you would be so proud.)
   
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla. 
3. Gradually beat in the flour and cocoa powder and baking powder and salt. Mix until just combined.
4. Scoop into walnut sized balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. Press down.
   
5. Bake in preheated 375º oven for 8-10 minutes. Cool on racks. 

Again, try not to eat them all right when they come out of the oven.

**Update: literal comment note from my roommate: "These things are so good! VERY addictive! Thank you..." Just goes to show you how good these really are; they were gone in about 24 hours!**

In case you are wondering, we did not make the Better Than Brownie Cookies (another part two) last night. But maybe tomorrow, or Saturday, if we are not too busy with everything else for the dinner we are hosting. (Or, rather, that Benjie is hosting and I am helping with, since it is at his house.) Maybe they will be made on Sunday, before we go down to San Jose? Anyway, they will be made over the weekend. So, look for them after Yom Kippor. If you are "celebrating", have an easy fast!

craving chocolate

tonight, I was craving something chocolate. literal thought process: "I want something chocolaty. But I know I don't have anything. I could get out of my PJs and grab something from the convenience store. Nah. Hmm, let me go to the kitchen and see what's in my cabinet. Cocoa powder. (reads ingredients listed for chocolate cake) No milk. Hmm...(searches cabinet for more chocolate products. Finds Baker's chocolate, the unsweetened little squares. Reads back of box. Recipe for Soft and Chewy Chocolate Drops.) Hmm...I seem to have all of these ingredients. Oh, wait...FOUR chocolate squares?! (dumps out contents of box) Oh, I have TWO. Easy! I'll just cut the recipe in half. (re-reads recipe.) It calls for three eggs. Oh well, I'll figure out what half an egg is." Long story short...(weird expression, by the way.) I made the cookies on the back of the Baker's box. Really easy and quick. I omitted the glaze, because I did not have any cool whip. But no worries, these cookies are good with out it, and as the title of the recipe says, they are soft and chewy. Oh, and they took care of my chocolate craving, no problem.
Soft & Chewy Chocolate Drops
I will post the whole recipe, the one that is on the back of the box, even though when you grab your box, you can just read it from there. :o)
4 squares (4 oz) unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2-1/2 cups flour
350º oven. My spoonful made about 2 dozen cookies.
Microwave chocolate and butter until butter is melted. Stir in chocolate until chocolate is melted. Add sugar. Mix well. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour, mix well. Cover and refrigerate for an hour or until dough is easier to handle. *I did not do this, and found the dough easy enough to scoop right away.* Bake 8 minutes, or until set.
That's it. Try not to eat all of them as soon as they come out of the oven.

Just a little p.s/preview: tomorrow night's baking adventure during movie night might be Better Than Brownie Cookies, Part 2, this time with peanut butter chips or butterscotch chips, instead of chocolate chips. Should be interesting, I like playing around with flavors. We'll be bringing them to break-fast on Monday. That also means no post for Monday. Sorry, I am already not living up to my Monday/Thursday regular schedule. Oh well. Also, Friday night, or Saturday morning, we might be making pumpkin pie, or using the leftover pie filling for some dessert to share with the crew that is coming over for dinner on Saturday night. Keep coming back for more updates regarding these baking adventures!

baking FAIL turns into awesome ICE CREAM! (aka this is what I did today)

Since I had some left over cookie dough from the pie pops, and some time to kill today, I was wondering what I had that I could mix with it. I found butter, sugar (brown and regular, granulated), and cinnamon---all ingredients I needed for cinnamon rolls! So, I softened and rolled out the dough, and softened the butter and mixed it with the sugars and cinnamon. Spread the butter mixture on the dough, rolled it up, cut 1" pieces, placed them in a cake pan (I didn't use my jelly roll pan because there weren't that many pieces, and put them in a pre-heated, 375 degree oven. (sounds good, right? and if you look at the picture, it looks like they turned out well, and people ate them so quickly that all I had time to take a picture of was the empty pan---but after reading the title of this entry, you already know this is not true!) After about 5 minutes, I started to smell the butter browning. (kind of a nutty smell) So, I checked on the rolls, and found that all of the butter had melted out of the dough. I could have been frustrated, and dumped the whole thing, but instead, I put the pan back in the oven, and finished baking the dough, about another 15 minutes. Overwhelmed by the delicious smell of butter and sugar, I quickly thought "I bet this would be good in some ice cream. Like brown butter ice cream, with little cinnamon cookies sprinkled in." So, I ran out, and got some Bryer's  vanilla ice cream (now with 30% more REAL vanilla beans!) and put the softened ice cream in a bowl, and dumped in my buttery, sugary, cinnamony dough pieces, and used a rubber spatula to mix them together. Dipped a spoon in, tasted, and LIKED it!

Now, I don't have any fancy equipment, such as a food processor, or ice cream maker (but they are on my gift wish list---and my birthday IS coming SOON...) but these items would be useful for making the dough pieces smaller, and I would have liked to make my own ice cream, because I did go to pastry school, and I know how to make it, but especially because I am not the biggest Breyer's fan. (also realized I don't have a rolling pin-I just used my hands to press out the dough-no big deal, since it was a small amount.) Anyway, the end result is still good, and because I am such a huge fan of chocolate, I added some chocolate syrup, but the extra flavor was not needed. (she writes, as she dips her spoon back in the bowl for some more ice cream...) Lesson learned: what might seem like a complete baking FAIL may turn out to be something GREAT.

While I don't have a picture of the failed cinnamon rolls, I do have some pictures of the ice cream, and I am willing to share with you the recipe for the ice cream, and real cinnamon roll recipes, in case you want to make those instead of the failures-turned-good rolls.
First, the fail-rolls:
If your dough has been in the refrigerator or freezer (as in you didn't just make it), then you need to soften it. I did this by putting it in the microwave. Easy and quick. Then, like I said, I rolled it out, spread on the butter mixture, etc.
I used part of the recipe for the Mama's mini-cinis (below) to figure out the right butter-sugar-cinnamon ratio. I used 3 tablespoons of butter, about 1-1/2 tablespoons of brown sugar, 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar, and a dash of ground cinnamon (about 1/2 tsp if you are really into measuring what I like to call "the small stuff"---spices, vanilla, etc. that don't make much of a difference in a recipe, unless you put in TOO much.) After spreading the butter mixture on the dough, I rolled it up, cut 1" pieces and placed them in the pan. 375 degrees. 15-20 minutes. I don't know exactly why, perhaps I was looking to soak up all of the butter that melted out, but I flipped over the baked dough. I used maybe a quart of ice cream. All I know for sure is that the label says 1.5 quarts, and there is some left, about enough for a good-sized bowl full. You'll know it's enough because You won't see any cookie pieces sticking out, it will just look like lumpy soft serve.
So, it was really easy to fix this baking fail. Just add ice cream!
Now, some of you might want the satisfaction of cinnamon rolls that never fail, but are really easy and quick to make, so I introduce to you Mama's mini-cinis. This is not a recipe from my mother, but someone else's, who decided to put this recipe up on the interweb.
Mama's mini-cinis:
Ingredients:
2 (8 oz) cans refrigerated crescent rolls (I guess Pillsbury makes these)

6 TBS butter, softened
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup pecans (optional)
1 TBS sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 TBS milk
1/4 tsp. vanilla or almond extract
1/8 tsp. salt

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Unroll crescent rolls, and separate each portion along center perforation to form 4 rectangles; press diagonal perforations to seal.
Stir together butter, sugars, pecans, and cinnamon. Spread over one side of each rectangle. Roll up jelly roll fashion, starting at long end. Gently cut each log into 6 (1" thick) slices, using a serrated knife. Place rolls 1/4" apart into 2 8" cake pans. (can also use a jelly roll pan, but you want something with edges-do not use a cookie sheet.) bake for 15-18 minutes or until golden. cool 5-10 minutes. makes 2 dozen.

Stir together powdered sugar and remaining ingredients, drizzle over warm rolls. (of course, you could eat these with ice cream, too!)

note: to make slicing easier, place logs in freezer for about 10 minutes.

Easy as pie: the pictures: part two: extras

we had a lot of left over pie filling so we made a pecan pie and blueberry cookie crumble. (see Easy as pie post)

Easy as pie: the pictures: part one: pie pops.

the three fillings: pumpkin, pecan, and blueberry, and a little chunk of the cookie dough.

cutting out the cookie dough

first one up, blueberry.

next, pecan. look at how gooey they are!

pumpkin is last.

baked blueberry pie pops! a little bit messy, but still really yummy!

a bunch of baked pie pops!

Easy as pie.

Last night, with the help of my assistant pastry chef (Benjie), I finally had a chance to make pie pops. Although fun to make, it is a long process, especially if you are like us, and like to make things from scratch. You could do things the more convenient way, and buy pre-made dough, and pre-made pie filling, and then just put all of the ingredients together, but where's the adventure in that?
So, first came the dough. The other blogs that we found the pie pops on used traditional pie crust, but I wanted to try something different, so I made a dough that is similar to cookie dough. In fact, the recipe I used is from the Culinary Institute of America's book, Baking and Pastry: Mastering the Art and Craft, called 1-2-3 cookie dough. You may be thinking it is called that because it is easy as 1-2-3, which is true, but it is really called that because the recipe's formula is a 1 to 2 to 3 ratio of butter, sugar, and flour. (ex: 1lb butter, 2lbs of sugar, and 3lbs of flour, with the addition of eggs (4) and flavorings.) I also used pie dough, just to see and taste the difference. The cookie dough recipe is similar to the CIA's recipe for traditional pie dough, which they conveniently call, 3-2-1 pie dough. (3 parts flour, 2 parts butter, 1 part water.) I will share all recipes used at the end of this post. All of the recipes I used were really easy, mostly containing steps basically including "put all ingredients in bowl and mix together". As far as textures go, the cookie crust was crunchier, and the pie dough was flakier, but both were good. I also liked the look of the cookie dough pops better, they came out shiner and just all-around nicer-looking.
Next, we made the fillings! We tried three different pie fillings, blueberry, pecan, and pumpkin. While it was fun to have all of the different flavors in the end, next time we are going to stick with one flavor. This is for simplicity, and because you do not use a lot of filling for each pop, we ended up making a full pecan pie, a blueberry cookie crumble, and have the left over pumpkin pie filling waiting it's turn to be made into a full-sized pie in the freezer. So much pie! I think the pops made with the cookie crust were the best, because you can add more filling, and the ratio of crust to filling was perfect, compared to the pie dough, which left little room for filling, and therefore, the high ratio of crust to filling was not good.The fillings were all good, my favorite was the blueberry, not to sweet, not too tart. The pumpkin filling was okay, but would be better with real pumpkin, and not canned. (Yes,we used some convenience items. Perhaps later, when pumpkins, and other squash items are in season, I will make pumpkin pie from real pumpkin.) The pecan filling was gooey, and tasted good, but since it was the runniest, it created the flattest pops. I am happy to have used the rest of that filling for its own full-sized pie (made with leftover pie dough). Yum! I have not tried the blueberry cookie crumble, which was leftover cookie dough, left over blueberry filling, sprinkled with brown sugar, a little bit of flour, and cinnamon. I am sure it is good, though.
Okay, time for recipes! The filling recipes all came from the wonderful internet and the dough recipes came from the CIA's Baking and Pastry book, as previously mentioned.

1-2-3 cookie dough: I scaled down the recipe to yield about 3 pounds of dough. This may sound like a lot of dough, but it gets used quickly. If you do have leftover dough, you could make a crumble, like I did, or refrigerate or freeze for later use. This makes really great tart dough, for those of you who like fresh fruit tarts.
Ingredients:
8 ounces (2 sticks) butter
1 pound of sugar
2 eggs
1.5 pounds of flour
Method:
Cream together butter and sugar. Add the eggs, one at a time. Slowly incorporate all of the flour. Be sure not to over mix, just be sure that all of the ingredients are combined.
Cover, and chill until cool to the touch.
Use plenty of flour underneath dough when rolling it out. However, too much flour will prevent it from sticking together.  If using for pie pops, you should be able to roll out pressed together scraps 2-3 times.
Since I don't want to make this post uber long, I am just including links to the filling recipes I used:
Blueberry, Pumpkin, and Pecan.
Although I like the recipe for 3-2-1 pie dough, from the CIA, I did use this one, which follows the same recipe formula, but is easier to measure for those Suzy-homemakers out there with out the convenience of a kitchen scale. This makes enough for a bunch of pops, or one 9" pie crust. This can also be refrigerated or frozen for later use.
Pie Dough:
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1/2 cup of water, cold

 Method:
Place flour in a bowl. Cut butter into small pieces, about pea-size, and place in bowl. Toss around butter pieces, to be sure they are all completely covered in flour. Start to press dough together. This will help determine how much water should be used. My dough was coming together nicely, so I started out by adding only 1/4 cup of water. Then I pressed the dough together, and added just enough water to form a soft, smooth dough.
I was able to keep pressing together all of the scraps of dough and adding some dough that had not been rolled out yet, which allowed me to re-roll numerous times.
We followed the instructions on Bakerella's site on how to make the pie pops. Despite all of the work to be done for the dough and the fillings, the actual assembly is pretty easy.  Basically, cut out the circles of dough, place them on the cookie sheet, press on lollipop sticks (found at a craft store), place on a spoonful of filling, place another circle of dough on top, use another stick to help press down the top layer of dough, brush tops with egg white, bake in 375-degree oven for about 10-14 minutes. Let cool, and enjoy!
Okay, I am currently having trouble uploading the pictures, so you will have to use your imagination for now, and I will try to upload them soon!