Bizcochitos with Mexican Chocolate Dipping Sauce

I have traveled quite a bit. Growing up I was fortunate to have a father who racked up thousands of frequent flyer miles for work. By the time I was 18, I had already been to many countries in Asia, Europe and parts of the Carribean. I spent many summers down the bayou of Lousiana or the country roads of Arkansas. You know where I've never been?                                 
New Mexico.

After learning that it has an offical state cookie, the bizcochito, it is definitely a state I must visit. Any state that appreciates cookies enough to designate one as its own is good enough for me.
A bizcochito is a crispy butter cookie flavored with anise and cinnamon and baked with lard. So what if you don't have anise... or lard? Google substitutions until you find one that is in your pantry. Without the key flavors, is it still a bizcochito? Who cares?* It's good!

I received this recipe from Cusine at Home. This magazine not only provides excellent fool proof recipes, it also contains basic cooking and food storage tips (complete with pictures). Cusine at Home is a must read for both myself, a novice cook (trust me people ask for seconds of my dessert, not my entrees) and my mother (a woman who would put Paula Deen, Martha Stewart and the Barefoot Contessa to shame). In other words, I highly recommend it.

New Mexican Bizcochitos
Adapted from Cusine at Home Magazine December 2009 issue

For the cookies
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. table salt
2/3 cup shortening (I used butter)
6 Tbsp. butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbsp. dry sherry
2 tsp. anise extract (I used almond extract)
2 Tbsp. anise seed (I used fennel seed)

For the coating
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon

For the chocolate sauce
1 cup semi sweet chocolate (6 oz)
2/3 heavy cream
2 Tbsp. coffee liqueur (I used expresso powder)
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

Cream butter, sugar until mixture is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl. Beat in egg, sherry, and almond extract. Add fennel seed and half the flour mixture; beat on low speed until ingredients are blended. Beat in remaining flour mixture until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Divide dough in half. Shape each half into a disk, wrap in plastic. Chill dough at least 2 hours before rolling out.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat baking sheets with non stick spray.

On well floured surface, roll out dough to a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Shape cookies with a knife or ruler into diamonds. Tranfer cookies to baking sheet.

Bake cookies until set and lightly golden brown around the edges, 15-18 minutes. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes.

Mix sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Gently coat warm cookies in sugar mixture, then transfer cookies to a rack to finish cooling.

Place chocolate, heavy cream, coffee liqueur, 2 tsp ground cinnamon and cayenne pepper in microwave safe bowl. Heat in microwave oven for 2 minutes. Whisk mixture until it's smooth.

Serve cookies with chocolate sauce. (It's great!)

What dessert is your hometown known for?

* I love these cookies. They are perfect after dinner treat to have with tea or coffee. The next time I make these I'm going to try anise and maybe even a little shortening.

Lemon Bars... Sweet as Candy

So I signed up for NaBloPoMo. NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month and by signing up, I am committing to posting something on my blog every day for the month of November. I signed up because I needed a goal to keep me focused. I love baking new things and capturing them here in a blog. But a baking blog is difficult because it requires me to bake new things like all the time. Even for a sweet tooth like me, that can be challenging.

What's not challenging? These lemon bars.

After my Kit Kat/Hershey bar/ Almond Joy overdose - this lemon bar is a good way to slowly come down from a sugar high. =)

I love lemon bars because they are so simple to make and the perfect after Sunday brunch treat. It's also great for last minute dinner guests because I usually have the ingredients in my kitchen.

The Barefoot Contessa's Lemon Bars
From Barefoot Contessa Parties!
For the Crust:
1 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt

For the Filling:
3 extra large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest (about 2 lemons)
1/2 freshly squeezed lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
1 cup all purpose flour

Confectioners' sugar for dusting
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
To make the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light. Combine the flour and salt and with mixer on low, add to butter and sugar until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a well-floured board and gather into a ball. Flatten the dough with floured hands and press into an 8x8 baking pan. Chill for 5 - 10 minutes. Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Let cool on a wire rack. Leave the oven on.

For the filling, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and flour. Pour over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is set. Let cool to room temperature.
Cut into triangles and dust with confectioners' sugar.

I'm excited about this next month. I'm going to try a ton of new recipes mixed in with some of my favorites.

What dessert favorite do you think I should make this month?

Searching for Oatmeal Cookies with Apple Filling - Can you help?

I need your help.  When I was a child, I remember eating an oatmeal cookie with apple filling.  It was the kind of cookie they put right at the register at the perfect height for children to exclaim to their mother or father "I HAVE to have this" while clutching it to their chest.  (Sidenote: I don't have children so I can't help but smile whenever I see this act in a store.  No matter what the object, the child instantly realizes that it is the answer to all their prayers.)  Lately I've been craving that cookie but can't find it.

I thought maybe it was a Grandma's Cookie. 

Source

But when I went to the website, no apple oatmeal cookie.  So I decided to try to re-create it.  And since I'm a child of the 80s, I decided to go to a cookbook from the 80s for inspiration.  It is ironically titled "New Cook Book" from Better Homes and Gardens.  Love this book.  My mother gave it to me when I got my first apartment.  Jellymolds, fondue and 22 different recipes for fruit salad (ambrosia - gag me with a spoon) aside, I've found most of the recipes to stand the test of time.  And, there was a recipe for Apple-Filled Oatmeal Cookies.  Perfect! I made some slight adjustments to make it sweeter and omitted nuts and raisins in the filling.  Do we have a winner?
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Apple Oatmeal Cookies
Adapted from Better Homes & Gardens New Cookbook (circa 1981)

Cookie
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar (I used light because that's what I had on hand)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg (room temperature)
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup rolled oats

Filling
1 1/2 cups finely diced peeled apple
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Grease a cookie sheet.  (I don't think people used slipmats and parchment paper in 1981.)
Make Filling - Cook apple, sugar, cinnamon and water on medium/low until sauce is thick and apple is tender.

In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, spices and salt with whisk or spoon.  Set aside.

Beat butter for 30 seconds; add both sugars and beat until fluffy.  Add egg; beat well.

Add dry ingredients and milk alternatively, beating after each addition.  Stir in oats.

Drop cookies on cookie sheet.   Make a depression in the center of each and fill with apples.

These cookies are not the cookies I remember from my childhood but they are so good.  The cookie is soooo chewy and not too sweet.  They definitely hit the spot and are super easy to make. 

Have you tried to recreate a store bought treat from your past?  Does anyone know what cookie I'm talking about?

Possibly My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Although it is 2009, I still receive the occassional the email hoax.  Just this morning, I received an email stating that a certain tech company was giving away laptops.  All I had to do was forward the email to 8 people.  And why wouldn't a company that sells laptops want to give away all of their laptops for free to millions of people all over the globe? 
And friends, when you mail said hoax, saying you don't really believe it but "You never know..."?  That doesn't make it any better.

But I do have to thank a loved one for this Neiman Marcus Cookie recipe.  You know the one about the mother having the most delicious chocolate chip cookies with her daughter at insert {Mrs. Fields/ Neiman Marcus/ Marshall Field}? And when she asked to buy the recipe, the waiter replied "Sure that will be two fifty".  The woman paid with her credit card only to discover later that it was actually $250.00 not $2.50 and as revenge she is mailing the recipe out to the world.  Well, disgruntled recipe buyer, THANK YOU. 

Money well paid.

This is the perfect chocolate chip cookie for me.  I get kind of disappointed when my chocolate chip cookies come out flat with the only texture coming from the chips sticking up, especially when they get hard.  Gooey chocolate chip cookies are fine, but I start to feel sick by cookie number 3 (who eats just one fresh out of the oven cookie?).

But this $250 cookie from your favorite department store is so not flat, so not hard, and so not gooey.  It is perfectly soft, amazingly chocolate and makes you say "I made this?".   Please make it.

So that the next time a loved one sends you an email stating something cool will happen to your screen when you forward the message to 11 people, you can give them this cookie to eat while they wait.  Cause "you never know".

What's Your Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie?

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$250 Chocolate Chip Cookies (slightly adapted*)
(this makes a ton of cookies, recommend halving unless you are having a BIG party)

2 cups butter
4 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups brown sugar
4 cups blended oatmeal (measure oatmeal and blend in blender to a fine powder - I add a cup at a time)
24 oz. chocolate chips (I like Ghirardelli Semi Sweet Chips)
1 tsp. salt
1 8 oz. Hershey bar (grated - just chop little slivers with a non serated knife)
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey bar and nuts. Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. 
Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.

*The original recipe calls for 5 cups of oatmeal and 3 cups of chopped nuts (your choice).

Sometimes Baking Mistakes Are Oh So Delicious

So have you ever been in a hurry when you are baking?  I mean you are just making the usual cookie which you've done a dozen or so times.  The dough doesn't feel quite right but, oh well, you just put it in the freezer(I prefer to freeze my dough before making cut out cookies - the dough is firmer and easier to roll and cut) for when you are ready to create?  But later when you thaw the dough , it well... won't roll.  I mean, its a DISASTER.  Yeah - I've been there.  But sometimes when that happens - you discover something even better.

Last week I participated in my first ever Craft Fair.  It was held in my hometown and was so much fun.  I had the fall cookies above and these adorable dresseses, my favorite chocolate chip cookies and ....

these -- my disasters. 

This incredibly soft as a pillow so the chocolate literally melts in your mouth cookie, was born from a disaster.  My cookie dough was both a fudgy and crumbly mess.  I could not roll it out.  I didn't want to throw away all of that dough so I rolled it into little golf balls and baked it.  The result - a true Chocolate Delight!  You have to try these, seriously.  My only warning, your hands will be a chocolately sticky mess after each batch.

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Chocolate Delights

adapted from a recipe from Dog Hill Cookies

3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate 

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg


-Melt the semi-sweet chocolate in the microwave and set aside to cool slightly.  Follow the melting instructions on your package as heating levels vary.  Note:  chocolate keeps its shape when melted.  You have to stir with a spatula or wooden spoon to determine if it is melted.  Chocolate burns easy, so stir frequently.

-Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt and set aside.

-Beat the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy.

-Add the chocolate and vanilla to the butter mixture and mix in. Add the egg and beat until incorporated.

-Add in the flour in three stages until all the ingredients are fully combined. Form a big ball and cover the dough with plastic wrap, refrigerating until fully chilled.

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

- Using your hands, form balls slightly smaller than a golf ball.

- Bake for 11 minutes and then let cool on a wire rack.


My pictures of these cookies really don't do them justice.  I like them because they are flat but remain soft.

Have you ever had a baking disaster turn into your delight?