Summer Berry Crumble Bars

Feeling baking deprived, I also made Summer Berry Crumble Bars from the King Arthur Flour's Cookie Companion this morning. David likes them for breakfast...easy to pack for work. Over the 4th of July, my mom and I went to the Raleigh Farmer's Market and came back with a couple quarts of blueberries. They were terrific, nicely plump and sweet. I've been hooked on the blueberries since then. I love the crunchiness of the crust and topping. Who doesn't like streusel topping? I think blackberries or even an apple filling would be yummy. The recipe calls for sunflower seeds but but didn't have any on hand. I am not sure I would add the sunflower seeds even if I had some. Not so sure about the combination of the blueberries with sunflower seeds. The recipe also includes a glaze but skip this also. I think the glaze would make the bars too sweet for my taste and take away from the streusel topping. A warning, do not store them on the counter top or they will get soft. Keep them in the fridge.

Summer Berry Crumble Bars

Crust and Topping

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour

1 C brown sugar

1 1/2 C rolled oats

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon or 1/4 tsp ground cardamon

1 C unsalted butter cut into chunks

3/4 C sunflower seeds (optional)

Filling

3 C fresh or frozen blueberries (no need to thaw)

1/4 C light brown sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp lemon zest

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1/2 tsp cinnamon or 1/4 tsp ground cardamon

3 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour

Glaze

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 to 3 tsp water

1 C confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease 9 x 13-inch pan

Crust and topping: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, oats, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Using a mixer or pastry blender, cut int eh butter until the mixture is crumbly. Transfer 2 C of crumbs to a bowl and combine with sunflower seeds if using them. Pat the remaining crumbs into the pan. Bake the crust for 15 minutes and remove from the oven.

Filling: While the crust is baking. In a large bowl, mix the berries with the brown sugar, lemon juice, zest, melted butter, cinnamon, and flour. Distribute the filling over the bake crust.

Sprinkle the reserved crumbs mixture over the filling and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and crumbs have browned.

Glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the glaze ingredients. Drizzle the glaze over the bars while they are still warm. Cool completely before cutting.

King Arthur Flour's Essential Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

It has been a busy month at work so I haven't had a lot of time to bake or felt like baking much on the weekends. I had to travel three weeks in row.....Providence (lovely city), Virginia Beach, and South Plainfield, NJ. My trips are typically short, fly or drive in the night before, work the next day and leave for home. These are the worse because you never get time to adjust. No travel in the near term, yeah!!

I love the Levain chocolate chip cookies but finally decided it was time to make the King Arthur Flour's Essential Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies from The King Arthur Flour's Cookie Companion. These have the vinegar and corn syrup. I understand the corn syrup which adds a nice chewiness to the cookies but vinegar?? The vinegar actually works as a leavener to give the cookie a little lift. The recipe says to lightly grease the cookie sheet which is a no, no if you want your cookie not to spread. Nope, the cookies did not spread at all so the vinegar does the trick after all. The cookies have a nice chewiness with loads of chocolate (3 whooping cups of chocolate chips) which I think also helps the cookie hold its shape. The cookies are not too sweet either which is a plus. I like the fact that this is a one bowl recipe since you don't have to mix the dry ingredients separately.

So, this is my current order of favorite recipes: Levain, King Arthur's, Mrs. Fields, and Dorie Greenspan.

The Essential Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

3/4 C softened unsalted butter

2/3 C dark brown sugar

2/3 C granulated sugar

2 tbsp light corn syrup

1 tbsp cider vinegar or white vinegar

2 large eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 1/4 C unbleached all-purpose flour

3 C semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Lightly grease cookie sheet or line with parchment paper/

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, sugars, corn syrup, and vinegar, then beat in the eggs. Beat in the vanilla, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Stir in the flour and chocolate chips. Drop by the tablespoonful onto the baking sheet. Bake the cookies or 10 minutes, until they're just set; the centers may still look underdone. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on a baking rack.

* I baked the cookies at 350F for ~12 minutes with my Chicago Metallic baking sheet.

Double Peanut Butter Joy Cookies

Taking a break from chocolate chip cookies. I made another batch of the Levain cookies when my parents were here last weekend. This recipe is from one of those Favorite Brand Name Recipes cookbook that you find at the checkout aisle at the grocery store. "Butter Flavor Crisco American Cookie Celebration" is devoted to cookies made with Butter Flavor Crisco, Hershey's chips, Quaker Oats, and Jif Peanut Butter. I bought this cookbook for a whooping $0.25 at the Goodwill back in 1998. The cookies are fairly standard peanut butter cookies but with peanut butter chips and shortening rather than butter. They have a nice chewy texture because of the shortening and certainly doesn't spread. You can flatten these cookies but I chose not too. My taste tend towards the chewy rather than crispy cookies. Next time I am going to reduce the amount of peanut butter chips. The recipe calls for 2 cups of peanut butter chips. Too much, by the end I had more chips than batter left. I am going to try 1 1/2 cups of chips next time. As always, used my Chicago Metallic cookie sheet which meant I had to reduce the temperature to 325 F. I baked them for 10 minutes.

Double Peanut Butter Joy

1 C granulated sugar

1 C packed brown sugar (used light brown)

1 C Jif Creamy peanut butter

1/2 C Butter Flavor Crisco

2 eggs

1 1/2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 C Reese's Peanut Butter Chips

Preheat oven to 350F. At medium speed, beat the sugar, brown sugar, peanut butter and Crisco in a large bowl until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Shift the flour, soda, and salt. Add gradually to the creamed mixture. Mix until just blended. Stir in the peanut butter chips. Shape into 1 1/2 inch balls. Place two inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten and make crisscrosses with a fork if desired. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges are set and tops are moist. Cool on baking sheet for 8 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

Mrs. Field's Blue-Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookies

Not sure if it was the weather, very storming out again, but I was in the mood to bake. Could be too that I was reading about Mrs. Field's recipes online today. I have a number of Mrs. Field's cookie recipes that I photocopied from her cookbook, Mrs. Field's Cookie Book way back when in high school. King Arthur's Essential Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie was next on my list to try but afterall it is 9:00 pm on a Wednesday night. So, I opted to try Mrs. Field's recipe as it is super easy. For 2 1/2 cups of flour she only uses 1/2 tsp of baking soda. Another major difference is that the cookies are baked at 300F for 22-24 minutes. We are not talking jumbo cookies either. I used my trustworthy Chicago Metallic baking pan, however didn't lower the temperature to 275F. That just seems too low. Rather, I reduced the baking time to 17 minutes. The recipe also has a high ratio of brown sugar to white granulated sugar. Kind of reminds me of a blondie. I didn't have salted butter so I just increased the salt to 1 tsp. They don't spread that much. I used my cookie scooper so they were small. Kind of like a minature verison of the Levain cookies. Certainly not flat like the Dorie Greenspan recipe (disappointed with these the next day, definitely not as good the next day). Actually, they taste very similar to the Levain cookies. Slight crispy edge with a nice chewy middle. For now, the recipe ranking is as follows: Levain, Mrs. Field's, Dorie Greenspan.

Mrs. Field's Blue-Ribbon Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 C dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 C white sugar
1 C salted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300F. In medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In large bowl, with an electric mixer, blend the sugars at medium speed. Add the butter adn mix to form a grainy paste. Add the eggs and vanilla extract, mix at medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add the flour mixture on low speed until just mixed. Do not overmix. Stir in the chocolate chips. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Baking for 22-24 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer to wire rack and cool completely.

Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Chip Cookie

Continuing on with my chocolate chip cookie recipe experiment, I made "My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies" from Dorie Greenspans Baking From My Home to Yours. The recipe only uses 2 cups of flour and higher ratio of granulated sugar to brown sugar. Thus, the cookie is definitely not your chunky type. I omitted the nuts which made them even less chunky. They are crisp on the edges with slightly soft chewy centers. I baked the first couple of batches at 350F for ~12 minutes, rotating mid-way through. Directions says to bake at 375F, but I used a heavy Chicago Metallic cookie sheet which recommends that you lower the baking temperature by 25F. The last couple of batches I baked at 325F for ~13-14 minutes. I liked the later batches better, not so brown around the edges. Not that the crisp edges aren't tasty but I prefer a more chewy cookie. Of the two recipes that I've tried, I like the Levain copycats. Next recipe on the list to try is the Essential Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion. The recipe has vinegar which should be interesting.

My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 C all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 sticks (8 oz) softened unsalted butter
1 C sugar
2/3 C light brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
12 oz chopped bittersweet chocolate, chocolate chips, or chocolate chunks
1 C finely chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat the oven to 375F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Whisk together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
With a stand mixer or hand mixer, beat the butter for ~1 min until smooth. Add the sugars and beat for 2 mins. Beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat for one minute after each egg. Reduce mixer speed, add the flour mixture in 3 additions. Stir in the chocolate chips and nuts. Spoon slightly round tablespoons of dough spaced 2 inches apart onto the cookie sheets. Bake one cook sheet at a time for ~10-12 minutes until the edges are golden brown. Rotate the sheet midway through. Let the cookies rest for one minute then transfer to a cooling rack.

One Heck of a Big Cookie

I've been craving chocolate chip cookies since this past weekend. My parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew came out to visit this weekend. We made the obligatory trek to DC to see monuments and museums. We also watched the Rolling Thunder parade through the city which was really cool. The Rolling Thunder come to town ever Memorial Day Weekend. The choices for inexpensive places to eat is limited near the Mall. However, the Ronald Reagan Building has a nice food court. After my lunch of lamb kabobs I shared a jumbo chocolate chip cookie with my sister. While the cookie was good, I thought my homemade cookies were better. I am on a chocolate cookie experiment. I usually rely on the Nestle Toll House recipe but thought I should try some others. My first recipe experiment is from the Vanilla Sugar blog via Slashfood. This is a recipe for the Levain Bakery chocolate chip cookie. Three cups of flour which is quite a lot for cookie recipe that only uses 2 cups of butter, and 1 1/2 cups of sugars. The cookie was great though, a slighly dense with a nice chewiness. I thought it might be too dense because of the high amount of flour but not at all. I used an ice cream scope and made 17 cookies. I chilled the dough between bakes. I baked the first batch at 375F for 8 mins then lowered the heat and baked them at 325F for additional 10 minutes. I baked the others at 325F for 18 minutes which turned out just fine.

Seven Layer Bars aka Magic Bars

David's going on a trip so I wanted to send some goodies with him. Since the trip was on short notice (today and he's leaving tomorrow), I decided to make something easy. I had all the ingredients on hand and he has never had seven layer bars before. These bring back good memories of high school tennis meets. My high school tennis team was not great by any means but we did know how to have fun. For a lot of meets, we use to bring baked goodies...caramel brownies, Special K bars, seven layer bars. Seven layer bars are super easy to make. The most involved task is grinding the graham crackers, otherwise it's one, two, three....

Seven Layer Bars
Preheat oven to 350 F
1) Melt 1/2 C butter or margerine in 9 x 13 inch pan in the oven.
2) Add 1 1/2 C crushed graham cracks
3) Sprinkle 1 C (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips over graham crackers
4) Sprinkle 1 C shredded coconut over chocolate chips
5) Sprinkel 1 C (6 oz) butterscotch chips over chocolate chips
6) Dribble 14 oz can of condensed milk to cover the pan
7) Sprinkle 1 C chopped nuts on top
Bake 25 mins.