Blueberry Cookies with White Chocolate

Everyone loves my whole wheat blueberry bread, (or they could just be lying to my face, but I'm assuming that's not the case), so when I saw an uneaten pint of blueberries in the fridge I thought hey, maybe I should try making a cookie using similar flavors of the blueberry bread, and for good, sweet measure, add in some white chocolate.

To make a healthier version of these cookies, you could easily substitute white whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour, and use chopped nuts (I think almonds would be best) instead of the white chocolate.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter

1/3 cup almond (or regular) milk

1 egg

¾ cup white sugar

¼ cup sugar

¾ cup white chocolate chips

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1 cup fresh blueberries

Directions

You have to fold the blueberries in so they don't burst.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, egg, milk, almond extract, vanilla and lemon zest. In a separate bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add this dry mixture to the butter and sugar mixture in the mixing bowl. Add the while chocolate chips/chunks and finally fold in the blueberries, making sure not to crush them.

Cover the dough and chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Drop your chilled dough by small spoonfuls onto cookie sheets.

Bake the cookies for 11 to 14 minutes in the oven.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Oozing with blueberry goodness.

When I made these my friend's dad proclaimed they were the best thing I've ever made, and that's saying a lot considering he's always at the track meets and offers to try out what I made for the team that day.
I guess I now know what to make him for his birthday...

Espresso Cookies

I was getting ready with a group of friends for a party this weekend when one of my friends disclosed to me that she had seen my blog and loved it. I don't know exactly how she found out about it (since I don't really tell anyone about my weird blogging hobby), but anyways I was happy to hear she liked it and I promised I would bake her something soon.

Though at the end of the night I forgot my crutches in my friends car (whoops...), I still remembered my promise to bake for my friend and came up with some yummy cookies to give her. 

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ cup sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 ½ cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons plus 1 tablespoon instant espresso or coffee powder

1 cup white chocolate chunks or chips

Adding the espresso and milk to the rest of the batter.

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and 1 tablespoon of the instant espresso powder.

In another bowl, beat together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy, and then add the eggs and vanilla. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan over low heat, pour the 2 tablespoons of milk and two tablespoons of instant espresso powder. Heat over low heat, stirring until dissolved. Remove the milk mixture from heat and pour it into the bowl with the other wet ingredients and mix. Once combined, slowly add in the dry ingredients. Finally, stir in the cup of white chocolate. Now, cover the batter bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for about an hour.

Once the batter has been chilled, preheat the oven to 350 F and grease two cookie sheets.

Spoon scoops of batter onto the sheets, and bake for 12-15 minutes (keep in mind these are crispier cookies so do not remove them from the oven too quickly).

Let the cookies cool for a bit before removing to finish cooling on wire racks.

White and Semi Sweet Chocolate Cookies

A while ago I made these type of cookies with chocolate and candy canes for the holiday season, and my friend asked me to make them again because he liked their type of "scone-like" consistency. SInce the Christmas season has long passed, I no longer have candy canes in my house so I decided to add in white chocolate chips instead and slightly different flavoring to make these cookies still interesting, but the same type of texture.

Ingredients:

½ cup semi sweet chocolate chips

½ cup white chocolate chips

½ cup softened butter

1 cup sugar


1tsp baking powder

½ teaspoon salt


2 eggs


1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon almond extract

2 ½ cups flour

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 F and grease 2 cookie sheets.

In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the baking powder, salt, eggs, almond extract and vanilla. Mix well and then gradually add in the flour.

plain batter

chocolate chips

                         +

= perfect dough

Once this is all well blended, toss in both types of chocolate chips and give the dough a quick final mix.

Almond extract gives these cookies a distinct flavor.

Use a cookie scoop or regular spoon, drop balls of dough 2 inches apart onto the prepared baking sheet.

Bake for 8-10 minutes in your preheated oven. Remove from oven and let them cool for a minute before transferring them to wire racks.

Ultimate Chocolate Oreo Cookies

Cookies in cookies, what could be bad about that?

So I still have lots of oreo cookies left from my trip so I needed to come up with another recipe to use them up because I wasn’t going to have had to lug a ton of oreos in my bag across the ocean for nothing.

I have therefore invented my own recipe, combining the great tastes of oreos and white chocolate with a hint of espresso, yummm.

Hope you enjoy!

 

Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 ¼ cups flour

½  teaspoon salt

½  teaspoon baking soda

½  cup butter

¾ cup white sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

½ teaspoon instant espresso

1 egg, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa

½ cup white chocolate chunks

8 oreo cookies, chopped

Directions:

It's best to fold in the oreos so they
aren't crushed into too tiny bits.

Preheat the oven to 350°F and lightly grease a baking sheet or use parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugars until well blended. Then, add the egg and vanilla until everything is mixed.

In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, salt, and instant espresso. Slowly add these dry ingredients to the wet ingredients until well combined. Afterwards, fold in the chopped oreos and white chocolate chunks.

Scoop the dough into balls on the greased cookie sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes. Let the cookies cool for about 3 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Hungry now?

I was worried that they turned out dry and crumbly, but I was happily proven wrong.

White Chocolate Swirl Brownies

Chunks of white chocolate goodness.

After a total of seven snow days, today finally marked the last day of midterms!

I thought it may be festive to bring in something for our first day as second semester seniors tomorrow so I chose to try a new technique of mixing white and semi-sweet chocolate.

Recipe:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 sticks softened butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup Cocoa

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 plus 2/3 cups white chocolate chips or chunks

2 tablespoons heavy cream

Directions:

The batter before swirling in the melted white chocolate.

Heat oven to 350°F and grease a 9 x 13 pan. 


Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy and then add the eggs and vanilla and beat these ingredients together well. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt and gradually blend this into the butter mixture. Stir about a cup of white chocolate chips. Spread batter in prepared pan. 


In a small saucepan place 2/3 cup of white chocolate chips and two tablespoons of heavy cream over low heat. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon until melted and sooth. Drop spoonfuls of the melted white chocolate mixture over the chocolate dough that is already in the pan. Afterwards, take a knife and using back and forth strokes, swirl the white chocolate in with the batter.

Bake 30-35 minutes, until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely and then cut into bars.

They turned out crisp on the edges, but even these parts tasted good. Not exactly the complete swirl look I was going for after they baked on top but the taste was still there and that's what really matters.