Daring Bakers: Chocolate Hazelnut Crinkle Cookies

Holiday season is the time for sharing and Peta of Peta Eats is sharing a dozen cookies, some classics and some of her own, from all over the world with us. 

Can you guys believe it's almost December? Holy crap, this semester has gone fast. It feels like I only just started my fourth year and now I'm already halfway done. In another 6 months I'm going to be graduating. What happened to the past four years? They've been a blur of lectures, exams, bars, alcohol and good friends. I couldn't really ask for more, huh?

Speaking of friends, this past weekend my two friends from elementary school came up for a visit. I've known my friend Emily for about 17 years. That's almost all my life. How awesome is that?

So I'm trying to get back on track with the Daring Kitchen and this month we're celebrating Christmas! We had the choice of 12 Christmas dessert recipes to try and I chose crinkle cookies, since they're a classic I've never done before. I used the recipe from Epicurious, with the only tweak that instead of chocolate I used 1/2 cup of Nutella.

These cookies were pillow-soft and went down almost too easily. They weren't too sweet; just sweet enough. We literally ate them off in one day.

So have some fun this month and celebrate! Make sure you all start baking some delicious eats. I definitely will, so expect some more posts soon!

Recipe for the Crinkle Cookies can be found by clicking here. As I said before: instead of bittersweet chocolate I used 1/2 cup of Nutella. Enjoy!

Bon Appetit Chocolate Chip Cookies

I'm such a good daughter, really. My mother was craving some sweets but didn't have time to make them, since she's busy with her Master's degree. So, being the awesome kid I am, I offered to make her some.

She had all the ingredients already, anyway. And the recipe. We bought the March 2012 Bon Appetit magazine when we were at the airport leaving for Jamaica, and I was dying to try out one of the recipes. These babies are thin and chewy, but crispy on the outside. I upped the chocolate chips because you can never have enough chocolate, am I right? I also snuck in some skor bits, just enough to give in that caramel taste. Feel free to leave these out if you want to go classic with your cookie.

Just be careful when you take them out of the oven. Let them cool for at least 20 minutes until you transfer them off the baking sheet and onto a rack. I made the mistake of trying to move some before they were cool enough. I'd even suggest putting them in the fridge for 30 minutes. Makes them extra crispy, actually.

They make for an awesome break from studying and lab report writing. Not like I've been doing much of either today, but that's beside the point. Have fun and have some cookies, I say!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from March 2012 Bon Appetit, pg. 48
Makes about 20 cookies
Ingredients

• 1 cup + 2 tbsp all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup (packed) brown sugar
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/4 cup semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup skor bits (optional)

Directions
Preheat oven to 425F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Stir together flour, salt and baking powder in a small bowl. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and both sugars on medium-high speed until combined, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat again at medium-high for another 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

Add in the dry ingredients and blend at low speed. Fold in the chocolate chips (and skor bits, if using).

Spoon heaping tablespoons of dough onto the baking sheets, spacing them about 1 1/2" apart. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until the edges are golden brown, about 6-10 minutes. Watch carefully, because they finish fast.

Let cool on the baking sheet for 20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Let cool completely and enjoy.

Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

Happy Valentine's everyone. This post may be a little late, but where's the harm in celebrating people you love for an entire week? That and some of us busy people may have had to reschedule our celebrations to the weekend.

Technically this is a guest post! Because I didn't actually make these myself, but my awesome friend, Steph, toiled over the oven to make these for her boyfriend and they looked so awesome I knew I had to share.

She adapted the recipe from the Joy of Baking (click for recipe) , and the only change she made was instead of making the royal icing in the original recipe, she substituted it for store-bought buttercream, which tasted awesome with the sugar cookies. It also is a nice alternative for those of us who don't have time, or can't be bothered, to make homemade icing. I always go for buttercream over traditional icing, personally.

These cookies are perfect for anyone who just wants to make a quick, simple treat that looks great. I say: go for it! See if you have the artistic talent like Steph, or just make the cookies as an excuse to practice if you're like me and weren't born with a steady hand.

Either way, these are awesome. Just look at the picture she took:

How is that not the most adorable thing ever??