My Best Friend's Cookie

My best friend and her family have been frequent consumers of my baked goods. Even though they live on the other side of the country, I post them packages of food and visit as often as possible, cooking in their kitchen whenever they leave me unattended for more than five minutes.

The first time I stayed in their house her husband's first words to me were - what are you cooking for me? They both periodically sends me recipes they'd like "for next time". In fact, her husband sent me one as I was typing this very post.

One of the first recipes my best friend sent me was for brown butter chocolate chip cookies, stuffed with Nutella and topped with sea salt. I had made her sea salt chocolate chip cookies several times before and she was looking to up the ante.

Until recently Liv & her family were the only people I had made these cookies for. And the only reason that changed was the sad, pouty puppy dog eyes she threw me when she realized the cookies I had made for our favorite musicians were not her cookies.

We were headed to a concert and I had a batch of cookies prepared that Liv had mistakenly assumed were of the Nutella stuffed variety. This discovery took place over Skype the night before the concert and after the shock wore off her insistence that we needed to make those cookies won me over.

What resulted was me giving her instructions on measuring ingredients and the equipment I would need her to bring from home to our hotel room. The following day, I made the cookies in our hotel room with her pre-measured ingredients and success - the musicians they were intended for were more than happy with both their batches of cookies.

These cookies are beyond anything you can fathom without having tasted one. The browned butter makes the dough rich and deeper tasting. The sea salt enhances and sharpens the chocolate flavors. And the Nutella, well, the Nutella provides a creamy center that oozes out when you take a bite. It truly is impossible to imagine a better cookie.

I made another batch of these cookies this week and discovered an ingredient substitution that can easily be made without any impact on taste. The original recipe calls for natural Greek yogurt. It's an easy ingredient to forget when you are compiling a shopping list, something I can personally attest to. This batch I actually substituted sour cream for the yogurt with amazing success.

The change was so successful I think I shall actually make it a permanent change to the recipe. I'll have to make another batch soon for my best friend so I can gauge her reaction to my recipe adjustment. They are her cookies after all.

Cheers,
Joo

Change It Up

When I lived in New York City I was spoiled for choice in places to eat, cupcake shops, patisseries, coffee shops, cozy English style cafes, just about anything you can imagine. When it came to cookies though, one place that stood out, and earned repeat visits, was Milk & Cookies Bakery in Greenwich Village. Their Oatmeal Raisin Cookies were amazing and since they included raisins you could almost convince yourself they were healthy.

Until I discovered my favorite chocolate chip recipe at culinary school, the Milk & Cookies Chocolate Chip Cookies was my favorite choc chip cookie ever. There was just something about the texture that I couldn't put my finger on that made them superior to other chocolate chip cookies.

Milk & Cookies are also the only bakery I have ever discovered that marketed a packet mix that turned out cookies as good as the ones you could purchase in store. *shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, don't tell anyone that I have used a packet mix or two in my time* If you aren't a baker, or don't have time to bake from scratch and can get your hands on these cookie mixes, do it, they do not disappoint.

 Once I moved away from NYC and no longer had a steady supply of Milk & Cookies cookies just a few blocks away, it became time to hunt down their secret. Thankfully they made it easy - they have an official cookbook.

And it turns out, the secret to their texture almost does make them healthier for you than a standard cookie, it's old fashioned oatmeal, turned into dust with a food processor.

The other secret to the choc chip cookies is that they do not just use choc chips. They also add chocolate shavings, making the chocolate flavor infuse throughout the cookie rather than just in chunks when you encounter the chips.

This week when I decided to bake a batch, I realized I had no chocolate shavings but I did have a Terry's Chocolate Orange. I decided that shaving the chocolate orange with a vegetable peeler would not only be a great replacement for the shavings but would also add some extra subtle flavor to the cookies.


The addition of the orange infused chocolate added a depth of flavor and next time I might try this again with the addition of some orange zest or candied orange peel to add some more texture variations while enhancing the flavor of the chocolate.

So next time you are baking cookies, think about branching out and varying the kind of chocolate you use, switching it up can enhance the flavors and inspire ideas for future experimentation.

Cheers,
Joo