Cookie Swap: Part 2

I bet you gave up on me. I wrote my first post about my birthday cookie swap over a month ago. And that was nearly a month after my birthday. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, the closed subway and my down work email, I am feeling incredibly unproductive. So, I will blog, and I will bake (I am thinking about making this recipe). I will not be making any salads. In case you are feeling like I am, like the only thing to do is make dessert (or dessert masquerading as breakfast), here are more recipes from my birthday cookie swap. 

I think we left off here:

These are Birthday Cake Oreos with chocolate chip cookies inside. Sarah made these as her bonus dessert by twisting apart the Oreo and baking the chocolate chip cookie on top of the bottom half. Then, she stuck  the  the tops back on. It is very exciting to be able to eat birthday cake-themed desserts on one's birthday.

As I mentioned, the cookies were Sarah's bonus dessert. Her actual dessert were White Chocolate S'mores Gooey Cake Bars, a fancy blondie made with cake mix and marshmallows. There they are on the bottom right.

They were my husband's favorite dessert of the swap. They are very sweet, so if you make them, cut them into small pieces!

Right above the bars and to right of the gummi bears are Shari's cookies.The cookies directly above the blondies are Malted Milk Chocolate Cookies. Shari made a few adaptations to the recipe: she used about about one cup of malted milk powder instead of the half cup the recipe called for and used one bag of milk chocolate chips less half a cup mixed with a half cup of bittersweet chips. The recipe made about four dozen cookies.

Shari's other cookies (right above the Malted Milk Chocolate Cookies in the photo) were Potato Chip Cookies adapted from The Search for the Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie by Gwen Steege. Here is the recipe:

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup butter
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups potato chips, coarsely crushed
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together flour and baking soda. In another bowl, cream butter, sugars and eggs until smooth and well combined. Add in vanilla. Stir in flour mixture, and mix well.  Add chocolate chips, mix well to evenly distribute. Add potato chips and gently fold them in. Using a spoon or cookie scoop, drop onto baking sheets lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Bake for approximately 12 minutes, until lightly browned. Let sit on cookie sheets for a minute or two before removing them to cool. Makes around five dozen cookies, depending on the size.

Both of Shari's cookies were delicious! I think the Malted Milk Chocolate Cookies would be especially good in ice cream sandwiches.

Tiffany made Chocolate-Mint Pinwheels.

The Chocolate-Mint Pinwheels are the cookies in the center in the photo above. As you can see, they are very pretty to look at. This may be a first in the cookie world, but I would describe the Chocolate-Mint Pinwheels as refreshing--not a typical cookie descriptor. They are an excellent cookie for the summer. Here is the recipe:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ounce semisweet chocolate, melted and slightly cooled
• 1 4.67 ounce package layered chocolate-mint candies (like Andes), finely chopped (1 cup)
• 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract

In a large mixing bowl beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. Beat until mixture is combined, scraping sides of bowl. Beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much flour as you can with the mixer. Stir in any remaining flour. Divide dough in half. Stir melted chocolate into one dough portion. Stir chopped mint candies and peppermint extract into remaining dough portion. Divide each dough portion in half. Cover dough and chill for at least one hour or until easy to handle.

Roll each peppermint dough portion into a 9 1/2 x 6 inch rectangle on waxed paper. Roll each chocolate dough portion into a 9 1/2 x 6 inch rectangle on top of one peppermint dough rectangle; remove top layer of waxed paper. roll up dough. Pinch dough edges to seal; wrap in plastic wrap. Repeat with remaining chocolate and peppermint dough rectangles. Chill dough rolls for one to two hours or until very firm.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets; set aside. Unwrap dough rolls; reshape, if necessary. Cut dough rolls crosswise into 1/4 inch thick slices. Place slices two inches apart on prepared cookie sheets. Bake in preheated oven for six to eight minutes or until edges are firm and jut starting to brown. Transfer cookies to wire racks and let cool. Tiffany was able to make about 45 cookies using this recipe.

Beth made Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. They are on the top left right behind the plate of blondies and Birthday Cake Oreos. These cookies were also great. They are light and chewy, and we can even pretend they are healthy because of the oats and raisins (just ignore the butter!). Here is the recipe:

• 1/2 cup plus 6 Tbs butter, softened
• 3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 11/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt (optional)
• 3 cups oats
• 1 cup raisins

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl beat butter and sugars on medium speed of an electric mixer. Add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt, mix well. Add oats and raisins, mix well. Drop dough by rounded tablespoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake eight to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool one minute on cookie sheet then move to rack. 

Missing from this recipe round-up are Sari's carrot cookie, and Blaire's brownies. Like all of the other cookies, both were excellent. My friends are talented bakers! Thank you to my wonderful friends for making my birthday so sweet!

Peanut Butter-Pretzel Cookie Brittle

Disclaimer: This post is about cookies. Cookies are more fun than salads during impending hurricanes.

Hurricane Sandy is a-coming to New York! And while I should be thinking about bottled water, flashlights and canned goods, all I can think is: "at least it's not my birthday." Quasi-housebound (it's not actually raining yet, just windy), I decided to make cookies in honor of the brewing storm.

Before baking, I had (what else) a salad for lunch. No photos, but it was my usual Mexican-style fare:

• 1/3 head of romaine;
• 1/4 can of corn;
• 1/2 carrot;
• Some broccoli florets;
• 1/4 avocado;
• Veggie chicken burger;
• 1 Babybel cheese;
• Handful of crumbled tortilla chips;
• Dressed with a mixture of lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and garlic power.

It was delicious! I made the same salad for the husband, though he went sans tortilla chips and subbed the Babybel for full-fat cheddar. Considering this is not a particularly low calorie salad, the least I could do in mine was use a 50-calorie Babybel. 

On to the cookies! I had taken a stick of butter out of the freezer yesterday to make eggless cookie dough as an ice cream topping for a friend's Girls Night In party. I ended up seeing Biscoff Spread (mmm...speculos!!!) at the store and decided to bring that instead. So, I was left with a thawed stick of butter. What to do? Since the birthday cookie swap, I have steered clear of baking cookies or bars, since I still have leftovers in the freezer, but given the impending storm, baking seemed like a good idea.

Last time I visited my parents, my mom and I made cookie brittle. Cookie brittle is eggless cookie dough spread out on a pan, baked and then broken into shards of cookie. It is tasty and easy to make. Since the recipe came from one of my mom's cookbooks, I searched online and found this recipe. Both my husband and I really like peanut butter, so peanut butter cookie brittle seemed like a good idea. But, my husband doesn't like actual peanuts or coconut, so I made a few substitutions. Inspired by peanut butter-butterscotch haystacks, which my husband fondly refers to as crack, I used both butterscotch and chocolate chips and added broken pretzels to the dough.

Peanut Butter-Pretzel Cookie Brittle

• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/4 cup oats
• 1 cup flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup butterscotch chips
• 1 cup crushed pretzels

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and peanut butter. Add sugar, salt and vanilla. Mix oats and flour and add to batter.

Add chocolate chips and butterscotch chips, and stir into batter. Crush pretzels (I poured the pretzels into a Ziploc bag and crushed with a meat pounder), and mix those into the batter.

Line a 10" x 15" jellyroll plan with parchment paper, and press in the batter. (I used a rolling pin to evenly distribute the batter in the pan.) 

Bake for about 20 minutes. Let the cookie brittle cool on a wire rack, and then  break into pieces.

Enjoy with a glass of milk.

Addendum: The raw dough tasted as good, if not better, than the cookies. I see peanut butter-pretzel cookie dough truffles in my future.