Sunday, June 24, 2007

Coming up with a cookie to use some unusual baking chips...

We ended up with 9 new recipes for us this week - our favorites this round were the Maple Walnut Cake, Fresh Pea and Edamame Risotto with Fresh Mozzarella and Prosciutto and the delicious Strawberry-Chocolate Tart. The next few days are going to be mostly trying to play catch-up on recipes we've made that I have just not gotten a chance to post about yet. We'll start out today with a cookie recipe I made earlier in the week that I put together to use up a special kind of flavored baking chip that has been giving me the evil eye every time I open the pantry door.

I was given these cherry-flavored chips quite some time ago, but didn't have a clue what I was going to do with them. I thought I would pair them with some chopped bittersweet chocolate in a cookie recipe that's been floating around in my head aching to be made. I wanted a sturdy cookie that had a hearty chew to them with a crisp ring around the outside. I used a combination of butter and shortening and threw in a couple handfuls of old-fashioned rolled oats to hopefully get my desired texture in these Chocolate-Cherry Chip Oatmeal Cookies. Adding to the chewiness is a cup of light brown sugar which also gave some needed moisture to the finished cookie. The dark molten pools of chocolate in the cookie came from a big chunk of bittersweet chocolate I had in the pantry with the red-hot colored spots being the cherry-flavored chips.

I may have a tweak here or there to do still, but these are just what I hoped they would be - Jeff's first words after taking a bite were "Mmm... chewy-goodness!". The cherry flavor was certainly a fun addition, if not a bit artificial tasting - but I don't think you could expect much else from that kind of flavored "baking chip". After a day or so, they did loose a bit of their crispness, but their dense-chewy texture held up quite nice... even after freezing.


7 comments:

  1. Oh yes, I love cookies like these. They need to have a good robust bite. I am sure those cherry chips added a great zing to cookie. I am wondering if I could substitute dried cherries - would that work?

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  2. Hey Joe,
    Here is a recipe you might want to try sometime. Its from the book 'Viva le Vegan' by Dreena Burton’s and the recipe is available on the internet. This has become one of my favorite rice dishes. Its called 'Greek basmati rice'. Very flavorful and delicious, perfect summer dish. I like garlic a lot so I up the amount of garlic and add tad more oregano.
    The last time I made it I added the zest of one lemon which gave it an extra lemony flavor.
    Here's the link:
    http://www.skagitpublishing.com/publications/cookingschool/news.php?article=16_greek

    Mary.

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  3. Meeta - I'm sure they would work fine!

    Mary - Thanks! I will check it out!

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  4. Those cherry chocolate chip cookies make for a colorful cookie. Hey, how about adding some coconut for an extra chewy cookie.

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  5. Flash - coconut would probably be a nice addition as well!

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  6. WOW, I just found you and am really excited to see such a neat and easy site to wander around in! I have added you to my "home page" so all of this is in front of me.
    Thanks again.
    Arlin Dean

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  7. Arlin - Glad you like the site! Let us know if you give anything a try.

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