Chuckledoodles

Just when you thought it was safe, here I am with another Snickerdoodle recipe. Well, they're sorta-kinda Snickerdoodles. For one thing, I am still out of cream of tartar because, much to my dismay, Lee doesn't seem to carry it in his spice section at the market. Oh pain. Oh agony. I'm told one can substitute either vinegar or lemon juice for cream of tartar but I'm not convinced the results are the same. Close, but no banana. (I don't have any cigars, either.) That would probably be okay if you weren't as bull-headed as I am. See, as far as I'm concerned, if it doesn't have cream of tartar, it isn't a Snickerdoodle. It's just a sugar cookie. A very good sugar cookie, to be sure, but only a pretender.

The other thing about this particular recipe is that the cookies don't crackle on top. I don't know why that is. Instead of crackling, they just crumpled. Maybe they're really polite cookies so instead of snickering, they decided to chuckle. So I'm calling them Chuckledoodles, okay?

Crackled or crumpled, they still came out doggoned good. Tender crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. Which is the way they're supposed to be. That's another of my bull-headed Snickerdoodle roolz -- we're not having us any of those cakey-type cookies here, thank you very much.

I got this recipe from the Taste of Home web site, which is a really good place to go for all kinds of nummy stuff. The reason I tried it was because it was very close to my regular Snickerdoodle recipe but doesn't make as many cookies. I just wasn't in the mood to bake a whole kajillion of the little guys. I ended up with 43 cookies. Well, to be more precise, it was 42 regular-sized cookies and 1 little bitty guy. And this am the way it goes:

CHUCKLEDOODLES

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla, beat well. Add flour, soda and cream of tartar, beat well. Dough should be soft but just firm enough, if you handle it lightly, to roll teaspoon-sized blobs into something like walnut-sized balls. Roll the balls in a mixture of sugar and cinnamon (I like to add about half as much cardamom as cinnamon) and place on cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees fairyheight for 10 to 12 minutes.

Okay -- I should stress you want to test a few cookies in your oven. In my oven, 8 minutes is just right. Anything past that and the cookies would be too hard. Don't like hard cookies. Tender crunchy, that's the goal. Also, if I'd had a fresh supply of cream of tartar, I'd have put a full teaspoon in. Absolutely. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

I should point out there is no vanilla in my regular "go to" Snickerdoodle recipe -- and I don't miss it when I do the cookies that way. But it's nice in this recipe. The presence or absence of vanilla in this venue does not fall under the scope of my bull-headed roolz.

But I'm still calling these Chuckledoodles.

Trifling With Truffles

If you don't give me the recipe, I shall have to hurt you.

That's what I told Albert (my grandson-the-chef). He and Holly made up some marvelous goodie baskets for Christmas giving and the item that had me quivering with total bliss was a bag of the most fantastic choccy cookies I have EVER eaten. That's the truth.

I don't think he really believed I'd harm a single hair on his head but, just in case, he dropped by earlier this evening so I could copy off the recipe. Lo and behold, it turns out to be one from a favorite recipe site of mine, RecipeZaar. If you haven't checked it out, believe me, it's worth many enjoyable hours of browsing.

Anyway, rather than typing up the recipe here, I'll link you to the appropriate page so you can easily print off a copy for your files. Go to: Ultimate Chocolate Truffle Cookies and prepare to be tempted beyond endurance.

The cookies are aptly named because biting into one is almost identical to biting into a chocolate truffle. Moist and silky-tender. And decadent. We can't forget decadent.

I really don't think I'm going to tinker with this recipe, which is very unusual for me. That decision falls under the heading of "Don't fix what ain't broke." Okay, one thing I'll do different. I won't dust them with powdered sugar because they really don't need any dusting. Uhmmm. Well. I guess I could dust them with cocoa. That sounds reasonable. I'm just not a big fan of powdered sugar.

I don't have any pictures of the cookies to show you. Can't take pictures of something you've already eaten and, since I just got the recipe, I haven't made any new ones to immortalize digitally. Not to worry -- there are four photos of the cookies on the page at the other end of the above link. Both sugar-dusted and plain, now that I think of it.

One note of caution: it might be wise to run off several copies of the recipe if you plan on sharing these cookies with family and friends. Otherwise, one of those folks might hurt you.

Kneading & Needing

See that measuring cup piled with brown sugar? I just wanted to show you that making your own brown sugar produces an end result that is just as fluffy-light and moist as a bag of freshly opened brown sugar bought at the store.

See, I was about to embark on a cookie-making gig and it required half a cup of brown sugar. Oops! I'm out of brown sugar. I had heard you could add molasses to regular granulated sugar as a substitute -- and I do have molasses. Didn't recall measurements so a quickie Google run ensued. There are variations on the measurements but what I used was 2 tablespoons of molasses to 1 cup of granulated sugar.

The source of this particular recipe said to mix with a fork and store extra in a resealable plastic bag. Another source said to just add the molasses to the wet ingredients in the recipe to save the extra mixing. Since you have to pack brown sugar down firm when you measure it, I thought that latter method might not be as accurate so I opted for the mixing. I'm sure a fork -- or even a pastry cutter -- would do the job faster but I put a cup of sugar in a resealable sandwich bag, added the molasses, made sure it was sealed up tight and then just kneaded the bag until the sugar was evenly blended. Next time I'll use the faster method but it was fascinating to watch the sugar slowly transform as I worked the bag.

Here's the irony: this brown sugar "substitute" isn't really a substitute at all. All these years I thought brown sugar was simply sugar that hadn't been refined as much as the white. For certain categories of "natural" sugars, that's true. But the brown sugar we buy in our grocery stores is most likely to be the end result of granulated sugar that has had molasses added back in. Exactly like what I just did with my handy-dandy sandwich bag!

Which means I scratched brown sugar off my grocery list and added molasses. Heck of a deal.

So -- on to the cookie gig. On July 9th, the NY Times printed an article and accompanying recipe about and for chocolate chip cookies. It spread like a happy virus across the food blogosphere so you can't hardly check into a foodie site without seeing mention of these scrumptious goodies. Although I didn't follow their particular recipe, I did pay attention to the "secrets" they revealed in the article, such as a very light sprinkle of coarsely ground sea salt on top of the dough just before baking. Also, although I baked a dozen of the cookies right away, the rest of the dough will be kicking back and relaxing in the refrigerator for a day or two to see if the resulting cookies are indeed as superior as they claim. I figure it can't hurt -- and, for the first time, I don't feel guilty about not baking up the whole batch of dough in one fell swoop. Yay!

The recipe I sort of used is from Smitten Kitchen and she posted some luscious photos, too. I'll copy it here more or less as she laid it out because she's nice enough to provide amounts in grams for those of you across the Pond. You'll want to check it out at her site too, though, because I tweaked it a bit here.

Tweakable Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) (115 grams) unsalted butter
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla (she called for 1 teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons plain yogurt (optional -- for moistness)
1 1/4 cup (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt -- or 1/2 teaspoon sea salt or kosher salt
1 1/2 cups (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup (130 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped fine

Put rack at upper third level in oven and preheat to 300 fairy height, 150 centipede.

Mix butter and sugars until smooth. I melted the butter instead of cubing it cold like she did. Mix in the egg, vanilla, baking soda and, if using, yogurt. Stir together flour and salt, mix into batter. Fold in chocolate chips and nuts. After the little mounds of dough had been placed on the cookie sheet, I put a light sprinkle of coarsely ground sea salt on top of each mound. I have one of those little bottles with its own grinder top that works perfectly for this.

Using a small ice cream scoop or 2 tablespoons, plop mounds of dough on a lightly oiled cookie sheet (or use parchment paper or a silicone mat) and bake for about 15 minutes. Everyone's oven seems to be a bit different so you might want to watch closely toward the end of the baking time. You don't want to cook them too crispy in the oven or they'll get horridly hard on you when they cool. Let them rest for a minute or two on the cookie sheet when you remove it from the oven. Then put them on a rack to cool completely.

I usually do just one pan of cookies at a time, in case I feel the need to tweak the dough for some reason. The first half-dozen cookies were fine but I thought they needed something. Aha! I grabbed 1/2 cup of my beloved dried cranberries, chopped them to little bits and folded them in. Believe me, cranberries share the same "marriage made in heaven" quality with chocolate as raspberries. The second half-dozen cookies were an improvement, with the delightful little flavor bursts from the cranberries.

There may be a bit more tweaking in the future of this batch of dough. I'm wondering about the flour. You know that some days, depending on the humidity, you need more or less flour than what is called for. Also, that 2 tablespoons of yogurt I added may have made the dough a bit looser than it should be. Keeping it in the refrigerator between batches helps but these cookies, though tender crispy outside and soft and chewy inside, tend to spread a bit more than I'm used to. Tomorrow I may add about 1/4 cup more flour. We'll see.

The cookies came out more of a caramel brown than pale golden. That's because I only had 1/2 cup of chocolate chips but I had a cup's worth of a solid semi-sweet chocolate bar I chopped up. The chopping reduced some of the choccy to powder which, of course, went into the dough just like the bigger chunks. And that's how come these cookies have a better tan.

And there you have it -- my Friday session of kneading (the brown sugar) and needing (a choccy fix). Do I know how to head into a weekend or what?