Triple Crown Brookies

So the other night I was listening to the last regular season baseball game and it was announced that Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers won the Triple Crown (leading the league in batting average, RBIs & home runs). This is the first time that's happened since 1967--before I was born! There's not that many things I can say that about any more! At the same time I was just finishing up these Caramel Apple Bars, and was quite fond of the oatmeal base that recipe uses. And earlier in the day I had seen a recipe for "Brooksters" on Serious Eats (a combination of brownie + cookie). I've previously seen this type of bar called Brookies, which I think--in the word-merging scheme of things--is a little more appropriate.

With this extraordinary concurrence of events, I was inspired to try a triple level bar cookie. Instead of following the rather laborious Brookster recipe, however, I just used my favorite brownie recipe and a variation of the Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. I'm sure I'm not the first person to come up with this combination, but I may be the only one to publish it at the same time as the Triple Crown!

Oatmeal layer (adapted from the Caramel Apple Bar recipe from Bake or Break linked to above)
1 + 1/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. To make bar removal really easy you can prepare a sling with parchment paper and grease an 8" x 8" pan. I didn't make a sling or even grease my pan, however, and I didn't find it too difficult to get the bars out.  Combine dry ingredients and then pour in melted butter. Mix until crumbly. Pack into pan and bake for 15 minutes. Set aside to cool.

Brownie layer (my original post is here, but I'll include again since it's such a quick recipe)
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I usually use walnuts)

Melt chocolate and butter over medium heat. Take off heat and stir in sugar, then egg and vanilla (mixture should turn a little glossy). Stir in remaining ingredients and spread over the oatmeal layer. Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on how fudgy you want the brownie level.

Chocolate Chip Cookie layer (adapted from the Toll House recipe)
6 tablespoons sugar
6 tablespoons brown sugar (instead of measuring each sugar out exactly, I just eye it until the total amount comes to 3/4 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg

1 + 1/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Combine sugars, salt and vanilla. Pour in melted butter and egg and mix well. Stir in flour and baking soda--dough will be very soft. (If you make regular cookies with the leftover dough, let it firm up for a few hours in the fridge before cooking.) Spoon over brownie level. I did not cover the whole surface, just plopped several spoonfuls over the brownies and spread them a bit. Cook for another 20 minutes, or until cookie layer just starts to brown.

 ~~~

This recipe is for my dad, who is a big Tigers fan. Also, he's the only person allowed to call me Brookie (or sometimes Rookie). Here's a silly picture of us at a Yankees game a few years ago...

Chewy Chocolate Cookies

The original recipe for this is actually a little too chocolaty for me--I am not of the "death by chocolate" persuasion--but I just love the texture. Feel free to increase the amount of chopped chocolate to your liking! This recipe is from Cook's Illustrated. I ran out of dark corn syrup and ended up using some molasses, which I thought provided a slightly more complex flavor, though CI does not approve of the molasses-chocolate combination.

1+1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa (orig. recipe calls for Dutch-processed)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons butter, softened

1/3 cup sugar, plus 1/2 cup for coating

1/3 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup dark corn syrup

1 large egg white

1 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

2 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped (orig. recipe calls for 4 ounces)

Whisk dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, cream butter and sugars (only 1/3 cup of white sugar) until light and fluffy. Add corn syrup, egg white and vanilla, and beat until fully incorporated, about 20 seconds. Stir in dry ingredients and chopped chocolate, dough will be quite soft. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Grab enough dough to make a ball about 1.5 inches in diameter, and roll in remaining white sugar. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheet. Dough will spread so place about 2 inches apart, probably not more than 8 or 9 per sheet. Bake for 10-11 minutes, rotating sheets mid-way, until cookies have cracked, but still look wet in between the cracks. Cool cookies on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

Hi-Hat Cupcakes

In case you can't tell from the photos, these are chocolate cupcakes with a mound of meringue on top, covered with a thin chocolate shell. I'm not going to write out the (long) instructions because Martha Stewart's website recipe is perfectly adequate--and it would take forever to re-type! I will say the following...

1. I love these cupcakes!

2. The chocolate cake base is awesome and perfect for any occasion whether you do the meringue part or not.

3. The meringue is a bitch--but worth it. One time I was using a smallish bowl while beating the egg whites. I stopped holding it for a second, the bowl started spinning like a crazy dervish, and meringue flew everywhere! I was picking off bits of meringue from around the kitchen for days. So use a big bowl!

Chewy Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

I feel slightly ridiculous even typing this recipe up since it's on the package of the peanut butter chips that you have to get to make these cookies in the first place! But when I decided to compile my top 10 favorite cookies/bars, these had to be included. I usually make a half recipe so the amount of butter doesn't seem quite so obscene.

2 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2+1/2 sticks butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 10-oz package of peanut butter chips (Reese's if you must know--are there any other brands?)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Whisk together dry ingredients, except peanut butter chips. Add to the butter and sugar and stir/mix well. Stir in PB chips. Drop by rounded teaspoons on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Bake 8-9 minutes. (Do not overbake; cookies will be soft.) Cool slightly, then slide parchment onto wire racks. Cool completely.

Zig Zag Brownies

Do I make too many brownies? Perhaps...especially considering I live by myself. But I just got this silly "edge brownie" pan as a Christmas present from my brother, so I was kind of obligated to try it out, right?! (That's a special spatula that came with it in the lower right corner.) Now every piece has at least two edges, some have three. I used my standard brownie recipe, using 1 & 1/2 the ingredients, then topped it with a peppermint frosting and drizzled over (rather sloppily) melted chocolate chips.

Verdict? Chewier, but not necessarily better (or worse). Now what do I do with all these brownies?!

Chocolate Sables

These are officially "Pierre Herme's Chocolate Sables" by way of Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan, as excerpted in the NY Times Magazine a few years back. Got all that? In any case, chocolate yumminess! The large grains of salt contrast nicely with the rich chocolate.

1+1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel (salt)
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (that would be 11 tablespoons total), softened
2/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4-5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chip-size bits

Sift (or whisk) the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt together. In a separate bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add the sugars and vanilla and beat another 1-2 minutes. Stir in the dry ingredients, then the chocolate. Work the dough as little as possible.

Divide dough in half and roll each into a cylinder about 1+1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap each in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Slice the logs into 1/2 inch disks. (If the cookies break, squeeze the broken-off bit back onto the cookie. Or eat it!) Place the cookies on the baking sheets, leaving an inch of space between each. Bake only one sheet at a time for 12 minutes. (The cookies will not look firm, but take them out anyway.) Transfer the sheet to a cooling rack and let rest.

(FYI, the cookies don't really expand much, the second photo is just closer.)

My Favorite Brownies

These are Marion Cunningham's "Parker Brownies." I wrote the recipe down years ago (see below) and had no idea where it came from, but a little web search has settled the mystery. I don't have any of her cookbooks, so it must have been reprinted in another source. Anyway... I have tried many brownie recipes over the years, but always come running back to this one! Chewy, but not quite fudgy, these come out on the thin side--so you just have to eat a larger piece!

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup (or more) chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and grease an 8" x 8" pan. Melt the chocolate and butter over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in the sugar and vanilla, then the egg. (It should become kind of glossy.) Finally add the dry ingredients and nuts. Spread in pan and bake for 30 minutes. Isn't that easy?!

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

This is another favorite from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book (slightly adapted). The key is the almond extract, which I think goes wonderfully with chocolate.

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 egg

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Cream together butter, sugar, egg and extract. Blend in chocolate. Stir in dry ingredients, then oatmeal and nuts. Drop rounded tablespoons on the baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Slide parchment paper off the baking sheet and on to racks to cool cookies.

Thin-and-Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies

A few years ago Amanda Hesser published three different chocolate chip cookie recipes in the NY Times Magazine food section: Thin & Crispy, Flat & Chewy, and Thick & Gooey. I have never made it past Thin & Crispy! So I'm not going to make the claim that these are the best chocolate chip cookies ever (like many people do), but I will say they seem to be the only kind I make these days. Because they have so much butter, they start to take on toffee-like qualities. The key is to cook them long enough so that they get quite brittle, but not so long that they burn. (I don't have any words of wisdom on exactly how to determine this however. I just bake them on the longish side of the estimated time.)

1+3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon kosher salt
14 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons milk
1 - 1+1/2 cups chopped bittersweet chocolate (that's a lot of chocolate to chop! I usually use part semisweet mini-chips)
1 cup toasted walnuts, chopped (optional)

Cream the butter, sugars, corn syrup until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Stir in the vanilla, then milk. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt; mix into butter & sugar just until a dough forms. Fold in the chocolate and walnuts. Chill the dough.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with tin foil. Roll a two-tablespoon lump of dough into a ball, place on baking sheet and flatten to a 1/4 inch disk. Place cookies about 2 inches apart. Bake until the edges are dark golden brown, 14-17 minutes. Let cool slightly on the baking sheet, then transfer to a cooling rack. Makes about 20-24 cookies.

Wonder Chocolate Cake

I loved making this as a kid for a few reasons: 1) the part about making 3 holes and then trying to keep everything from spilling out, 2) mixing it all up in one pan, and 3) yumminess!

Today I do mix it in a separate bowl with a trusty wooden spoon because it's easier to get at all the dry ingredients (in a square pan they sometimes get left unmixed in the corners, though this isn't a serious problem). It's a relatively quick little cake to whip up, and is very moist.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift or whisk together:

1+1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 cup sugar

Make 3 holes in the dry ingredients and pour in:

6 tablespoons melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla (almond extract is also good)

1 tablespoon vinegar

Pour 1 cup cold water over everything and mix well, though don't worry about every little lump. In this particular case I also stirred in about 2/3 cup coconut. Pour into an ungreased 9" square or round pan and bake for 35-40 minutes; top may crack a little.