Lovin' From the Oven

Day 6: Oatmeal Toffee & Walnut Cookies (With a hint of Cocoa!)

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This stormy weather has made me quite lazy! All I want to do is drink tea and cuddle up next to my fireplace while watching movies all day long. It was 42 degrees today! …. In Southern California! If it’s gonna get this cold, I wish it would just snow. That’s hopeful wishing on my part. [Now, people that are reading this from around the world must think that I’m crazy to be considering 42 degrees as freezing, you must bear with me because I’m used to 80-90 degree weather on a yearly basis. It’s always sunny in Southern California and hardly ever drops below 65 degrees!]

I’ve finally finished with my Christmas shopping and am quite ecstatic with what I got everyone. I love shopping for others– just the quest of finding a perfect gift to match everyone’s individual personality brings me joy. I hope you guys are done with your holiday shopping as well, seeing as how there’s only only 8 more days for last minute shopping!

Day 6 of my 12 Days of Cookies: Half way there! I decided to do a little twist on the usual Oatmeal Toffee/Oatmeal Raisin cookie. I added a bit of what I had on hand in my kitchen: walnuts & cocoa powder. I used just a bit of Ghiradelli cocoa powder, but would definitely up the ratio the next time I make these. You can hardly taste the amount I put in. Also, don’t over bake these babies! They taste better the next day, believe it or not. By leaving the cookie out overnight, the flavors really get to mix and then get to the perfect consistency. They’re crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside. I made a half batch and pulsed my oats in the food processor until they were FINELY ground. These were adapted from Martha’s Stewart’s Recipe for her Oatmeal Raisin cookies.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 cup packed light-brown sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 cup toffee bits
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Whisk together oatmeal, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

In the bowl of stand mixer cream butter and sugars until pale and fluffy (5 mins) and add eggs and vanilla until just combined. Add oat mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in walnuts and toffee.

Scoop onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 10-13 minutes, depending on the size of your cookies. Let cookies cool on sheet for five minutes and transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Day 1: Outrageous Chocolate Cookies

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Well, I finally did it! I bought my own domain name last night!! My website URL is now officially: https://www.lovintheoven.com and I cannot be any more excited. (I’m such a kid at heart, I know.. but little things like this make me so happy!) Thanks to everyone for following along with my blog and for all the feedback. :]

We’ve now entered the month of December, which means it’s officially holiday season. Actually, the holiday season started the moment Thanksgiving ended and the Christmas lights & trees went up. Since everyone (FoodNetwork, Betty Crocker, etc.) does the twelve days of cookies for the holidays, I thought I’d join in and make my own list. These twelve cookies that I’ll be baking throughout December will be ideal for holiday gift baskets, just in case you need ideas for what to add in yours.

Day 1 of my twelve days of cookies: I introduce to you.. outrageous chocolate cookies by Martha Stewart! I have such mixed feelings on her.. Actually, it’s more of a love/hate relationship. I find that with her recipes, you either love it or hate it, there’s no in between. Although, with her scrapbooking line, it’s all LOVE LOVE LOVE. The only thing I hate about her scrapbooking line is how ridiculously overpriced everything is. Anyways, back to the topic.. these cookies turned out great! They have a chewy center and a crackly top, similar to that of a brownie. The batter may turn out a bit more liquidy than normal cookie batter, but don’t fret! It’s supposed to be like that. The only thing that I would change about this recipe is replacing semi-sweet chocolate with milk chocolate because the cookies turned out a bit too bitter and not sweet enough for my taste. Either that, or add more sugar. They are also VERY chocolatey, so if you aren’t a fan of chocolate, I’d recommend finding a different recipe.

Ingredients

Makes 2 dozen

  • 8 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2/3 cup all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 3/4 cup packed light-brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chunks

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Heat chopped chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl in 20-second increments, stirring in between, until almost melted; do not overheat. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
  2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, brown sugar, and vanilla on high speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; beat in melted chocolate. Mix in flour mixture until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks.
  3. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough 2 to 3 inches apart onto baking sheets. Bake, rotating sheets halfway through, until cookies are shiny and crackly yet soft in centers, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on sheets 10 minutes; with a thin metal spatula, transfer to racks to cool completely.

Cheesecake pops

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Finally, my last post of the Thanksgiving treats that I made. These were an absolute delight and everyone loved them. Why? Well, as I figured.. everyone loves cheesecake, but no one wants to finish their own slice. So why not make them into individual bites and top it off with a stick? I mean, the best food are the ones on sticks. I then dipped the individual cheesecakes into melted chocolate and then whatever topping I desired. My batch consisted of toffee pieces, walnut bits, and a variety of sprinkles. How marvelous! I used the recipe from a Daring Baker’s challenge a couple months ago:

Cheesecake Pops
Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor
makes 30–40 pops

5 8-oz pkgs cream cheese, room temperature
2 cups sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsps pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup heavy cream

boiling water as needed
thirty-forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 lb chocolate, finely chopped
2 tbsp vegetable shortening
assorted decorations: chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees (optional)

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety. Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

I only made 3/5 of this recipe and ended up with like 60 pops and baked it in an 8×8 square pan. This recipe makes A LOT. I would recommend cutting it down by a half, if not more than that. This recipe was also quite time consuming, so you have to be patient and start these early if you are making them for an event.

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