The Foodie's Food Trip: cookie

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Chocolate Crinkles 2 Way

It's that time of the year again when I usually bake chocolate crinkles.

I have been doing this recipe from Allrecipes for years and it has never failed me yet. But, last year a friend sent me another chocolate crinkles recipe using a chocolate cake mix... interesting, right? Oh, and that recipe is by Paula Deen. :D

The Allrecipes cookies are so easy to make that I don't have to use a mixer. Paula Deen's recipe is called Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies. It is also very easy (it uses a cake mix!) but I needed to use a mixer for this because I needed to cream the butter and cream cheese (yes, it has cream cheese!) together. The only thing that takes time for both recipes is the rolling of the cookies and covering them with the powdered sugar.

I made the cookies from Allrecipes first. I mixed the ingredients the night before, and baked two batches the next morning. It's also the perfect time to use my new cookie scoop. :D Here's what my cookies looked like:

Don't they look perfect?

After baking the cookies, I prepared the ingredients for Paula Deen's recipe. I still need to put the cream cheese and butter to room temperature. When everything's ready, I made the dough and placed them in the freezer so the dough will harden quicker.

When the last batch of the Allrecipes cookies were done, I baked one batch of Paula Deen's cookies (using the same cookie scoop of course!). Here's what Paula Deen's cookies looked like:

Aesthetics-wise, the original recipe were perfectly-domed and the powdered sugar coated the cookies perfectly too. :D Paula Deen's recipe were a bit flatter than I expected, and the powdered sugar stuck to the cookies (even before I baked them... and I even coated some twice).

Here they are side by side (L: Paula Deen's recipe; R: AllRecipe's recipe):

Texture-wise, they're both soft. Allrecipes' cookies were a bit cakey (bot not too much cake-like cakey). Paula Deen's cookies really are soft and gooey! I guess the Allrecipes' cookies were like that because of the baking powder. If I remember it right, I usually replace the baking powder with baking soda... or maybe ADD baking soda because I have a note in my recipe 1 tsp baking soda... and I have no idea why I forgot that! I usually made them soft and gooey and comes out a bit thinner than that. So this time I liked Paula Deen's texture.

UPDATE 19-Dec 2011 12:55PM: After posting this blog entry, I baked the remaining dough from the Paula Deen batch. Output: cakey too! And they're the same batch! Did I set the oven's temperature too high? Did I bake it too long? Or maybe because I left it in the fridge overnight, just like the Allrecipes batch! I don't know... but the main thing here is... they have the same texture now.

Allrecipes' cookies

Paula Deen's cookies

Taste-wise, I like them both. :D Although I think Paula Deen's cookies were a bit saltier. I also asked my #1 critic and my guinea pig... my husband. He liked the Allrecipes' cookies better. The chocolatey-ness will definitely depend on the cocoa powder (for the Allrecipes) and the chocolate cake mix (for Paula Deen) you use. I used Green and Blacks Cocoa - Organic Fair Trade 100% cocoa powder and Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Dark Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix).

FYI, I used the same cookie scoop so they're all uniform in size (I think it's 1 tablespoon), used the same baking tray, baked at the same temperature (175ºC/350ºF) at the same period of time (10-12 minutes).

I only used half of the recipe in Allrecipes and I made a total of 20 cookies.

For Paula Deen's recipe, I made a total of 32 cookies.

I think you'll just have to make them to try them out yourselves. :D

Here are the links for the recipes:
Chocolate Crinkles from Allrecipes
Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies by Paula Deen

Happy baking and happy holidays!

Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nutella was on sale the other day, so I bought two jars. So now... what to do with all that Nutella? Bake, of course!

See those two cutie Nutella jars? Bought them in Italy during our holiday two months ago and I looove them! Each jar just contains 30g (the normal Nutella jar has 400g) and they're sooo adorably cute!

Anyway, I made some Nutella cookies before, but hubby and I felt something's missing... the chocolate chips. I can simply add chocolate chips to the last recipe I used, but decided to look and try out a different recipe completely.

I found one from justJENN which looks simply divine and chewy and perfect.

Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies
from justJENN

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup Nutella
1-1/2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and prep baking sheets with silpats (or baking paper).
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, the sugar and the brown sugar. Add the eggs and the vanilla until combined.
Gradually add the flour until the mixture is combined.
Then mix in the chocolate chips and the Nutella.
Drop by Tablespoons onto the prepped baking sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes.
Let cool on wire racks. When the cookies come out they will go from rounded balls to lovely flat cookie discs.

The Nutella was supposed to be swirled and not completely mixed... I think I over-mixed the Nutella to my cookies. It doesn't matter... they're still great!

Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies

After moving to our new apartment a month ago, I finally baked something!

I've always wanted to try the Nestle Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe, but never had the chance. One thing that encouraged me the most is an episode from Friends, when Monica was trying to copy the chocolate chip cookie based on Phoebe's grandmother's recipe. Turned out it was the Nestle Toll House recipe. hihi!

So now that I've got my oven, got my baking utensils and finally bought ingredients, I baked! Funny thing is, I can't find any Nestle Toll House chocolate chips! hahaha!

You can get the recipe from Very Best Baking.

Nutella Cookies

have to post this now before I completely forget about it hihihi!

I baked some Nutella cookies a few days before Christmas. I got a bit tired of baking all those chocolate crinkles we gave out for Christmas, plus I got some orders from a friend (happy!). So I decided to bake something new... something I haven't tried before.

I've been wanting to bake something with Nutella since I got my oven. I have a jar half-empty that's starting to harden and needs to be used immediately. I finally saw a recipe from My Kitchen Addiction (original recipe from Taste of Home Recipes). The cookies are called Caramel Nutella Crisps, which the author shared as part of the 12 Days of Sharing.

The author got the recipe from Taste of Home Recipes. It's originally a peanut butter cookie recipe, and not made of Nutella at all. But I read from another blog (I seriously can't find the link... I'm so sorry) that since peanut butter has the same consistency as Nutella, you can substitute one with the other.

I made a few changes - I did not roll the cookie doughs in sugar and I didn't put Milk Duds inside. In other words, it's plain Nutella cookies.

I got two ice cream/cookie scoops at home. One is the normal ice cream scoop size, and the other is a smaller cookie scoop. I used the big cookie scoop first, and realized that the cookies will flatten and spread out while baking. It ended up so big it was four times bigger than the size of a chocolate crinkles.

So I used the smaller scoop for the succeeding cookies. I didn't bake it as long as I should (just 8-10 minutes), so I can still have the cookies soft and chewy.

The first bite... didn't end on the first bite. Even when they were still a bit warm, I think I had two to three cookies in one sitting.

If you love Nutella, you'll love this recipe. Next time I'll try rolling it in sugar, or maybe adding some chocolate chips hihi!