Rosemary Chocolate Chip Shortbread

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick), softened to room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary, crushed
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F. Cream the butter with sugar using a handheld mixer. Mix in the rosemary, salt, and flour, 1/4 cup at a time. Sprinkle in the chocolate chips, and stir by hand until well-distributed. Gather the dough into a ball. Cook's Note: If the dough begins to soften or feel greasy, chill the dough for 15 minutes.
Roll the dough out into a rectangle of 1/2-inch thickness and cut into rectangles about 1/2-inch by 2-inch. Place the dough on a cold ungreased baking sheet. Prick the top with a fork. Bake the shortbread for 25 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn a golden color. Remove the shortbread from the baking sheet and let cool completely on a rack.

Nancy's Take:  Loved it - and so did the friends I made it for.  The rosemary adds a unique taste - you could omit it if you don't like it.  A great base for so many other ideas........  lemon, lavender, almond...............

Chocolate Nutella Cookies

I don't bake cookies or cakes very often.  Today I wanted to make a different cookie - not the traditional chocolate chip cookie.  I saw this recipe on a blog I enjoy and it looked super yummy!!


1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cup of white sugar
1 cup of Nutella
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup of chocolate chips
1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts
 
1 Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter in an electric mixer for 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add the sugars and Nutella and mix well, scraping down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing. 

2 Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between each. Add the vanilla and mix for 10 seconds.

3 Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda (do not skip this step as sifting eliminates clumps of cocoa). Mix into the butter mixture on low speed until fully incorporated, scraping down the bottom and sides at least once to ensure even mixing. Fold in the chocolate chips and hazelnuts and refrigerate the dough for ten minutes. 

4 Spoon tablespoon-sized drops of dough onto parchment paper lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool on the sheets for a minute or two before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

Dave's Take:  He LOVED them!



Nancy's Take:  Terrific!!  A glass of milk and you are done.  Everyone loved them from my parents to the kids.  Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

Cold Oven Pound Cake

Today I wanted to bake with my little girl, Erin.  So, we made a wonderful pound cake recipe.  It makes a nice dessert or even breakfast bread. 

3	cups cake flour
1/2	teaspoon baking powder
1	teaspoon salt
1	cup whole milk
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
20	tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter , softened
2 1/2	cups sugar
6	large eggs

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position. Grease and flour 16-cup tube pan. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in bowl. Whisk milk and vanilla in measuring cup. 

2. With electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and sugar until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until combined. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with 2 additions of milk mixture. Mix on low until smooth, about 30 seconds. Use rubber spatula to give batter final stir. 

3. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Place cake in cold oven. Adjust oven temperature to 325 degrees and bake, without opening oven door, until cake is golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 65 to 80 minutes. 

4. Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes, then turn out onto rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours. Serve. (Cooled cake can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.)

Dying to know why a cold oven makes the difference?? A Cold Oven Really Makes a Difference Curiosity led us to try baking our Cold-Oven Pound Cake in a preheated oven. The cake baked more quickly (no surprise), but it was squat and lacked the thick crust we’d come to expect. Evidently, the hot oven stopped the small amount of leavener in our recipe before its work was done. And it turns out the crust on our Cold-Oven Pound Cake is formed by moisture in the oven reacting with starch in the batter. A hot oven is drier than a cold oven (heat evaporates moisture), so there wasn’t enough moisture in the preheated oven to form a nice, thick crust.

Dave's Take:  Another slice please!

Nancy's Take:  Everyone loved it!!!  Super easy and tastes just great!

Brown Sugar Chewies

Dave is out of town and I am bored.  So, what do I do?  Bake - and I don't want to go out for ingredients.  So, I am a little limited - that never stopped me before........

1/4 cup butter 
1 cup packed light brown sugar 
1 egg, beaten 
3/4 cup all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon baking powder 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract - I used 1 teaspoon
1/4 cup chopped pecans - no pecans in the house, so used toffee chips
Confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray an 8-inch square pan with vegetable oil cooking spray.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter. Turn off the heat, add the brown sugar and stir until smooth. Stir in the egg. Stir together the flour and baking powder and stir into the brown sugar mixture. Stir in the vanilla and pecans. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes. When cool, dust the top with a sifting of confectioners' sugar.

Nancy's Take:  Not great, but I've eaten 3, so they must be good.  Super easy to make, but did take longer than 20 minutes to cook - more like 27.  Thankfully, I'll be giving them away this evening at dinner club.  Better on their hips than mine.

Sugar Coated Pecans

I know the holidays are over and I should stop baking sweets.  But, I am going to Bunco tonight and need to bring an appetizer or dessert.  So, I wanted to make something where I had all the ingredients.  And, these just looked super easy.  Hopefully they won't be so good I eat them all on the car ride to Bunco!

1 egg white                                                    

1 cup brown sugar                                              

1 tablespoon flour                                             

1/8 teaspoon salt                                              

1 teaspoon vanilla extract                                    

2 1/2 cups pecans                                              

Beat egg white until foamy.

Slowly beat in the brown sugar mixed with flour.

Add salt and vanilla flavoring, then fold in pecans.

Transfer pecans to a greased baking pan and bake at 250° for about 45 minutes.

Nancy's Take: Well, I didn't eat the whole bag on the way to my party.  But, I did sneak a few.  They were yummy, but not exactly what I was looking for.  I'll try another recipe to see if that is a perfect match!  But, since the new year is here I might not be trying it for a while...........

Dave's Take:  I don't think I really like pecans so I don't think I really went into this with an open mind.  It's not that pecans taste bad, I wonder if it's because I think they are ugly looking.  In any event, I guess these were ok, but I don't think I would reach into a bowl and pick them out to eat them at a party.