nuts to that

Is it chocolate or is it a nut?

I had a request for cookies with white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts in them. I've heard of this combo before but I'm not really fond of chunky bits of nuts in my cookies so I've never bothered with them. But they asked, and so I make.

I figured though, if I'm going to fill a cookie with these pale bits of stuff, it needs to be something other than a typical drop cookie. So I decided to make a super chocolately brownie style cookie.

Reverse Chocolate Macadamia Nut Chip Cookies

What you need:

• 8 ounces unsweetend chocolate
• ¼ c butter
• 1 ½  cup sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour (I used 2 cups. DON'T do that; it's too much)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup white chocolate chips
• 1 c chopped macamadamia nuts

What you gotta do:

Okay, first off, I used too much flour. I made mine with a full 2 cups and they didn't spread at all as they baked, and they were a little crumblier than I'd hoped for. So, I'm thinking that if you reduce it to 1 1/2 cups, they should have a better shape and texture.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in the microwave. Start with a minute and a half at 50% power, stir, and then a minute at 50% power, stir. You don't want the chocolate to melt entirely in the microwave. Don't worry, the residual heat will get rid of the rest of the chunks.

In a big bowl, mix the eggs and sugar together.

Add the vanilla and the melted chocolate to the big bowl. Stir until it's lovely and dark and glossy.

I had thought I'd be able to bash the macamadamia nuts in the bag they came in with the bottom of the baking powder jar to break them up. Didn't work.

So, chopping them with a knife. They're a much softer nut than say an almond or a pecan, and they seem to shave better than they chop. mmm shaved nuts.

If you feel like sifting the flour, baking powder, and salt before you add it to the big bowl, go right ahead. I didn't. I just piled it all on top (srsly, don't use this much flour) and gave it a bit of a premix before I mixed it all in.

Yay, flour. I was having a seriously spilly kinda of day.

Yup, definitely too much flour.

It all mixed in though... there are times when chocolate really just isn't very photogenic.

Add the nuts and the white chocolate chips to the dough.

Now, if you only used 1 1/2 cups of flour, chilling the dough before you scoop it onto the baking sheet will probably work well to give you a nice soft cookie. Mine though retained their shape a little too well after chilling. So, I left the dough on the counter after the second round.

It didn't help much. There are some things that just can't be fixed, and too much flour in your cookie dough is one of them.

Good enough. They're chocolate, there's lots of them, and though the texture is a little less than ideal, they don't taste half bad. You could do this with bittersweet chocolate, but then they'd be too sweet to eat more than 3 or 4 at a time.

Bake them at 325 for 10 minutes and let them cool on a rack before you pack them up to take to work. Or pile them onto a plate to eat in bed. 

Rocky Road Cookies

All right, we're on a cookie spree. And this time, I'm turning ice cream into cookies.

I'm kinda liking this as a theme, and I think maybe next time I'll try a mint chocolate chip. I also thing that the next time I'm at Recipe Guy's place, I need to try making ice cream again. 

Rocky Road Cookies

What you need:

• 1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
  
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
  
• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 cup mini marshmallows 

What you gotta do:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spread the mini-marshmallows on a baking sheet and put them in the freezer.

They only take about 10 minutes to freeze. You can do this ahead of time and store the frozen marshmallows in a container in the freezer until you need them... which makes me wonder what else I can do with frozen mini marshmallows.

Spread the sliced almonds on a baking sheet and put them in the oven for about 5 minutes.They should be getting just golden and toasty.

You can do this with whole almonds and chop them afterward if you want chunkier bits of nuts.

Put the butter, bittersweet chocolate, and unsweetened chocolate in a microwave-safe bowl and nuke for 45 seconds on half power.

Stir and repeat until you've got a bowl of smooth, melty buttery chocolate.

In a big bowl, beat the sugar and eggs until they're pale and frothy.

Add the vanilla and melted chocolate mixture and beat until shiney.

 

Mix the flour and baking powder together in a small blow. If you used unsalted butter (I didn't) add a scant 1/4 tsp of salt too.

Stir the flour into the shiney chocolate mixture.

Fold in the toasted almonds, frozen marshmallows, and chocolate chips.

This is going to be a pretty soft cookie dough. It's really more of a brownie batter, but I don't recommend trying to bake it in a pan as brownies. The marshmallows can only handle being inthe oven for a little while. If you want to make this into brownies, leave the marshmallows out, and put them on top for the last 5-7 minutes of baking.

You could actually do that with the cookies too if you felt like bothering.

Since this is soft, and we don't want the marshmallows to thaw too quickly, put the bowl in the fridge for 5-10 minutes. It will firm up so that you can scoop it nicely.

Or, you could just drop the dough by the spoonful onto a baking sheet, and put the baking sheet in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. I tried baking a set after just a few minutes in the fridge and the marshmallows couldn't take it. They just turned to goo and left holes in the cookies where they'd one been. The lacey sugary stuff that spewed out of them totally tasted like toasted marshmallows, but that's really not the intent here.

Even after time in the freezer, the marshmallows are going to nearly disintegrate. But they won't do it as fast or as completely.

You know, if you didn't put the marshmallows in the batter, you could chill it until you can handle it, then roll bits of batter around a marshmallow or two. That way, you'd be guaranteed to have no marshmallows on the edges. It's the edge ones that turn into goo and disappear.

I didn't do that this time, and I'm not sure I'd have the patience for it some other time, but you could always give it a shot...

Bake them for 10 minutes and give them a minute to cool on the parchment before tranferring them to a cooling rack.

They are soft and holy freaking chocolatey, and have these fun gooey spots inside them.

I would ask what else has fun gooey spots inside, but we already know the answer to that: "your mom".

So instead, I'm going to ask: "What else can I do with frozen mini marshmallows?"