snickerdoodle dandy

We continue our celebration of autumn with one of my favorite spices for this time of year: cinnamon.  My favorite (and most frequent) way to have it is sprinkled in my coffee in the mornings.  My second favorite way to have cinnamon?  In snickerdoodles, of course!  Snickerdoodles are essentially sugar cookies that happen to be infatuated with cinnamon. Dee-licious.  Especially with tea (we'll get to that later).  Snickerdoodles are the treasured antiques of the cookie world, so recipes are pretty similar and often use cream of tartar.  I used this recipe (that doesn't have cream of tartar, so consider it a "refinished antique") as a guide, tweaking it a bit to up that divine cinnamon content.  I also halved the recipe because, though I adore these fragrant cookies, 4-5 dozen of them is just excessive.  Let's get started:

 Take one stick of room temperature (or softened in the microwave for 10 seconds) butter and 3/4 cup (150 grams) of sugar...

 and cream together in an electric mixer for 3 minutes or so, until light and fluffy.  Add in one egg and one teaspoon of vanilla, mixing well.

Now, let's get our dry ingredients workin'.  I whisked together 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon...

1 teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of salt...

and 1 1/3 cup (130 grams) of flour.

Stir the dry ingredients into the butter and sugar mixture, in two batches.

Now, it's cinnamon sugar time!  Stir together about 1/3 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon (or as much as you like) of cinnamon in a shallow bowl or dish.

Roll your cookie dough into 1 inch round balls and roll them around in the cinnamon sugar, until well-coated.

 Place on a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet about 2 inches apart.

Now, you have two options.  First option: If you like snickerdoodles flat like little teacakes, then use a glass and flatten out those little balls of dough into 1/2 inch disks.

 Bake at 400ºF/190ºC for 8-10 minutes.

 They turn out like this.  Lovely!

Your second option is to not flatten them out and let them puff up as they bake, which is now my favorite method.  They turn out golden, crunchy from the cinnamon-sugar coating and soft in the middle.

 So make yourself a cup of tea (with milk of course).

And enjoy these sumptuous snickerdoodles.  Happy fall, y'all!

Bon appetit,

lilrevchef

chocolate, vegetable, miracle

I know what you're thinking: "Zucchini (or courgette as some folks say) and chocolate?  Lilrevchef, you must be confused.  Zucchini: that's a vegetable.  Therefore, it has no place with chocolate!" (Did anyone see The Next Food Network Star this season?  Chocolate-dipped asparagus made an appearance. *shudder*)

I hear ya, people.  But when my friend Emily mentioned baking chocolate chip cookies with zucchini in them, I was intrigued.  Zucchini chocolate chip cookies.  Hmm.  That's just a hop, skip and a jump away from sweet zucchini bread, right?  The recipe is originally from Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and you can find it here.   I'll walk you through it, though, with plenty of pictures for you people who are as visual as I am.

You need to finely grate a zucchini, until you have a cup.  I'm going to be honest with you: it doesn't look lovely.  It actually gets a bit gooey and slimy (words you may prefer not to hear in a cookie recipe).  But, trust me, it makes super moist, soft cookies.  And you don't taste the zucchini a bit.

Start with a big bowl and beat one egg (room temperature for baking).

Add in 1 stick (4 oz) of butter, also softened at room temperature.

Add in 1/2 cup light brown sugar and 1/3 cup of honey.

Lastly, add 1 tablespoon of vanilla.

Whisk together until everything's incorporated.

Grab a second (smaller) bowl and put 1/2 cup white flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat flour.

Add 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg.  Use a fork to blend it all together.

Add the flour mixture to the liquid mixture and mix well.

Toss in that 1 cup of grated zucchini/courgette and 12 ounces of chocolate chips, stirring together.

Drop spoonfuls onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and flatten a bit on top.  Bake in a preheated 350ºF/176ºC for 20 minutes.  Barbara's recipe says 10-15 minutes, but mine took 20.  So, of course, adjust as needed for your oven.  They don't get a lot of color on them, but will just begin to brown at the edges.

It made 3 dozen cookies for me (though the recipe says only 2).

Let cool on a cookie rack.

They're SO tasty.  And I like to think good for you (at least better than regular cookies).  You certainly see the zucchini in them (which I don't mind) but you don't taste it.

The zucchini gives these cookies a moist, cakey texture and the hint of cinnamon and nutmeg adds an interesting depth.  And the chocolate, well, it does its thing and makes them divine.  Who knew veggies and chocolate got along so well?  Though, I don't think I'll be making chocolate asparagus anytime soon!

Bon appetit!
lilrevchef

you're never too old...