Lovin' From the Oven

Day 10: Toffee Walnut (Heath Bar) Cookies

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I hope everyone had a great Christmas! So I definitely didn’t complete my goal in blogging about 12 cookies before Christmas, but I’ll finish it by the end of the month.. Promise! I got so wrapped up in baking for the holidays that I didn’t have time to take a breather and take pictures/blog. For Christmas, I ended up baking 24 dozen cookies for my family and close families to me. I know, crazy, right? I used two ovens and baked for 4 hours straight. I made all the dough the night before so I could just bake all of yesterday. There were a total of 6 different types of cookies and the result was well worth it!

Day 10 of my twelve days of cookies: Heath Bar cookies! These are hands down my boyfriend’s favorite cookie. He adores toffee and even sneaked a ton to save for himself for later. I found the recipe over at Simply Recipes and adapted it just a tiny bit with the amount of vanilla. This made just over 4 dozen cookies for me, since I made a slightly bigger cookie than normal. These cookies are some of my favorites as well, since the walnut and toffee just go hand in hand.

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped Heath Bar pieces (Eight 1.4 ounce bars)
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine Heath Bar pieces and chopped walnuts. Set aside.

2 Cream butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (a couple minutes). Beat in eggs one at a time, and vanilla.

3 Alternatively mix in the Heath Bar mixture and the flour mixture, a third at a time, until well blended. Chill cookie dough for at least 30 minutes (better an hour).

4 Preheat oven to 350°F. On cookie sheets lined with parchment paper or Silpat, spoon out the cookie dough in small 1-inch diameter balls (size of a large marble). Place dough balls 3 inches away from each other on the cookie sheets. (Make sure there is plenty of room between the cookie balls, and that the cookie balls aren’t too big. These cookies spread!)

5 Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

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PS.. I just had to share with you what my boyfriend got me for Christmas. It came in this lovely white box…and when you open it up, there’s a little black bag inside of it…
and inside the little black bag, is this beauty!:
It’s the YSL mail ring, which is the style I’ve been obsessed with as of late! I’m dying to track down a YSL mail bag and wallet. But yeah.. LOVE IT! I got him an SB600 external flash for his Nikon. How nerdy, I know. What did you guys get for Christmas? Any fun goodies?

cooks illustrated, best banana bread

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I did a whole bunch of baking last night for today, and while I was at it, my mom requested that I bake some banana bread for her. My family’s very traditional and simple– it’s always the same things that they request for me to bake. My little sister always wants cupcakes, my dad always wants everything cookies, and my mom always wants banana bread.

I used the Cooks Illustrated recipe and adapted it a teeny bit (you can see my additions in green). My mom and aunt loved it, but they rarely ever hate a banana bread. To me, it was just okay. Very moist and dense, but perhaps not cinnamon-y enough for me. I actually had the best banana bread while I was in Utah and one of the girls I stayed with baked it. I’ll have to make a mental note to ask her for the recipe because seriously, it was the BEST. I inhaled it.

Side note, since it was such a success last year, I’m doing my 12 days of cookies again this year. Starting.. on my next post! 🙂

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all purpose flour (unbreached) and some for dusting
  • 1 1/4 cups walnuts coarse chop (optional)
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3 very ripe bananas mashed well
  • 1/4 cup plain yogurt
  • 2 large eggs lightly beaten
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter melted and cool
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

For the topping:

  • Mix together 1 tablespoon brown sugar, 1 tablespoon white sugar, and 1 tsp cinnamon.

Preparation

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9 by 5-inch loaf pan; dust with flour, tapping out the excess.

2. Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast until fragrant, 5 to 10 minutes. Set aside to cool.

3. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and walnuts together in a large bowl; set aside.

4. Mix the mashed bananas, yogurt, eggs, butter, and vanilla with a wooden spoon in a medium bowl. Lightly fold the banana mixture into the dry ingredients with a rubber spatula until just combined and the batter looks thick and chunky. Scrape the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle top with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

5. Bake until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. (The bread can be wrapped with plastic wrap and stored at room temperature for up to 3 days.)

Texas Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies

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As you may or may not know, every First Lady has a unique dessert recipe that they share with the public. At my work, we sell a book called Presidential Cookies. Each page gives a summary about every President and their First Lady, along with one or two of their favorite recipes. Fun, right? The only sucky part about the book is that the pictures included are terrible! No offense, but every picture is taken on the same plate– same scene– same ol’ dim lighting. I especially love cookbooks with great pictures of each recipe, so I wasn’t a fan of the visuals in this one.

It’s funny because you can tell how much the cookies have improved from the 1700’s. They start out with three ingredients and gradually increase as time goes on. I chose to try one a bit closer to our time period, one from Laura Bush. To be honest, a coworker baked them and brought them into work. They were so good that I had to bake some for myself. I opted to make them smaller rather than putting 1/4 cup of dough into each cookie. I also omitted the coconut, because I can always do without that. These cookies would be easy to sub some ingredients into depending on your liking.. Just take out one and replace with another! Try them for yourself!

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 tablespoon baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
  • 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
  • 2 cups sweetened flake coconut
  • 2 cups chopped pecans (8 ounces)

    • Directions

    Prep Time: 25 minutes
    Bake Time: 17 to 29 minutes
    Yield: About 3 dozen cookies (see note below)

    1. Heat oven to 350 F.
    2. Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in bowl.
    3. In 8-quart bowl, beat butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy, 1 minute. Gradually beat in sugars; beat to combine, 2 minutes.
    4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each. Beat in vanilla.
    5. Stir in flour mixture until just combined. Add chocolate chips, oats, coconut and pecans.
    6. For each cookie, drop 1/4 cup dough onto ungreased baking sheets, spacing 3 inches apart.
    7. Bake in 350 F oven 17 to 29 minutes, until edges are lightly browned; rotate sheets halfway through. Remove cookies from rack to cool.

    Note: For 6 dozen small cookies, use 2 tablespoons dough for each. Bake at 350 F for 15 to 18 minutes.

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