Almond Biscotti

I feel like I am writing a blog post after ages. I have been really busy and my newest obsession of puzzles is not helping the blog either. I was approached by several blogger friends who wanted to know if I would be posting baking recipes this month for my Bake-A-Thon. To be honest, I was afraid to even commit but thought it would be nice to get back into blogging. Here is the first recipe of the season for this year. These biscottis are crumbly, delicious and addictive.

One Year Back -  Pumpkin Granola
Two Years Back - Cranberry Corn Muffins
Three Years Back - Holiday Gift Ideas
Four Years Back - Cake Decorating Basics - II
Adapted from - Bon Appetit magazine
This gives 3 dozen biscottis that are 5" long.
Ingredients: 
All purpose flour - 3 1/4 cups
Sugar - 1 1/2 cup
Oil - 2/3 cup
Eggs - 3 large
Baking powder - 1 TBSP
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Almond extract - 1/2 tsp
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
Almonds - 1 cup lightly toasted and chopped.

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder. In another bowl, beat eggs with sugar till thick (about 2 minutes). Add oil and beat few more times. Stir in the vanilla and almond extracts. Dump the dry ingredients to wet and mix well. This is a sticky dough. Stir in chopped almonds. Divide the dough into two parts and shape each half into a log of 15" X 3". It should be about 1/2" thick. You can wet your hands and shake off excess water to help shape it. Leave at least 3" between the logs. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until lightly brown. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 F. When the logs are cooled, transfer them on to the cutting board and slice them 1/2" - 3/4" wide slices. Transfer them back on to the baking sheet placing them on their back and bake for 20 minutes.  Rotate the pan in between. Cool completely and store in an air tight container for 2 weeks.

Enjoy.

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Chilli Garlic Crackers

This year's bake-a-thon has not been hectic because I decided to post just 3 times a week. But, it has been hectic in another way and hard for me to manage. Too many people went on vacation at work and I had to share their load of work with others who were working. Along with that, I took few projects at home and got busy with them.  With all these activities, I managed to bake whatever I found easy and didn't put too much creativity into them. Here is one of them where I took time and used the base of a tart dough recipe and converted them into a savory cracker.

One Year Back - No Knead Bread Sticks, Vegan Banana Chocolate Cake (lowfat)
Two Years Back - Rava Laddoo
Three Years Back - Cake Decorating Basics - Part 9
Ingredients: 
All purpose flour - 1 1/4 cups
Sugar - 2 tsp (optional but brings the flavors well)
Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp + a generous pinch
Butter - 3 TBSP cold cut into few cubes
Canola or Olive oil - 2 TBSP
Cold Water - 3 TBSP (Start with 2 TBSP and add the final TBSP if necessary)
Green chillies - 4 - 5 (I used 4 and they weren't that spicy for an Indian palate)
Garlic - 2 pods

Method:
Make the dough:
Take flour, salt, green chillies, garlic, baking powder, sugar into the bowl of a food processor fitted with chopping blade. Pulse till garlic and chillies are minced and mixed uniformly. Add butter cubes and oil. Pulse to get butter incorporated. Do not pulse too much and make sure there are tiny flakes of butter left as chunks. Add water and pulse till you get the crumbly dough. If you can make a ball out of it (not a smooth one though), it is done. Take it out and flatten it into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 3 hours or overnight. I felt the dough was easy to handle when it had chilled overnight in the refrigerator.

To Bake:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Adjust the oven racks into the lower most and middle ones. Take out the dough from the refrigerator and let it sit 5 minutes at room temperature. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough fairly thin. You can dust the top surface with flour if it is sticking to the rolling pin. Roll it thinner than 1/4" almost to 1/8" thickness. Cut with biscuit cutter or any other cookie cutter. You can also just cut them into squares or rectangles if that is easy for you. Dip a fork in flour and pierce it uniformly all over the cut cracker dough. Gently transfer them to the baking sheet and bake for 12 - 15 minutes. You will be baking the crackers at the lower most rack for the first 12 minutes. Then transfer it to the upper rack for the remaining 3 minutes. It all depends on how thin you have rolled the crackers and how big the area of the cracker is. Do a test batch and go from there. Cool on the wire rack and you can either serve them warm or cold. They become flaky and perfect to go with a cup of coffee or tea. Great for cocktail parties or topped with cheese for those cheese lovers out there.

Notes:
You could add your choice of herbs here if you wish but I kept them simple. For cheesy crackers, fold in half a cup of Parmesan cheese while making the dough.

Check out what my friends are baking -  Preethi, Veena, Priya, Srivalli,  Sumana and Jayasri.

Enjoy.

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Vegan Soft, Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

When we are going through hardship, we wonder why we are punished. We wonder what did we do wrong to deserve the pain and suffering. But the fact is, it is not like that at all. What did those kids who died in Newtown, CT school shooting did to deserve to die like that? What did the parents do to deserve such a pain? When you think about these, there is absolutely no explanation to any of the things that happen. Guns bought for protection seldom do that. They always harm some innocent people and when everyone is arguing about what needs to be done, I just pray and hope that something happens to prevent these things from happening again. Because, deep down in my heart, I understand that whatever the change the government makes, there will always be bad in every corner and era of this world. I do sometimes wish that the mythological stories I grew up hearing and reading can re occur and that God will come to this world to save all good from bad. One can only hope right?

This peanut butter cookie is a vegan adaptation from the book. These were soft, chewy and not very sweet. They are perfect to have with a cup of milk.

One Year Back - Coconut Banana Loaf Cake, Sourcream coffee cake, Cashew Cookies
Two Years Back - Almond Butter fudge Balls
Three Years Back -  Masala Corn Muffins, Holiday Cookie Platter
Adapted from King Arthur Flour Baking companion - makes about 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients: 
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
Vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup (I used crisco)
Granulated sugar - 1/2 cup
Brown sugar - 1/2 cup packed
Flax seed meal - 1 TBSP mixed with 3 TBSP of warm water
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
Peanut butter - 1/2 cup (Smooth and not natural)
Baking soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp (You can skip it since peanut butter has enough salt)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. In another bowl beat shortening, peanut butter and both sugars. Add in the flax seed and water mixture and beat till creamy. Add vanilla and beat followed by the dry ingredients. It will be very tight towards the end. Switch to a strong wooden spoon or a spatula. You can even mix everything by hand. It will make a crumbly dough. Make lemon sized balls and flatted very slightly. Place on the cookie sheet with 3" space between them. Bake for 10 - 12 minutes. It will have lot of cracks on the top and it will look like it needs few more minutes. But remove and let it stand on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes. It will firm up as it cools down. If you over bake, it will turn out to be crispy.

Notes:
You could use 1/2 cup canola oil instead of shortening. Then, the cookie will spread more and become thin. In case you are using oil, don't flatten them so that they don't spread too much.

Check out what my friends are baking for this bake-a-thon :  Preethi, Priya, Srivalli,  Sumana and Jayasri.  

Enjoy.

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Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

One cannot have enough chocolate chip cookie recipes. Each one of them is different. I was intrigued by the ingredients in this recipe just because it called for corn syrup. And this recipe is definitely a keeper. I had to make some cookies as part of an order and they had asked for huge cookies. It came out very well and stayed soft even after two days. The ones you see here are the regular sized cookies made with the same dough. They are moist, soft, chewy and delicious.

One Year Back - Vegan Date, Raisin and Coconut Cake, Spicy Cream Cheese Buns
Two years back - Vegan Vanilla Cake, Almond Butter fudge Balls
Three years back - Spiced peanuts / Congress kadalekayi
Adapted from King Arthur Flour Baking Companion book
Ingredients: 
Butter - 12 TBSP or 1  1/2 sticks softened
Light brown sugar - 1 1/4 cups packed (See Notes)
Light Corn syrup - 1/4 cup 
Vanilla extract - 1 TBSP
Baking powder - 3/4 tsp
Salt - 3/4 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/4 tsp
Egg - 1 large
All purpose flour - 2 1/4 cups (spoon and measure)
Semisweet chocolate chips or chunks - 2 cups of one 12 Oz bag

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F (See Notes). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, beat butter and brown sugar till fluffy. Add the corn syrup and continue to beat. Add the egg, vanilla and beat to incorporate everything. Now add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed. It will be hard for the mixer to mix everything properly. Use the spatula towards the end and mix. Stir in chocolate chips. Make lemon sized balls and place on the cookie sheet with 3 inches space between them. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes. Cookies will have set and started to brown very slightly at the edges. Remove from the oven and let it stand on the cookie sheet (on the wire rack) for 10 minutes. Remove to the wire rack to cool completely. When completely cool, store in an air tight container.

Notes:
I ran out of light brown sugar and had to use part dark brown sugar. If you use all light brown sugar, cookies will come out lighter in color.
The original recipe asks to bake at 375 F. I was baking three different kinds of cookies one after the other and I didn't change the oven temperature. If baking at 375 F, check 2 minutes early. You can even refrigerate the dough and bake within 3 days. Or freeze the dough for a month and use it.

Check out what my friends are baking for this bake-a-thon :  Preethi, Priya, Srivalli,  Sumana and Jayasri. 

Enjoy.

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Vegan Sugar Cookies (Drop cookies)

I was asked to make a platter of cookies for someone. They wanted sugar cookies as part of the tray. The moment I heard that, my mind started thinking about which cookie cutter to use and what colored icing to put on it. But then, I realized they didn't want anything fancy but plain round cookies. To make my life easy, I went for drop cookies which is so simple and yet delicious. You could easily roll them into 1/4 - 1/2" thick layer and cut it out and bake. This recipe is so relaxed that if you want crisper cookies, all you have to do is bake them a little longer. I left mine a bit soft and chewy.

One Year Back - Chocolate Butterscotch bars, Chocolate Gingerbread bars, Molten lava cake using cocoa powder
Two Years Back - Eggless Almond date cake
Three Years Back - Barley Dosa
Adapted very slightly from - The King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion
Ingredients: 
Vegetable shortening - 1/2 cup (I used crisco)
Sugar - 2/3 cup
Non Dairy sour milk - 1/4 cup (1 TBSP of lemon juice added to 1 cup of soy milk to make it sour)
Vanilla extract - 1 TBSP
All purpose flour - 2 cups (spooned and leveled)
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside. In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, with electric mixer, beat shortening and sugar. It will be a bit crumbly. Add the soured milk and continue to beat. They will get creamy after the addition of sour milk. Add vanilla and beat for few seconds. Now, add the dry ingredients and beat at low speed. You might have to use your hand towards the end to make the dough come together. Make lemon sized balls and flatten slightly. Place on the cookie sheet with 3" from each other. These spread nicely. Bake for 12 - 16 minutes (longer if you made the dough balls bigger) until puffy and edges have just started to brown. Rotate the sheets at half time if you are baking both the sheets at the same time. Do not over bake unless you want crispier cookies. They fall as they cool. Cool on the cookie sheet on a wire rack for 10 minutes. If you try to transfer these as soon as they came out of the oven, they will break and fall apart. When completely cool, place in an air tight container. You could use cookie icing and decorate with sprinkles if you wish.

Check out what my friends are baking for this bake-a-thon :  Preethi, Veena, Priya, Srivalli,  Sumana and Jayasri. 
 

Enjoy.

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Giant Chocolate Chip cookie

If you ask me what is my least favorite goodie to bake, I would tell you pie. That is because nobody likes pies at home. Next one is cookies not because people don't like them (in fact they love cookies), but because of scooping the dough into small portions and baking in batches. That is one of the reasons why I prefer to bake bar cookies more than regular drop cookies or rolled cookies. You can bake about four pans of cookies at one shot which can feed a lot of people. When I saw this recipe of  giant chocolate chip cookie which is baked as one big cookie and then cut into wedges, I couldn't resist the urge of baking it. So, here it is. They make huge portions, so next time, I would pat them into a 8" square pan and make 16 cookies out of this. Also, do not over bake them. They get dry since there is not too much fat in them.

One Year Back - Cardamom Biscotti, Italian Supermarket Bread
Two Years Back - Greek Rice
Three Years Back -  Yam and Apple Kofta Curry
Adapted from - here.
Ingredients:
Oil - 1/3 cup
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Egg - 1 large
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Whole Wheat flour - 3/4 cup
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Mini Chocolate Chips - 1/2 cup

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together both flours, salt and baking soda. In another bowl, mix egg, oil and sugar with a strong wooden spoon. Add vanilla extract and mix. Now add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir to combine. It will be a bit crumbly dough. Stir in chocolate chips. With your hands, Scoop out the dough and place it on the parchment paper. Flatten it to a make a  9"  - 10" circle. Even though the dough looked crumbly while mixing, it will come together and stay together. Place in the oven and bake for 22 - 26 minutes or until pale golden on the top. Remove from the oven and let cool on the cooling rack for 3 - 4 minutes. Then cut them into wedges but don't separate them. Let it cool more before serving. If you forget to cut them when they are warm, it will get crumbly when cut.
Check out what my friends are baking -  Preethi, Veena, Priya, Srivalli and  Sumana.

Notes:
You could bake it by patting into a pan of 8" square to get small sized more number of cookies.

Enjoy.

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Anise Biscotti

No, I am not running a theme of biscotti posts on the blog. Biscotti has longer shelf life and is low in fat and sugar compared to other types of cookies. That was the reason for making these. I tried to mimic the flavor of anise cookies or 'om biscuit'  as we call in Kannada that we used to get in Indian Iyengar bakeries. I understand that one is made of yeast, but this was a quick version giving the same taste.

One Year Back - Healthiest Pie Crust
Two Years Back - Yam Zucchini Curry
Adapted from Taste of Home Church Supper Desserts book - Makes 3 dozen
Ingredients: 
All purpose flour - 2 cups
Sugar - 1 cup
Oil - 1/4 cup
Eggs - 2 large
Baking powder - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Anise seeds - 1 tsp crushed coarsely

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and crushed anise seeds. In another bowl, beat eggs with sugar till thick (about 2 minutes). Add oil and beat few more times. Dump the dry ingredients to wet and mix well. This is a sticky dough. Divide the dough into two parts and shape each half into a log of 12" X 2". It should be about 1/2" thick. You can wet your hands and shake off excess water to help shape it. Leave at least 3" between the logs. Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until lightly brown. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 F. When the logs are cooled, transfer them on to the cutting board and slice them 1/2" - 3/4" wide slices. Transfer them back on to the baking sheet placing them on their back and bake for 10 minutes. Cool completely and store in an air tight container for 2 weeks.

Enjoy.

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Brownie Biscotti

If you ask me which is the best cookie I like to bake, I would say bar cookies and biscotti. Reason being the ease of making. These are relatively easier since there is no dropping the dough in small amounts and baking for short period of time and turning the trays around and all. Another reason I like to bake biscotti is the use of oil. Most of the biscottti either call for oil or melted butter. Here is one of the varieties I baked today.

One Year Back - Poppy seed drink / Gasagase Payasa
Two Years Back - Craisins and White chocolate chip biscotti
Adapted slightly from Taste of Home Church Supper Desserts
Ingredients: (Makes 3 dozen biscotti)
Canola oil - 1/3 cup
Eggs - 3 large
Sugar - 1 1/3 cups
Vanilla extract - 2 tsp
All purpose flour - 2 1/2 cups
Baking Cocoa - 3/4 cup (I used dutch processed)
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Miniature semi sweet chocolate chips - 1/2 cup

Method:
Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside. In a bowl, combine sugar, cocoa, flour, baking powder, baking soda. Set aside. In another bowl, beat eggs, oil and vanilla extract till they are thick and mixed well. Dump the dry ingredients and using a spatula, mix them. Dough will be very crumbly. You will wonder if you can even shape it into a log. Don't worry. Add the chocolate chips and mix. Divide the crumbly dough into two parts. Shape each part into 12" by 3" log. When you press the dough with your hand, it will hold its shape. Make sure the logs are not thicker than 1/2" and there is at least 3" space between the logs.

Bake for 30 - 35 minutes or until set and you can see few cracks on the top. Remove from the oven and let it cool for 15 minutes. Transfer the logs on to the cutting board and slice them 1/2" wide. You can go diagonally if you like longer biscotti. I like mine short so I slice them straight. Place the sliced cookies back on the baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. You can bake them on the cut side and flip them after 10 minutes so each side gets toasted nicely or place them on the back (however they were on the baking sheet when baked for the first time) but with spaces and bake for 20 minutes straight. Cool completely on the cooling rack and store in an air tight container for up to two weeks.

Enjoy.

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Peanut butter Cookies

I know what you are all thinking. That I disappeared? Well, I haven't. Once in a while I get into stuff and I go deep into them. This summer it has been some home improvements. I did quite a bit of painting different rooms and other small home repairs.  Even though I have been baking a lot of new stuff, I haven't had time to write about them and take pictures. That is one of the reason for slow activity on the blog. These cookies were baked last week for someone. These are not too sweet, crisp. If you want softer cookies, bake them without flattening them.

One Year Back - Avocado Brioche, Roasted Banana Ice cream
Two Years Back - Deep fried cracker ( Nippattu )
Adapted barely from Hershey's book of chocolate
Ingredients: 
Shortening - 1/2 cup (I used crisco you can use butter softened instead)
Creamy peanut butter - 3/4 cup (not natural)
Granulated sugar - 1/3 cup
Light brown sugar - 1/3 cup packed
Egg - 1 large (or 1 TBSP flax meal mixed with 3 TBSP of warm water)
Milk - 2 TBSP
Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Turbinado sugar for rolling (Or granulated sugar)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside. In a bowl, whisk together all purpose flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. Cream the shortening or butter and peanut butter till smooth using an electric beater. Add both sugars and continue to beat till creamy. Add egg and beat. Add vanilla, milk and beat for few seconds. Now add all the dry ingredients and mix till the dough forms. Make 1 " balls of the dough and roll in turbinado sugar or just granulated sugar. If you want soft cookies, place the ball 1" apart on the cookie sheet. If you want a little crispier cookies, flatten it a little. I used the fork to do criss cross but I flattened it too much and the pattern is not that obvious. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes. Cool on the wire rack.

Enjoy.

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Vegan Almond Oat Cookies

I had a jar of Almond Butter that would expire soon. My obsession of food ingredients' shopping sometimes forces me to make something to use it up before it goes bad. I had to make some cookies for the kids and this was a perfect opportunity for me to try tweak my own recipe to use oats. I had blogged about Vegan Almond cookies in the initial days of blogging and that post went kind of unnoticed. This one is based on the same recipe with few changes.

One Year Back - Tomatillo rice spiced with Coconut and mustard
Two Years Back - Whole Wheat and Quinoa Sourdough Bread, Bread Baking Basics
Adapted from here.
Ingredients: 
All purpose flour - 1/2 cup
Ground oats - 1 cup (Powder them and then measure)
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Almond butter - 1/2 cup
Sugar - 3/4 cup
Cardamom - 4 - 6 pods powdered (Or use 1 tsp vanilla)
Almond extract - 1/2 tsp
Flax seed meal - 1 TBSP (powdered flax seed)
Warm Water - 3 TBSP to mix with flax seed meal
Coconut milk or any other non dairy milk - 2 TBSP

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or use silpat mat. Mix flax seed meal with warm water and let it sit for 5 minutes. Mix almond butter and sugar thoroughly. If you use the electric mixer, it will get to the sand consistency. Now, add the flax seed meal and water mixture. Continue to beat till it makes a mass. Mix the flour, oat flour, cardamom powder, baking soda in another bowl and stir to combine. Add this mixture to the almond butter, sugar mixture and mix with hand. Sprinkle coconut milk and mix to get the cookie dough consistency. 

Make 1 " sized balls from the dough and flatten it very slightly and place on the cookie sheet.  I got a few more than 2 dozen medium size cookies for the above measurements. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes or till the bottom of the cookie has a very pale shade of brown color. If you touch the cookie when it is still hot, it'll be soft. They get harder as they cool down. If you over bake these, they will turn out to be crispy. This is slightly crispy on the outside and chewy inside with tons of almond flavor and not very sweet. You will get about 25 - 28 cookies from this dough. Since there is no fat from butter or oil, this feels a bit dry but is perfect if you are not looking for a very soft and rich cookie.

Enjoy.

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Science of Baking - Cookie Baking

I am not an active blogger. An active blogger is not just one who posts regularly. An active blogger is the one who is active in the blogging community. make friends on social media networks, visit other blogs, comment, post messages on facebook, tweet posts etc. My real life responsibilities do not let me spend a lot of time on these things, so I just create stuff, post about it and leave the rest to you all to find it and read. If you are interested that is. Since I am not an active blogger, I do not get much feedback from others either. Fair enough. But when I wrote 'Science of Baking - Cake Baking' post, the response was very positive. I thank you all for taking time to read and say nice words. That post's response encouraged me to write this post as well. I hope you all find it useful or amusing at least.

What is a Cookie?
Cookie can be a dessert or a snack that is small enough to be one per serving or two per serving. It can be puffy or crunchy. It could be a drop cookie, rolled cookie, shaped cookie or a bar cookie. Did you know most of the drop cookies can be baked as bar cookies? You just need to know what size pan to use. Rolled cookies can be converted as bar cookies too. Same is not true to convert drop cookie dough into something that can be rolled.

Ingredients of a cookie:
If you try to understand the science, you will see that you can convert any cookie recipe into a cake recipe and vice versa. Yes, I am not kidding. Basic ingredients in a cookie is the same as a cake - Flour, Sugar, fat like butter, oil, shortening or margarine, eggs or egg substitutes, leavening agents like baking soda, baking powder, salt, flavorings. When I say you can convert a cake recipe into a cookie recipe, leave out the liquid part, reduce the number of eggs, alter the amount of fat and leavening agent. You have a perfect drop cookie recipe. I will not go into details of the ingredients since I have already covered it in the Cake Baking post.

Mixing:
Most of the cookie recipes call for creaming butter with sugar unless it is a cookie recipe based on oil or melted butter. Usually the steps is to cream butter and sugar or sugars (when both brown sugar and white sugar are used), followed by beating the egg into the creamed mixture. You then add the dry ingredients and beat for few seconds, fold in the additions like nuts or chocolate chips.  Make sure you don't over mix than what is needed. Over mixing will also make the gluten in the flour to develop which can make the end product hard. Whenever you are dealing with oil or liquid fat, it is very important to fold the dry ingredients instead of beating with the electric mixer. This makes sure there is no gluten development.

How does the cookie baking work:
Cookie dough is almost all the time thick enough to be scooped. Thicker the batter, puffier the cookies. Or colder the dough, puffier the cookies. That is the reason for some of the cookie recipes calling for chilling the dough. Most of the cookies are baked for only 10 - 12 minutes at 350 or 375 F. I have come across very few recipes which call for baking them at lower temperatures. This applies particularly to short breads which do not have any leavening agents at all (traditional ones have just butter and sugar). Because of baking such small amounts of dough in mounds, it forms the crust fast and gets cooked pretty fast.



Best pan to use for cookie baking:
Always use shiny aluminum cookie sheets for baking. Line them with parchment paper to prevent them from sticking, over browning on the bottom. Remember that if a cookie baked directly on the cookie sheet takes 10 minutes to bake, it takes at least 12 minutes on the cookie sheet that is lined with parchment paper. If you bake the cookie on a non-stick baking sheet, make sure you check them 2 minutes early. Unless you are using a convection oven, always and always rotate the pan while baking cookies. Even if you are baking only one sheet. That ensures even baking of all the cookies. Make sure you space the dough as per the recipe instructions. Otherwise, when they spread, they will join each other and it won't be pretty.

General formula for a Cookie:
Remember there are tons of recipes which adhere to this and there are even more which do not. This does not work for low fat cookie recipes either.
Usually for every cup of flour, there will be 1/2 cup - 2/3 of sugar, 4 - 6 TBSP of fat, 2 TBSP of egg per cup of flour (1 egg for every 2 cups of flour) in most of the cookie recipes. Leavening agent will be around  1/4  tsp baking soda for every cup of flour. If the recipe calls for baking powder, it will be around 1 tsp per cup of flour. Remember that baking soda is much stronger than baking powder. Each tsp of baking powder has 1/4 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp cream of tartar and 1/2 tsp corn starch. Depending on if the recipe is for crunchier cookie or puffier, there could be some liquid present or it could have more number of eggs to facilitate spreading.

Please remember that it is just a guideline and there are too many recipes that do not stick to this rule. Particularly eggless cookies and vegan cookies have an entirely different way of working that is hard to generalize. You can look at various cookie recipes on this blog here.

Enjoy.

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M & M Cookies

Did I ever tell you I prefer to bake cake rather than cookies? I love baking bar cookies, but not drop or rolled cookies that much. Reason? It takes so long when you are baking a big batch. I am not talking about making the batter and baking time, but rotating the sheets and baking batch by batch part of it. Cake is very easy since you make the batter, pour into the pan and set the timer and the there is no baby sitting required till the timer goes off. Anyway, I had a request for two kinds of cookies. (Yes, I occasionally take few orders to bake) Request was for a batch of chocolate chip cookies and a batch of M & M cookies. I have already posted few kinds of chocolate chip cookies that I thought I will skip that and post just the M & M cookies.

One year back - Tomatillo Rice, Mango Rice Pudding
Two years back - Mango Jam, Panettone
Adapted slightly from - All Recipes
Ingredients: (Makes 5 - 6 dozen cookies that are 3 1/2" in diameter)
All purpose flour - 4 cups
Butter - 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) melted and cooled
Baking Soda - 1 tsp
Salt - 1 tsp
Light brown sugar packed - 1 1/2 cups
White granulated sugar - 1 cup
Eggs - 3 Large at room temperature
Vanilla - 3 TBSP
M & M milk chocolate candies - 2 cups + 1/4 cup (to top the cookies before baking)


Method:
Make the dough:
In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda. Set aside. In another bowl, take melted and cooled butter.  Add both the sugars to it and stir with a strong wooden spoon. Yes, this doesn't need a mixer. Isn't that cool? Stir until all the sugar is mixed well with butter. Add eggs to it and gently break them with the spoon and mix so that everything is homogeneous. Stir in vanilla. Dump the dry ingredients on to the wet and slowly stir till the dough forms. When you no longer see flour streaks, add M & M candies and stir to disperse them uniformly. Cover with a plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or even overnight.

Bake the cookies:
Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Take the dough from the refrigerator. Make 2 TBSP dough balls. They will be the size of medium sized limes. Place on the cookie sheet. Top with few M & M so that the top will have those candies if desired. Bake for 12 - 14 minutes rotating the pans halfway. The edges should have just started browning. These are soft cookies. Don't over bake them. Cookies will look puffed up when taken out of the oven, but eventually flatten a bit after cooling. Let it stay on the cookie sheet for 10 minutes. Remove from the sheet to cooling rack to cool completely.

If you do not refrigerate the cookie dough, it will be flat and crunchy cookie. Colder the dough, puffier the cookies. Since the butter is melted and used, I don't see why we can't use oil in place of butter. But the taste would differ too. It won't be buttery.

Enjoy.

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Macadamia and White Chocolate Chip Cookies

How are you all doing this holiday season? Good? I am glad. Done with shopping for all the gifts? I am happy for you. But, if you are tired, I am with you. I know how you feel.
I am tired too. I have been baking for 4 hours for the past two days. No, it is not for this Bake-A-Thon. It is for gift giving.

If you see my kitchen right now, I don't even know what you will have to say. Part of the gifts to teachers, school, mail man and others have been Pumpkin Cranberry Bread, couple of types of bars using Cake Mix, Chocolate Chip Chocolate Bread and Caramel Corn. Add the chore of buying some gifts for colleagues and others. I could use a vacation right now. I made these cookies mainly for my husband. This is the only kind of cookie he loves, not that he minds eating other kinds, but still.

One year back - Gingerbread Biscotti
Two years back - Cranberry White chocolate Chip Bars
Adapted from Good Housekeeping Baking book
Ingredients: (Makes 32 - 36 cookies based on size)
All purpose flour - 1 3/4 cup
Sugar - 1/4 cup
Light brown sugar - 1/2 cup packed
Salt - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup or 1 stick softened
Egg - 1 large
Macadamia nuts - chopped and measured 3/4 cup - 1 cup
White chocolate chips - 3/4 cup

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking soda. Cream the butter and both the sugars till well mixed. They won't get creamy. Add egg and continue to beat. They get creamy after beating with egg. Add vanilla. Continue to beat adding flour mixture. When the mixer cannot run anymore, stop beating and with a spatula, stir in the white chocolate chips and chopped macadamia nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon 2 inches apart (they spread quite a bit) on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 8 - 10 minutes or until the edges start to get golden. It is better to under bake these cookies. They will still be soft, but will get firm once cooled. Remove the parchment paper on to the wire rack to cool completely.

Today is Day 21 of the Bake-A-Thon. Check out these blogs too -  Preethi, Veena, Priya.
Sending this to Suma's Cookiefest.
Enjoy.

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Quick Palmiers

"Palmiers (palm trees) are clever French pastries made by cutting slices from a doubly scrolled sheet of dough." - Quoted in Good Housekeeping Baking book.
Palmiers are usually made with puff pastry sheets and the recipe given uses the method of making the flaky dough to replace the puff pastry sheet. It is almost like a pie crust recipe, but has sour cream in it. The shape I could get is not all that great and with this crazy baking schedule I had today, I had no patience to wait for the dough to firm up. Be sure to read the notes section to see improvisation of this recipe.

One year back - Gingerbread Biscotti
Two years back - Cranberry White chocolate chip bars
Adapted from - Good Housekeeping Baking
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Butter - 1/4 cup or half a stick (cold cut into cubes)
Shortening - 1/4 cup
Sour cream - 1/4 cup (straight from the refrigerator)
Sugar - 1/3 cup

Method:
In a bowl, take all purpose flour. Add shortening and cold butter into it and work with two knifes or a pastry blender. When the mixture resembles coarse meal with quite a few chunks of butter in it, Add sour cream and mix. Don't over do it and it is alright if it is crumbly. Dump the whole mixture on to a plastic wrap and fold and press with the help of the plastic wrap to form a rectangular or square disc. Refrigerate for 2 1/2 hours or overnight.
When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 400 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll into a square of 10 - 11". Pour sugar on the dough and work it in as much as possible. You can see that I haven't done a great job. I was baking all day and my kitchen was warm and the dough started softening too fast. Make an indentation in the center. Roll from one end tightly till it comes to the center indentation. Repeat the other side so that the spiral meets the center. Press together and refrigerate if it has become too soft and difficult to handle.
Slice the whole log into 1/4" thick slices and bake for 10 minutes. Flip them and bake for another 5 minutes or until both sides are golden. Cool on the baking sheet and store in an air tight container when completely cool. You should get about 2 dozen from this proportion.

Notes:
I had to bake the palmiers 15 minutes and then turn and bake for 8 minutes because of my baking sheet. I was using air bake cookie sheet which conducts heat very slowly. I felt the sugar filling is too much. Even when some of it came out, the remaining amount itself was too much for the dough. When I make it next time, I would use about 3 TBSP of the sugar in the dough and use the remaining of 1/3 cup as filling.

Today is Day 20 of the Bake-A-Thon. Check out these blogs too -  Preethi, Veena, Priya. Sending this to Suma's Cookiefest. Linking it up to Kid's delight - Vegan and egg less bakes hosted by Priya, started by Srivalli.

Enjoy.

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Cashew Cookies

Another Cookie? You might say. I know you are tired of seeing cake, bread, cookie mainly this month on the blog. What do I do? No one likes pies and tarts in my house and kids are funny with lot of ingredients. And I definitely don't want to eat all the stuff (let's be honest - can't afford to) and gain weight. So, you are stuck with reading bread, cookie, cake but I promise you that I will post lot of non-baked goods after this month.

One year back - Almond Butter fudge Balls
Two years back - Masala Corn Muffins, Holiday Cookie Platter
Ingredients:
Cashews chopped coarsely - 1/3 cup
Canola Oil - 2 TBSP (Yes, there is no typo here)
Sugar - 1/2 cup
Salt - a pinch
Egg - 1 Large (See Notes)
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 1 tsp
Vanilla - 3/4 tsp

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or lightly grease with vegetable oil spray. In a bowl, whisk together sugar, egg, oil, vanilla till fluffy. In another bowl, stir together cashews, flour, baking powder, salt. Add the liquid to dry ingredients and stir. You will have to mix the dough using your hands. This is a super sticky dough. If you want, you can refrigerate it for easier handling for about 30 minutes or so. I wet my hands (shake off excess water) and shaped into an inch balls. Place on the prepared sheet 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes. Top will be a pale golden and bottom will have started to brown. These are not super fatty but they are soft. They will become hard if you over bake them, so check at 12 minutes. Cool on the wire rack completely.

Notes:
If you feel the dough is so sticky that you cannot handle it, add 1 TBSP of corn starch. But don't use more than 1 TBSP of it. I had to use 1 TBSP because I was using extra large egg. If using large egg as specified, you won't have to use an extra TBSP of flour or corn starch.

Today is day 16 of the Bake-A-Thon. I don't know about myself, but I am sure you are all tired of reading one baked goodie post after the other. I apologize if I am tiring you with these posts. My fellow bloggers doing this are - Preethi, Veena, Priya.


Enjoy.

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Soft Chewy Applesauce Spice Cookies (Vegan)

Do you like crispy cookies or soft ones? Or very soft and delicate ones? This one falls into the category of very soft and delicate cookie. You can vary the spices to suit your taste preference. I was experimenting a cookie with applesauce. This is what I came up with. This one doesn't suit to pack in the box and give it as a gift since it is so soft, but is perfect with a cup of milk and not very high in calories either.

One year back - Eggless Almond Date Cake

Two years back - Money Saving tips on food
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 cup
Dark Brown sugar - 1/2 cup packed
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Baking soda - 3/4 tsp
Cinnamon - 1/2 tsp
Nutmeg - 1/4 tsp
Oil - 1/4 cup
Molasses - 2 TBSP
Applesauce - 1/4 cup or 4 TBSP

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together flour, brown sugar, spice powders, baking soda, salt. In another bowl, whisk together molasses, applesauce, oil. Dump the liquid into dry ingredients and stir to combine.  It is a bit wet dough to make balls, but you should be able to roll them into balls. If you feel it needs a bit stiffening, refrigerate for about an hour. Make 1" balls and place on the baking sheet 2 - 3 inches apart. Bake for 10 minutes. They spread a lot and puff up and once removed, drop and become flat. They will still be soft when you pull the baking sheet from the oven, but firm up a little after cooling. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes.

Today is day 10 of the Bake-A-Thon.  My fellow bloggers doing this are - Preethi, Veena, Priya.
Enjoy.

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Chocolate Butterscotch Bars (Using cake mix)

Have you ever had a feeling you are so busy that you don't have time to sit down even for a moment? That happens a lot to me. Combine that with few requests from kids and a slight case of OCD, you will be living my life for a day. I woke up yesterday and when I was passing by the window, felt a draft. Started checking and sure enough, there was cold air coming through the window. I had to go in to work, so whatever was needed, it had to wait till I got back. On the way back, I stopped at home depot and bought all the supplies needed to weather shield the windows. If you are wondering about me at this moment, yes, I am a big handy woman when it comes to fixing stuff. I come home and I did know that I had to bake some kind of cookies for my kid to take to school today, but started with the window project anyway (see, I told you OCD). By the way draft was only from two windows, but I had to weather shield all of them (God only knows why - I blame it on OCD). It took me 2 hours to weather shield 12 windows. I still have 5 more windows to work on, but I stopped to make dinner and bake these bars. This recipe is a life saver when all you have is 5 minutes to spare. That and of course, a pantry with ingredients needed for this.

One year back - Dry Fruit Yeast Bread/Cake
Two years back - Green mango Gojju

Ingredients:
Chocolate Cake mix - 1 box (I used betty crocker brand)
Eggs - 2 large
Sugar - 1/3 cup
Butter - 1 stick or 1/2 cup melted and cooled (You could use oil instead)
Vanilla - 1 tsp
Butterscotch chips - 1 cup

Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Spray a 13 X 9 pan with vegetable oil spray. Set aside. In a bowl, mix melted butter or oil with eggs, sugar and vanilla. Dump the cake mix and stir. It will be really thick. Stir in the butterscotch chips. Dump into the prepared pan and push to cover the entire pan. Smooth with the spatula. Bake for 28 - 30 minutes or until you see few cracks on the top and toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pan on the wire rack and cut when completely cool. You get 35 medium sized bars or 24 large bars.

Today is day 9 of the Bake-A-Thon. Tell me if you are enjoying this or getting tired of seeing all baked goodies. My fellow bloggers doing this are - Susan, Preethi, Veena, Priya.

Enjoy.

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Cardamom Biscotti

If you ask me which kind of cookies are my favorite, I would answer you 'Biscotti' without even thinking for a moment. For couple of reasons. You could dunk them in hot beverage or eat as is. They are the most healthy cookies if you consider low-fat goodies as healthy. They don't need lot of butter like most of the cookies do. Baking is a breeze since you bake them as a log and slice and bake again. Aren't these reasons enough to love a Biscotti? If you still think you like classic cookies like Snickerdoodles or Peanut butter cookies, do visit again to enjoy them virtually.

Today being the second day of Bake-A-Thon, I am sharing this biscotti recipe with you all. Joining me in this adventure are:
Susan of The WellSeasoned Cook,
Preethi of IsingCakes,
Veena Krishna Kumar of VeenasVegnation,
Priya Suresh of Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes.

One year back - Holiday Gift Ideas
Two years back - Cake Decorating Basics - II
Based on Anise Biscotti recipe from the book 'Good Housekeeping Baking'
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 2 1/2 cups
Sugar - 1 cup
Baking Powder - 2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Canola Oil - 4 TBSP (1/4 cup)
Eggs - 3 large
Cardamom - 6 - 7 pods powdered (scant 1 tsp powder)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and cardamom powder. In another bowl, beat eggs, oil and sugar very well. Add the liquid to dry ingredients and continue to beat. This is a very wet dough. Divide the dough into two portions and shape each half into a log of approximately 10 " X 3". You can wet your hands or a spatula to shape. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and slice them either diagonally or straight into 3/4" thick slices. Most of the biscotti recipes tell you to let them cool down before slicing, but this recipe instructed to slice immediately. I did follow it to see how this would work differently. I would stick to the method of waiting till they cool down a bit before slicing. Even when it doesn't affect the taste, these biscotti had uneven crumb texture due to slicing when still hot. Bake them cut side down for 5 minutes and then flip and bake for 5 more minutes. I baked them on the back (not on the cut side) for 10 minutes. You could under bake it if you are planning to dunk it in coffee or tea.

Cool completely on the rack. They get hard as they cool. If you feel they are not hard enough, you can always return them to the oven to crisp up for couple more minutes.

Enjoy.

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Soft Ricotta Chocolate Chip Cookies (lowfat, eggless)

Have you heard of the saying 'Out of sight, out of mind'? That is true for me about one thing. Stuff that is in the refrigerator towards the back. Lot of times, I end up cooking/baking stuff to use up the ingredients that are about to expire. It happened to me again this week. I had a container of ricotta cheese that would expire next week. I could've made a lot of things with it, but my kid has been asking for chocolate chip cookies for a while now. I made these, but converted the recipe into an eggless one and with minimal amount of fat. These are soft cookies almost cake like. Not with the crispy edges like other chocolate chip cookies.

One year back - Mango apricot flatbread, Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins
Adapted from - Double Chocolate Ricotta Cookies
Ingredients:
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cup
Corn Starch - 2 TBSP
Baking Powder - 1/2 tsp
Baking Soda - 1/2 tsp
Salt - 1/4 tsp
Sugar - 1 cup
Buttery spread - 4 TBSP or 1/4 cup (I used country crock)
Ricotta - 1 cup at room temperature (I used part skim)
Vanilla - 2 tsp
Semisweet chocolate chips/chunks - 1 1/2 cups (I used chocolate chunks)

Method:
In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, corn starch, salt. Set aside. Beat buttery spread or soft tub margarine, ricotta together. Add sugar, vanilla to it and continue beating till everything is creamy. Add the dry mix and beat. You might have to just fold towards the end with a spatula. Add the chocolate chips and stir. Cover with a plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes or so.

When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper. Take the dough out of the freezer and with a cookie scoop (spray with vegetable oil spray and use. This dough is extremely sticky), make 1" - 2"  balls and place on the cookie sheets 2 inches apart. I got about 28 cookies from this and I could've made them a bit smaller. I baked mine for 15 minutes. Don't forget to rotate the pans halfway. These don't spread too much. They will remain puffy and soft inside. These are more like whoopie pies but without all that fat. Cool on the wire rack and store in an air tight container.
Linking it up to Kid's delight - Vegan and egg less bakes hosted by Priya, started by Srivalli. 

Enjoy.

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Vegan Shortbread

I have a bad habit. If I see any cookbook or baking book in any place, I have to flip the pages at least once. We were visiting my relatives this weekend. At my sister-in-law's place, I saw couple of baking books and immediately started sifting through pages. I saw this shortbread cookies recipe. It is not vegan in the book and I converted that as a vegan one. I liked this for the reason that I didn't have to roll the dough and cut and all that. It can be made in one bowl and the preparation time is less than 5 minutes if you have a scale. I do not remember the title of the book, but the author of the book is 'Martha Day'.

One year back -  Chocolate Rolls
Ingredients:
(Volume measures are approximate. I weighed the ingredients and then measured)
Canola Oil - 2/3 cup (Or butter 5 1/2 Oz)
Sugar - 1/2 cup (3 1/2 Oz)
All purpose flour - 1 1/2 cups +1 TBSP (6 1/4 Oz) (Lightly spooned and measured)
Rice Flour - 1/4 Cup + 2 TBSP (2 Oz)
Baking Powder - 1/4 tsp
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Vanilla - 2 tsp
Raw sugar - 2 TBSP to sprinkle (optional)

Method:
Preheat the oven to 325 F. Line a 8" round pan with parchment paper. Run the sugar in a food processor or a dry grinder to make it a powder. Mix all dry ingredients together. Pour oil in the center and mix with a strong spoon. Add vanilla and combine. You might have to use your hands toward the end of mixing to make a smooth dough. Dump it into the parchment lined pan and press evenly with the back of the spoon or hand. Poke holes with a skewer and score into 8 wedges. I used my bench scraper which works better than a knife. Sprinkle with raw sugar if using.

Bake in the preheated oven for 40 - 45 minutes. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes and then Score the wedges again. Remove from the pan and separate and allow it to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Notes:
This is not a very sweet cookie at all. If you like it to be sweeter, increase the sugar to 3/4 cup. I also felt that the cookies were too thick to my liking. Next time, I might pat them in a 8" square pan to get a little thinner cookies. You could also use whole wheat pastry flour (not whole wheat flour) instead. I didn't have any.

Linking it up to Kid's delight - Vegan and egg less bakes hosted by Priya, started by Srivalli.
Enjoy.

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