Sasha's Kitchen: Chewy Ginger Cookies

I love gingerbread and ginger cookies.  This is part one of a two part gingerbread cookie baking extravaganza that I got into this season (the second part being gingerbread men).  I made these gingerbread cookies that were nice and chewy using the recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook.  I love to bake.  I don't just love it, but I find it relaxing and calming, and it is one of my favorite things to do.  I always want to bake more than I have people to feed all the baked goods to, so I have to contain it.  It's a bit of a problem!  At any rate, recently, I received a whole box of baking supplies from ShopRite and used some of the supplies to make these cookies, which were absolutely fabulous and addictive.  The original recipe recommends icing the  cookies as well, but I didn't think they needed it.

Chewy Ginger Cookies (recipe adapted from Jennifer Appel)
2 cups ShopRite all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp ShopRite cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup canola oil
1 cup ShopRite sugar plus 1 T for sprinkling
1 large egg
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses

Preheat the oven to 350.  In a small bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.  Using your stand mixer, beat the oil and sugar on high speed for three minutes, then beat in the egg and molasses.  Unsulphured molasses stinks in my opinion, but don't worry, your cookies won't as it changes it scent when baked.  Add the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.  Drop  rounded teaspoonfuls spaced apart  on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper and sprinkle lightly with sugar.  Bake each sheet of cookies, one at a time for 12 minutes.  They'll be soft when they come out but cook more when removed from the oven.  Allow to cool and remove from the sheets.  Enjoy!

Sasha's Kitchen: Chewy Ginger Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Magnolia Bakery's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Magnolia Bakery is one of New York's most famous bakeries and also one of my favorites.  Recently, I stopped by and picked up a copy of the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook, which I am so excited to explore.  So far I have made two recipes - I made Magnolia's chocolate chip cookies and I made their famous banana pudding, both of which were delicious.  I plan to make their apple walnut cake with cream cheese caramel frosting for New Years and explore some new baking recipes, including cupcakes, in January.  As I mentioned in a recent post, I received a whole box of baking supplies from ShopRite, which is right up my sleeve since I LOVE TO BAKE!  I figured chocolate chip cookies were another perfect recipe for using all of these goodies.  These were the best chocolate chip cookies I've made yet - chewy and chocolate-ey just like I like them.  The combination of brown sugar and granulated sugar is the trick that makes the cookie what it is.  Be sure to bake the cookies only the time allotted, even if they seem soft when they come out of the oven. They continue cooking after they come out of the oven and will be just perfect after 12 minutes or so in the oven, once they cool.  I used the brown sugar, sugar, vanilla, chocolate chips and flour that ShopRite sent me in this recipe.

Magnolia Bakery's Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350.  In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt.  In your stand mixer, cream the butter and the sugars for three minutes until smooth.  Beat in the egg and vanilla and mix well.  Add in the flour mixture and mix thoroughly, and then stir in the chocolate chips.  Drop well rounded, heaping teaspoonfuls of cookie dough onto cookies sheets lined with parchment paper, leaving space for expansion.  Bake 10-12 minutes, one sheet at a time, in the center of your oven until lightly golden brown.

Sasha's Kitchen: Magnolia Bakery's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Pecan Tassies

Pecan pie is such a big thing this time of year.  I'm more of a fruit pie person but I still like just a bite of pecan pie.  When I was a kid, my stepdad's mom used to make a cookie called pecan tassies (she also made apricot-coconut tassies as well, another recipe I'm itching to try).  Pecan tassies are like mini pecan pies.  You make little crusts in mini muffin tins or molds and fill them with a filling of your choice, in this case, pecan filling.  Bake them and voila - mini bite size pies.  I can't believe I didn't try this sooner.  The possibilities for tassies are endless, or as endless as pies! This brought back a favorite holiday cookie from my childhood.  I used a recipe from my favorite Baked Explorations cookbook, from that fabulous Brooklyn bakery.  It was delicious - a bite of heaven!  This is a true Southern holiday cookie classic.

Pecan Tassies (recipe from Baked Explorations)
Crusts
2 sticks unsalted butter
6 oz cream cheese
1 T sugar
2 cups all purpose flour

Filling
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar
2 T vanilla extract
1 cup toasted pecans, chopped coarsely

In the basin of your stand mixer, cream together the butter and cream cheese until lump free.  Add the sugar and beat to combine.  Then add the flour one half cup at a time, beating until a dough is just formed.  You could also do this by hand, like when making an old-style pie.  Pinch off walnut sized pieces of dough and roll into balls.  Set aside.  You will get about 40 balls.  Place each ball in a mini muffin tin and use your fingers to press each ball into the sizes of the muffin mold.  I used silicon muffin tins, which make it much easier to get them out when they are done baking. After making the shells, chill in the refrigerator while you prepare the filling.

Make the filling by whisking the two eggs and adding the brown sugar until completely combined.  Add the vanilla and salt and whisk again.  Then add 1/2 a cup of the chopped pecans.  Spoon the filling into the tassie shells and top with the remaining half a cup of chopped pecans.

Bake in an oven preheated to 350 for 15 minutes.  Reduce the oven to 250 and bake another 10-15 minutes until the filling is set.  Allow to cool for thirty minutes before removing from the silicon mini muffin molds.

Sasha's Kitchen: Pecan Tassies

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Biscotti

I've been craving some good biscotti for awhile now so I figured I'd make my own chocolate biscotti with almonds.  I've always been a big fan of Dave Lebovitz, an American chef cooking from my beloved city of Paris, who focuses on the sweet life in Paris - desserts and pastries.  I came across this recipe for chocolate biscotti on Dave's blog, and it's truly great - decadently chocolate, crisp biscotti, perfect for dunking in a nice cup of hot tea (sorry i don't drink coffee, but you get the idea).  It's also not that difficult to make, either and made a nice large batch that you can enjoy for a couple of weeks as long as you store them in an airtight container.  This recipe is a great way to start the day with a cup of tea, or coffee if you prefer, and reminds me the chocolate croissants starting off a morning in Paris.

Dave Lebovitz's chocolate biscotti
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups good quality cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup almonds toasted and coarsely chopped
3/4 cup chocolate chips
For the galze
1 large egg
2 T of coarse sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, beat togther the eggs, sugar, vanilla and almond extract. I did this using a stand mixer.  Then I mixed in the dry ingredients, nuts and chocolate chips until the dough holds together in the mixer.  It doesn't quite come together in the mixer on its own - you're going to need to pull it together with your hands - very chocolatey!

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and divide the dough in half.  Roll the dough into two long logs, nearly the length of the baking sheet. Flatten the tops of the logs and glaze with the remaining egg. Sprinkle the remaining sugar on top and bake at 350 for 25 minutes, until the dough is firm to the touch.

Remove the dough from the oven and cool for 15 minutes. Use a serrated knife to diagonally cut the cookies into 1/2 inch slices.  Lay the cookies cut side down on the baking sheet and bake for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how crisp you like you biscotti. For my oven, which is brand new, I found 20 minutes to be perfect.

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Biscotti

Sasha's Kitchen: Black & White Cookies

Growing up, traditional black and white cookies - half chocolate glazed and half vanilla glazed - were one of my favorite kinds of cookies (second to tri-colored rainbow cookies, of course).  They're actually relatively straightforward to make at home, as well, and quite a rewarding treat.  I have to admit I am partial to the chocolate glazed side of the cookie, so much so that next time I make them, I might just have to make the cookie itself chocolate.  I'm a big fan of the bakery Baked, right here in Brooklyn for their reasonably priced but delicious baked goods from cakes to cookies to cupcakes, so I was thrilled to find a recipe for black & white cookies in the Baked Explorations cookbook last weekend.  A batch of cookies mades between 14-18 nice large black and white cookies which are a rewarding treat to eat at home and to share with friends and coworkers.  I got a lot of compliments on these!

Black & White Cookies (recipe from Baked Explorations)
Cookies
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 sticks of unsalted butter, cool
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 T pure vanilla extract
1 T freshly grated lemon zest

Frosting
3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
4 to 5 T whole milk
3 T heavy cream
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 2T dark unsweetened cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 350. Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.  In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients for the cookies (flower, baking powder, baking soda and salt).  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy, about two minutes. Add the eggs and the yolk, one at a time and mix.  Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk (ending with the last flour addition). Add the vanilla and scrape down the bowl; add the lemon zest and mix.

Using a 1/4 cup scoop, drop the dough on the prepared baking sheets (beware, it will expand). You should fit about six cookies on a baking sheet. Be sure to space them apart to give them some room to spread and "grow."

Bake for 17 minutes, baking each sheet one at a time. Edges should be lightly browned. I found that the 17 minute time was pretty much right on the money.  Allow to cool completely before frosting.

To make the frosting, in a large bowl, whisk together the confectioners' sugar, milk, cream and vanilla. If the mixture is too thick, add milk by the teaspoon. Divide in half and add the chocolate powder to half of the mixture. Add a bit of milk by the teaspoon if you need to thin the chocolate a little bit.  Using a spatula, frost one half vanilla and allow to dry before frosting the other half with the chocolate glaze.  Let the frosted cookies set for one hour before serving.

Sasha's Kitchen: Black & White Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Chunk Cookies

I made these chocolate chunk cookies about a week ago, and they were delicious. The recipe is loosely based on a Martha Stewart recipe. The cookies are soft and chewy, which is quite delicious. If you bake the cookies for longer (as my husband requested for some of them) they will be harder and crunchier, but still delicious. I prefer somewhere in between Martha's recommendation and my husband's preference, so I am suggesting about 15 minutes so they are chewy but don't taste undercooked. I used chopped up chocolate chunk for the cookies, rather than chocolate chips, and it gave them a nice texture. This recipe makes quite a few cookies - about 36 in total, which was perfect for the occasion that I was making them for.  Another important note - using the mixture of brown sugar and granulated sugar is important for getting the texture and chewiness of the cookies just right, so don't substitute here. I also found that using an extra egg helped me get the cookies just right.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
3 large eggs
2 cups of chocolate chunk (chopped)

Preheat the oven to 350. In a small bow, whisk together the dry ingredients. In a mixer with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed to low and add the salt, vanilla and eggs. Beat until mixed well, about one minute. Add the flour mixture until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chunks.

Drop tablespoon heaps of balls of cookie dough about two inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake the cookies until golden around the edges only but still soft in the center. For me this took about 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool. They will firm up a bit as they cool, so never fear if they seem to soft initially.

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Anti-Sweet Heart Cookies

I happen to love eating Necco candy hearts around Valentine's Day. I have been eating them each year since I was a kid and its funny how they change over the years, sometimes incorporating new technology. This year, I saw one that said "tweet me." Anyhow, apologies for not doing this in time for Valentine's Day, but as a bit of a spoof on these sweet heart candies, I decided to do some "bitter heart" cookies with funny sayings like "Bite me," "Unfriend," "One Night Stand," "You Smell," "Go Away," and "Just Lust." Pretty silly, I know, but its a sarcastic take on a hallmark holiday. Sometimes you just need to laugh a bit and these will certainly accomplish that.

Did I also mention that they taste delicious? Perfect butter cookies with royal icing!

Sasha's "Bitter Heart" Cookies
4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 sticks unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
Bag of royal icing mix from New York Cake
gel food coloring

Beat the butter and sugar until smooth in your stand mixer. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Then add the dry ingredients and beat until it forms a smooth dough. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour. Roll out the dough and cut into heart shapes using a heart shape cookie cutter.


Bake the cookies at 350 for 15 minutes, one sheet at a time. Allow to cool.

Mix the royal icing mix according to the package instructions (with water). Divide into three portions and dye with a drop or two of gel based food coloring in pink, purple or orange. You could also use other colors that those Necco hearts come in, of course like yellow or green!

Coat the cookies with the royal icing doing your best to spread the icing evenly. I used a small spatula to do this.  Allow the frosting to harden for about four hours, or overnight. Then, using a black food marker (another awesome thing from NY Cake), write all your surly, sarcastic or inner-high school bitchy sayings on the cookies. Enjoy - they taste great even without the sarcasm!

Sasha's Kitchen: Anti-Sweet Heart Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Lemon Blackberry Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint cookies are easy to make, and always rewarding and delicious. They are so cute in that there is a thumbprint in the center of each cookie with your favorite flavor of jam or pie filling. They kind of remind me of hamentaschen with respect to how they taste, although they obviously look different.

I had received some of ShopRite's blackberry preserves awhile back as part of the ShopRite blog panel, Potluck, that I am involved with. I knew right away that they would be perfect for making thumbprint cookies, but it took me a bit of time to get around to it. The blackberry preserves for these cookies are perfect with a bit of lemon as a flavor combination, so in devising this recipe, I decided to add a bit of lemon zest and lemon juice to the cookie dough. This provided a subtle lemon flavor to the cookies that went just perfectly with the blackberry preserves.

Sasha's Lemon Blackberry Thumbprint Cookies
2 1/3 cups of flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 sticks of butter
3/4 cups of granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp lemon zest, finely grated
1 tsp lemon juice
3/4 tsp vanilla extract
Blackberry preserves

To prepare these cookies, in the basin of a stand mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar on medium high for about three minutes. Then, mix in the eggs, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. The mixture may curdle slightly, but this is not a big deal, and I promise it will work out in the end. In a bowl, combine the baking powder and flour and beat into the mixture until it forms a dough.

Prepare two cookie sheets. Form the dough into small balls and press flat, but not too thin. Each should be about an inch in diameter.  Using your thumb, make an imprint or indent into the center of each cookie. Fill this indent with some of the blackberry jam - about half a teaspoon at the most. Only use enough to fill the indent and don't overdo it or it will not bake nicely.

Bake each sheet of cookies (this recipe makes about two dozen) one at a time in an oven preheated to 350 for 20 minutes. Allow to cook and enjoy!

Sasha's Kitchen: Lemon Blackberry Thumbprint Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Tri-Colored Classic Rainbow Cookies

Ahhh, rainbow cookies. These tri-colored, almond flavored cookies in the traditional pink, green and yellow colors have long been my favorite baked goods. I have been eating these since I was a kid. In my experience, Jewish bakeries and Italian bakeries will make the very best rainbow cookies. I always thought they were a Jewish tradition, but they are really Italian, and are supposed to represent the Italian flag. You can find some delicious rainbow cookies in either Brooklyn or in Manhattan's Little Italy. They're addictive and delicious, and a long-held favorite of mine. In fact, I have loved these cookies for so long, I have even received a couple of rainbow cookie birthday cakes over the years. A couple years ago, I found a great recipe for making my own rainbow cookies. I have pretty much perfected it at this point, where my cookies are bakery quality gems. This is a great and impressive dessert to bring to a party, so I wanted to share these cookies and the process to make them here. For me, these bring back memories of my childhood, since they have long been my favorite dessert.

My recipe for these cookies is derived from a 2007 edition of Gothamist article. It is a very well written piece that details a bit of the history of these cookies. I love the part where they quote the Princess Bride (one of my favorite movies)  in describing how Little Italy is mixed with Chinatown ("Never get involved in a land war in Asia") in New York. Also, I have not yet tried the rainbow cookies at Isaac's Bake Shop in Midwood (pretty far out in Brooklyn) but I do plan to make the trek out there to try them.

Rainbow Cookies
12 ounces almond paste (careful, this is not the same thing as marzipan)
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 C granulated sugar
4 large eggs, separated
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
Green and red food coloring
1/4 C seedless raspberry preserves
1/2 C apricot preserves
15 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped


The first step in making these delicious and colorful cookies is making the three layers.  It is easier than you probably think it would be. Use three 12 x 8 baking pans and spray with PAM or line with parchment paper (I've always used the PAM to be honest, and it works). Grate the almond paste in your food processor. In the basin of a KitchenAid Mixer, mix the butter on medium-low speed until smooth using the paddle attachment. Increase to medium-high and add the almond paste. Beat until lighter in color, for about two minutes. Pour in the sugar and beat for another minute. Next, add the four egg yolks and vanilla and beat well to combine. Reserve the egg yolks in a bowl for the next step.  Combine the salt and flour, and slowly add to the dough in thirds, before setting aside.


In a separate bowl, with an egg mixer, beat the egg whites on high speed for about four minutes until nice and fluffy, like if you were making a souffle. You can add a bit of cream of tartar. If you remove the other stuff from before from the mixer, you can do this in your KitchenAid using the whisk attachment.


Using a spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the mixture. This is a bit tough and may take some work and time. The dough is pretty thick and dense so it is difficult to fold in the egg whites, but it can be done with a bit of effort. 

Next, divide the batter into thirds. Leave one bowl plain and dye the other two with red and green food coloring respectively. Grocery store quality food colors work perfectly for this recipe to get the colors right, rather than the fancy gel ones that I usually use with cupcakes.

Spread the layers into each of the three pans, evenly. This takes a bit of time to spread each perfectly evenly and they will seem like they are very thin, which is just fine. My husband has a lot of patience for this, so he does this part.


Bake the layers for 10-15 minutes until the layers are firm to the touch and are just the slightest bit brown. Obviously, you do not want to let the layers brown, and they are done when they are firm, and only the slightest bit brown around the edges.


Flip each layer gently out of the pan (after you allow it to cool) onto a piece of plastic wrap. This takes a bit of practice so as to keep the layers in tact. Take the green layer and spread with the raspberry jam and add the yellow layer on top of that. Then spread that layer with the apricot jam and add the pink layer on top of that. Press the layers for 15 minutes with a really heavy book, like the Beatles Anthology. Then seal the surface with a layer of apricot jam that you bring to a boil with 2 T of water. Allow to set for a half an hour.

To make the tempered chocolate, melt the chocolate using a double boiler. If you do not have one, you can use a metal bowl inside a large pot of boiling water. You will want to finely chop the chocolate before doing this, or use chocolate chips like I do. As the chocolate warms, stir until the chocolate is fully melted. But don't allow it to cook further, boil or otherwise change in chemical composition. Spread on the top and sides of the rainbow cookie layers. Allow to cool for an hour in the refrigerator and then slice into cookies. 

Sasha's Kitchen: Tri-Colored Classic Rainbow Cookies

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Gingerbread Shoe Cookies

I'm Jewish so I don't make Christmas cookies. But over Thanksgiving, when I received the new Baked Explorations cookbook as a gift from my mom, I could't resist trying out the chocolate gingerbread cookies, with a bit of a twist. You could certainly make this recipe using regular gingerbread man cookie cutters, sure, but instead I decided to make some fun shoe cookies using my shoe-shaped cookie cutter. The end result looked quite cool as expected, but also tasted delicious. So, these cookies are great for the holidays, but also as a girl's night treat. I also mixed in a few moose shaped cookies as well.

I am in Mexico on vacation right now, so there will be less posts over the holiday. But, never fear because I did set a couple things to post (including this very post) for while I am away. Wishing everyone who reads A Kitchen In Brooklyn all the best for all the things you wish for in 2011!

Baked's Chocolate Ginger Molasses Cookies
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 T ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 T baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
5 T unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup unsulfured molasses
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted

Icing
1 1/4 cups confectioner's sugar
1 large egg white
1 tsp lemon juice

To make the cookies, combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In your stand electric mixer, beat the butter and shortening at medium speed until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy, for about two minutes.

Add the egg and beat until incorporated. Then, beat in the molasses (which smells horrible all by itself, but don't worry as it will smell great in the end) and melted chocolate. Add the flour mixture in three parts, beating between additions. Divide the dough into three parts and chill for about two hours.

Preheat the oven to 350. Roll out the disks of dough, about 1/4 inch thick (I was lucky to have my mom around, as we made this over thanksgiving so she helped out with this), and cut the dough with your desired cookie cutters - I used a cute pair of shoe cookie cutters. Bake the cookies at 350 for seven minutes until the tops are dry. Allow the cookies to cook for five minutes before transferring to the rack, and allow to cool completely before glazing.

To make the icing, combine the confectioner's sugar, egg white and lemon juice until smooth. Decorate the cookies as desired, either using a brush to glaze or a frosting bag. Enjoy!

Sasha's Kitchen: Chocolate Gingerbread Shoe Cookies