giant oatmeal spice chocolate chip raisin cookies

my friend Barbara and her husband Kevin are training for a 100-mile bike ride to support Barbara's mom, who is recovering from lymphoma, and raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. as part of her fund raising, she is also hosting a benefit concert this weekend and asked if i would bake some cookies for sale during intermission.

i opted to make an oatmeal cookie. Barbara suggested making large cookies for the sale, so i went hunting for a recipe and found this giant oatmeal-spice cookie recipe from Southern Living, March 2003. i modified the recipe based on several others i had seen. this oatmeal cookie is chewy on the inside with a lightly crispy outside. while i was mixing up the ingredients, i discovered that i didn't have ground ginger, so i added a little more spice than what the recipe calls for below.


Giant Oatmeal Spice Chocolate Chip Raisin Cookies
Makes about 2 dozen large cookies

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground cardomom

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
4 tablespoons white sugar, divided
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups quick oats
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 cup raisins
1 cup chocolate chips

1 In a small mixing bowl, combine first 7 ingredients and mix well.

2 In a large mixing bowl, beat butter, brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of white sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla extract, beating until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, mixing in with a spatula or wooden spoon.

3 Stir in the oats, raisins and chocolate chips.

4 Preheat oven to 350F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

5 Drop cookie dough by level 1/4 cupful two inches apart onto baking sheet. Dip the base of a round glass in the remaining 2 tablespoons of white sugar and press the cookie mound to flatten.

6 Bake 2 cookie sheets at a time at 350F for 11-12 minutes, switching cookie sheets on oven racks midway. Cookies should be golden brown when done. Cool slightly on baking sheets before removing to wire racks to cool completely. Store in airtight container.

chocolate toffee crunch honey grahams

my friend, Kelly, made her really yummy Toffee Crunch Grahams again last week. so i asked her for the recipe and made some tonight. well, i made a slightly adapted version of her Toffee Crunch, using some ideas from this recipe of chocolate caramel crack(ers) from Smitten Kitchen. my version uses Midel Honey Grahams made with whole wheat which i picked up from Whole Foods this week. they come in smaller squares and i could fit about 35 on my cookie sheet.

Chocolate Toffee Crunch Honey Grahams

1 box of whole wheat graham crackers
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 cup brown sugar, firmly-packed
big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup finely chopped nuts ~ pecans or walnuts, or sliced toasted almonds (optional)
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
kosher salt flakes (optional)

1 Preheat oven to 375F.

2 Line bottom and edges of a rimmed cookie sheet (approximately 11” x 17") with foil. Cover foil with a sheet of parchment paper.

3 Line cookie sheet to the edges with graham crackers.

4 In a heavy duty saucepan, melt butter and brown sugar over medium heat. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, add salt and vanilla and mix well. Pour over crackers and spread with spatula. Sprinkle with chopped nuts, if desired. If using sliced almonds, save for Step 6.

5 Bake in oven until bubbly, about 7-10 minutes, taking care not to burn.

6 Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate chips (and flaky kosher salt, if desired). Let stand 5 minutes, then spread melted chocolate chips over crackers. If using sliced almonds, spread almonds over chocolate and press down into chocolate.

7 Let cool completely. Cut or break into pieces and store in an airtight container. Should keep well for one week. Careful, as it’s really tempting to eat them all at once!


frankly, i think Kelly's Toffee Crunch Grahams taste better than my version, but these were yummy, too! next time i make her original recipe, i'll share it with you :)

a twist on a banana dessert

i tried making these baked banana spice wontons tonight, courtesy of Vanilla Garlic. i so dig it! so easy and so yummy! served it with vanilla ice cream (wish i had coconut ice cream), and my hubby said it was "like expensive restaurant kind of good!"

thanks, Vanilla Garlic!

pecan meringue cookies

i made a batch of Elise's Pecan Meringue Cookies last night, and this is the outcome. they are not as pretty as Elise's, but they don't taste too bad. even my husband, who isn't a fan of meringue, tried them and said they were good!

the cookies on the lower tray in the oven, however, turned out a little chewy in the middle. my post baking research tells me that my oven was probably too hot. my mistake was leaving the oven on for about 2 minutes after i had put the cookies in. i waited until the thermostat returned to 300 degrees before shutting it off.

also, my cookies look gritty and i'm not sure if it's a result of the pecans being ground too fine in my blender or that the sugar was not completely dissolved. [post edit/Apr 5 - i've conferred with Elise about the grittiness of the cookies and she agrees that the pecans should never have been pulverized in the blender; best to crush into small pieces. the meringue will probably hold up better, too.] in any case, this calls for another attempt to see if i can make them look more like the fluffy clouds i always think meringues should look like. i used a handheld mixer and it whipped up the egg whites nicely, but maybe i need to whip them a little longer...

the reader of Elise's Pavlova post who shared this recipe called these "Easter cookies" and they are supposed to be hollow when you bite into them, a good reminder of the empty tomb of Jesus on Easter Sunday after the resurrection!

(枸杞) goji berry-orange cookies

while surfing food blogs this evening, i came across an interesting vegan adaptation of this fluffy cranberry-orange cookie recipe. i knew i had goji berries (枸杞) in my fridge and had just bought a sack of whole wheat flour. so i went about mixing my own adaptation of this recipe with what ingredients i had available.



these cookies are not very sweet since the only sweetening in the cookie dough is maple syrup. so if you like a sweeter cookie, dipping them in a little sugar before baking adds a little sweetness to them. the cookies turned out light and fluffy, almost like a very light mini scone. they make a healthy snack.



Goji Berry-Orange Cookies

1 cup dried goji berries

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cup unbleached white flour
2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
2 tablespoons orange juice
zest of 1 orange

1/4 cup sugar

1 Soak goji berries in hot water for 5 minutes.

2 While berries are soaking, mix flours, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl.

3 In a large bowl, mix maple syrup, butter, egg, orange juice and orange zest thoroughly.

4 Drain goji berries well.

5 Mix flour mixture gradually into maple syrup mixture, adding goji berries before the last batch of flour is mixed in.

6 Shape dough into small balls and flatten in your palm. Dip flattened cookie in sugar and place on ungreased non-stick cookie sheet. Cookies will puff up but not expand very much.

7 Bake at 375 degrees for 9-11 minutes. Cool on cookie rack and enjoy!

ultimate turtle brownies

doesn't this look decadent? i just had to bookmark this here for later use. check out the recipe here by Kitarra of Cooking Debauchery.

more fancy mooncake

i liked this collection of mooncakes so much i had to make a mosaic of them and blog it here. these pictures were posted by flickr.com member babe_kl. her blog is here. click on the image above to see links to the original photos.

jelly mooncakes

today, i added masak-masak to my food blogroll. it was thru this blog that i learned about jelly mooncakes. the author made this longan jelly mooncake.

mooncakes

月餅 (Vol.2) Mooncake
Originally uploaded by Eat-My-Heart-Out 你吃,我看.

it's that time of year again for mooncakes. while surveying several food blogs today, i learned about jelly mooncakes for the first time, and realized just how deprived i've been of these wonderful delicacies. above is a collection of mooncakes from one of my flickr.com contacts. aren't these just so yummy!!!

caramel apple cupcakes

Caramel Apple Cupcakes
Originally uploaded by chockylit.

saw this interesting cupcake unlike any other i've seen before. see the recipe here and nicer, how-to pictures here.

flip desserts

Fruit is the main, dessert is the garnish

D.I.Y Ice Kachang

D.I.Y Ice Kachang
Originally uploaded by Kewlz Kid.

sparkly ice kachang

Ice Kachang
Originally uploaded by lithium_f1ower.

another version of ice kachang in Singapore

Japanese version of ice kachang?

digging in
Originally uploaded by varf.

looks refreshing....it's got green tea!

more shaved ice dessert photos

Asian Shaved Ice (Vol.1)
Originally uploaded by Eat-My-Heart-Out 你吃,我看.

ice kachang, Singapore

ice kachang, Singapore
Originally uploaded by superlocal.

mannn...i would do just about anything to get my face in this dish of ice kachang now!