Cookies - The Cake Merchant

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Toffee Cookies

12.12.16

If I could only eat one dessert for the rest of my life, it would be chocolate chip cookies. I don’t make them very often (unless it’s in a small batch) because I have no self-control around them, but all of that goes out the window during the holidays because cookies are great for gifting. And if a few of those gifts accidentally make their way into my pie hole (cookie hole?) it’s all in the name of recipe testing. Plus, calories in December don’t count.

These cookies are a mash-up of 3 recipes. I’ve taken my favorite things about all of them and tweaked them until I got my ideal cookie. Lots of butter was browned and several pounds were added to my hips in the process, but I finally found a winner. The texture of the cookie is dense and chewy with a crispy exterior, and the toffee flavor runs deep. Brown butter, dark brown sugar, and toffee chips all contribute to this. I’ve measured everything really carefully, so for optimal results, use a scale. The amount of flour really affects the texture and over doing it makes the cookie less magical.

Since this recipe uses melted butter, you don’t need anything more than a bowl and a wooden spoon to make it. Dump and stir recipes are the best.

If you’ve never browned butter before, it’s worth the effort. It really adds another dimension of flavor to the cookies. Just make sure that when you brown the butter, you don’t try to multitask (like I did) because you’ll end up with burnt butter, and no amount of chocolate and toffee can hide that. Put your phone down and watch it.

Be careful not to over mix the dough. I like to leave it a little bit streaky with flour before mixing in the chocolate and toffee so the cookie doesn’t get tough.

These cookies spread quite a bit in the oven, so make sure you leave enough room for them to do their thing. If you like a thicker cookie, you can increase the flour to 160 grams. However, I like the texture of the flatter version of this cookie better.

Read The Post

Pumpkin Biscotti

11.07.15

If you are what you eat, then I am a giant walking talking pumpkin biscotti. I’ve made (and eaten) so many of these in the last couple of weeks that I’m afraid I’m going to start turning orange. I guess eating mass amounts of biscotti is just part of the job, but it’s ok, I’m always happy to take one for the team.

My favorite traditional biscotti recipe uses eggs in the batter, but no oil or butter. It’s perfectly crunchy and you don’t have to chip a tooth to enjoy it. However, since my grandmother was in town and doesn’t eat eggs, I wanted to make an eggless version that I could share with her. Pumpkin makes a great egg substitute, but adds a lot of moisture, so my first couple of batches of biscotti ended up soggy. For the next batch, I tried baking them a little longer. They probably would have been ok after soaking them in coffee but on their own, they were too hard. For the last batch, I added some oil, which I’m normally not a fan of in traditional biscotti. They kept these biscotti from drying out and boosted the flavor, and my teeth were still in tact after biting into them.

Note the low baking temperature here. I found that after several of my biscotti logs split during the first bake, lowering the temperature from 350 to 300 was the best remedy for this. This recipe can easily be made vegan by omitting the white chocolate drizzle or replacing it with a bittersweet chocolate drizzle.

Read The Post

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

04.30.15

If this blog accurately reflected the amount of biscotti that has come out of my kitchen in the last couple of months, I would have to seriously consider changing my blog name to The Biscotti Merchant. A couple of months ago, I made this Vegan Almond Biscotti and have been obsessed with finding a chocolate version that I like just as much. I found a ton of different recipes to try. Some used eggs, others just the whites. Some used oil, some used butter, some used both and others used none. I wasn’t sure how these ingredients affected the final texture, so like an obsessive baking weirdo, I just tested them all. I’m not even kidding, but I’ve literally made about 20 batches of biscotti in the last few months.

The good news is, I found a favorite! By far, the winner was David Lebovitz’s Chocolate Biscotti. It calls for whole eggs but no butter or oil. It’s crunchy enough to be distinguishable as biscotti and not just a biscotti shaped cookie, but it’s not so hard that it will break your teeth. The best part is that these biscotti get better with age. I actually liked them better on day 3 than when they were freshly baked.

I decided to veganize David Lebovitz’s original recipe by replacing the egg with a chia egg, although you can use a regular egg in this if you prefer (you’ll just need to omit the water). I also replaced some of the flour with leftover hazelnut meal from making hazelnut milk, but you could also use almond or pecan meal in its place. This recipe makes a small batch of biscotti, but can easily be doubled.

Oh, and I don’t want to sound like Ina or anything, but use good cocoa powder, The majority of the flavor in these biscotti comes from the cocoa powder. My absolute favorite brand is Valrhona which I’ll splurge on once in a while, but I usually use Cacao Barry, which is a little more reasonable and also excellent quality.

Read The Post