Mia Bakes: Oreo White Rabbit Double Chocolate Cookies

It was a random day when I randomly thought, "it's been a long while since I've last baked some chocolate cookies..." and so a casual google search brought me over to cookiemadness.net and before I knew it, I was reading up a recipe for a subway copycat double chocolate cookie. 

But then, I wanted to use up the remaining 1/3 bag of my green banana flour, and the pack of not-very-nice chocolate peanut butter oreo cookies I've picked up from Sheng Shiong supermarket, which has gone stale in the packet. So, what would happen if I were to replace part of the plain flour with green banana flour, I wonder? Let's find out, shall we?

To get 14 to 18 large cookies, you'll need: 

100g plain flour
50g green banana flour 
40g unsweeten cocoa powder
115g unsalted butter, soften
80g brown sugar
50g castor sugar (I used stevia blend)
1 egg    
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
14/ tsp salt
80g white rabbit candy
80g oreo biscuits
20g oreo biscuit crumbs
30g dark chocolate chunks

First up, chop up your white rabbit candies and lightly crush up your oreo cookies with your hands into large chunks (I did 5 to 6 pieces per cookie and realised I could have left them much chunkier). Set the aside. I've used the pre-packaged oreo cookie crumbs for the extra 20g of crumbs, but if you can't find it in stores, you can go ahead and crush up more cookies (no filling!) into fine crumbs, or simply leave them out. 

In a clean bowl, cream the soften butter and sugars together with a wooden spoon or spatula until quite pale and fluffy (you need not go crazy beating in tons of air with a handheld mixer). Then, mix in your egg and vanilla extract until well combined. Sift in the dry ingredients (if you're lazy, just sift the cocoa powder like I did) and fold until you're left with a few pockets of dry flours before folding in the candies/cookies chunks and crumbs/chocolate chunks until everything is just combined. 

There's no need to chill the dough as it'll be quite stiff (though still rather sticky), but you can definitely wrap them up in cling wrap and freeze them for up to a few weeks so there's no need to bake them all off at the same time. 

So with slightly oiled hands and a 1/4 cup measuring spoon sprayed down with some non-stick cooking spray, scoop up 1/4 cupfuls of the cookie dough and place them onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. The cookies DO NOT spread much, so make sure that you pat them down flat on the baking sheet and just leave 1.5 to 2 inch of space in between them. 

Then send them to bake in an oven pre-heated to 175 degrees Celsius (lower by 10 if on fan) for about 10 to 12 minutes. 

As you can see, I was expecting the cookies to spread out quite a bit and flatten into "subway copycats", but it didn't happen. 

One even started puking melted white rabbit candy towards the end of 10 minutes.... But I can't deny that they smelled so good when baking!

These cookies turned out thick, crumbly and cakey. But packs a punch of sweet flavours from the chewy white rabbit candy, oreo biscuits and dark chocolate chunks. 

Not exactly gooey (I baked mine for full 12 minutes, so if you prefer a gooey, underbaked centre, do go for just 10 minutes), but definitely yummy!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Salted Caramel Chip Wholemeal Chocolate Cookies

Now, that sounds like a mouthful isn't it? HAHAHA.

Well, I was looking at my leftover bag of salted caramel chips after baking the Chocolate Lava Salted Caramel Chip Cookie and thought, what else can I make out of this? 

Well, actually you can make anything with salted caramel chips, really. But I was still craving for some half soft-half crunchy cookie, so well... let's go!

To make 12-14 cookies, you'll need:

50g soften unsalted butter

25g baking stevia 

(or castor sugar, if you fancy)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tbsp raw honey

1/2 egg 

(to get half an egg, beat your egg and measure out half of the weight)

10g unsweetened cocoa powder

90g wholemeal flour

(you can use plain flour if you prefer)

1/4 tsp baking soda

a pinch of salt

(or use salted butter and omit salt)

50g salted caramel chips

optional:

dark chocolate chunks

colourful sprinkles

-recipe adapted from geniuskitchen.com-

This really CANNOT be any easier. 

First up, cream your butter and sugar until pale and fluffy, before beating in the egg, honey and vanilla extract. 

Sift in your dry ingredients (do not skip sifting as cocoa powder is always lumpy) and fold until most of the pockets of flour has disappeared, before folding in the salted caramel chips until just combined. 

Drop tablespoonful of your cookie batter onto a baking sheet lined with baking paper, space them about an inch apart. They do spread a bit, but not that much, so do press them down a little with wet hands if you prefer a flatter cookie. 

If you fancy, press in a few chunks of dark chocolate (or any chocolate you like) over the top of the flatten cookie and sprinkle some colourful sprinkles over the top before sending these cookies into the oven at 180 degree Celsius and bake them for about 15 to 18 minutes. 

 And, tadaa~

The sprinkles definitely added a nice, joyous touch to these cookies, which is slightly cakey and right smack in between a crunchy cookie and a soft cookie. YUMS!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia Bakes: Choco-Peanut Butter Ban Ban Cookies

As I've mentioned before in my previous ban ban cookie recipe post (HERE), the flavour of matcha and chocolate didn't seem to go that well with each other, hence I've decided to switch up the recipe a bit and got these instead.

Choco-Peanut Butter half half cookies! 

So let's get over the ingredients so we can get started!

For the chocolate cookie dough, you'll need:

63g bittersweet chocolate 

(AT LEAST 60% cocoa, if not reduce your sugar)

63g salted butter, soften at room temperature

(if using unsalted, add in 1/4 tsp salt)

35g brown sugar

25g castor sugar

(or any baking sugar replacement of your choice, I used stevia)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 small egg

75g all purpose flour

15g unsweeten cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

150g peanut butter chips

First up, melt your bittersweet chocolate over a double boiler and set it aside to cool down. Cream your butter and sugars until pale and fluffy. Stir in the cooled melted chocolate and mix well. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and mix well. Sift in dry ingredients (very important to sift cocoa powder) and fold until almost thoroughly combined before adding in peanut butter chips and folding until just combined. Never over-mix your batter. 

Then, keep your batter in the fridge for at least 20 to 30 minutes while you prepare your peanut butter dough. 

For the peanut butter cookie dough, you'll need:

250g creamy peanut butter 

180g castor sugar

(or any baking sugar replacement of your choice, I replaced half with stevia)

1 tsp baking soda

1 extra large egg

(or 2 small eggs)

1 tbsp cornstarch

150g bitter-sweet/dark chocolate chips 

(you may add more if you want them to be extra chocolatey)

For this dough, it's a super quick and easy 1 bowl recipe. Firstly, stir in the sugar with the peanut butter until well combined, before beating in the egg. Then, fold in your dry ingredients and lastly, the chocolate chips. 

Using a 1/2 tbsp, scoop 1 spoonful of each of your dough and drop them beside each other (touching) on your prepared baking sheet. Do remember to space out your cookies at least 2 inches apart because they do spread out, a lot. 

Then, with slightly oiled hands (your peanut butter dough should help you with that) carefully mold the two flavoured doughs together into a ball and press them down slightly. 

If you'll prefer flat and thin cookies, send them straight into the oven to bake at 175 degree Celsius for about 18 minutes. Each oven bakes differently hence do keep a watchful eye on your cookies, especially at the initial part (for they may spread gloriously into each other) and towards the end (so they do not burn). If you find your cookies getting dangerously close towards each other, you may crank up your temperature to 190 degree Celsius to "set" the cookie edges first (for perhaps about 5 minutes) before turning your temperature back down to 175 degree Celsius. 

Big and flat ban ban cookies from doughs that were sent straight into the oven.

However, if you prefer a slightly dome-shaped cookie, pop your dropped cookie doughs into the freezer for at least 10 minutes to harden up before popping the chilled dough straight into the oven. You can either tweak the temperature slightly (I baked at 180 degree Celsius for 10 minutes and then 170 degree Celsius for another 10 minutes), or bake them for an additional 1 or 2 minutes at the same temperature. 

Slightly smaller and fatter cookies from doughs that were frozen for 10 minutes before baking. 

I have to say, peanut butter and chocolate just complement each other so well! These cookies will be extremely soft and feels spongey/cakey when first removed from the oven, so remember to not disturb them and let them cool completely to harden up. The outsides are slightly crisp and the insides chewy, filled with decadent sweetness of the chocolate and complemented with buttery, nutty fragrance of the peanut butter. 

SO YUMS CAN!

Till then,

Mia Foo

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Mia's Recipe: Crunchy Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies

It has been a while since I've baked, being bogged down by many other nitty gritty issues recently. I had actually planned to bake some rainbow cake in a jar for my colleagues as x'mas presents but somehow chucked that idea into the refuse chute.... :( 

Nevertheless, I still have to share this recipe I've tried a while ago. It's CRUNCHY chocolate cookies with chocolate chips! 

Let's get on with the ingredients you'll need:

1. Butter - 125g

2. Brown Sugar - 50g

3. Caster Sugar - 40g

4. Semi Sweet + Unsweetened Baker's Chocolate, MELTED - 125g

(you can tweak the ratio you want by yourself to get varying level of sweetness)

5. Vanilla Extract - 1 Tsp.

6. Egg - 1 no.

7. AP Flour - 150g

8. Cocoa Powder - 30g

9. Baking Soda - 1 Tsp.

10. Salt - 1/2 Tsp.

11. Chocolate Chips - 100g

This recipe will give around 4 sheets of 16 bite sized cookies each.

First up, if you do not have baking soda on hand, you can always substitute it with 2.5x to 3x (actually in terms of actual content, it's 4x, but it might change the texture of your cookie if you used too much) of Baking Powder. But it's always better to stick to Baking Soda. 

First up, cream the sugars with the butter (soften, at room temperature) until it turns light and fluffy. 

Add the melted chocolate after it has cooled down (I did this because I didn't want my butter to melt along with the hot chocolate mix. Plus, we gotta wait for it to cool to add in the egg eventually) and stir well until thoroughly mixed. 

Crack in the egg and add in vanilla extract. Mix well. 

Add all the dry ingredients into a bowl and sift well. Fold in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. 

Add in the chocolate chips and fold until just combined.Remember, do not overmix!

Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of the batter onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 170 degree Celsius for 25 mins. 

Do tweak your baking time depending on your oven and size of your cookies. The batter is also very firm so you can either work with your hands or with two spoons. 

After reading up on whether keeping the cookie batter overnight will produce better tasting cookies, I've decided to do an experiment on it. I separated my batter into two batches and kept half of them in the fridge overnight, wrapped in cling wrap.

My verdict is, there is no difference. However, a cookie batter can typically be kept in the fridge for up to 7 days or in the freezer for up to months. So for convenience sake you can always prepare more batter to keep in the freezer and bake them as and when you crave for some freshly baked cookies. But taste-wise, I'll say skip it. 

Till then,

Mia

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