Double Chocolate Peppermint Cookies (p. 769)

I'm already failing at keeping the blog up again.  I'm two months behind but that's fine, I've decided I'm not going to stress over it and I'm not going to backdate posts.  I still have a lot of blog work to do--I have to finish the indexes, change all the side copy, and fix the keywords (to start).  

Cookie baking!  This is our new tradition, started in 2018.  On Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd) we bake cookies.  Lots and lots of cookies.  The goal is so we have those cookies when people stop by, which they do.  I love holiday visits.  Do you bake cookies for the holidays?  What do you make?

I didn't get a final picture of these cookies because...well, because were attempting to make ten types of cookies and it got hard to photograph.  I'm not back in the swing of things yet.  We use a planning board whenever we cook big meals to stay on task.  Guests have gotten good at walking into the house and going over to the board to see what's on the menu.

The planning board--you will see this a lot

Double-chocolate peppermint cookies (p.769) use the same base as Soft and chewy sugar cookies (p. 768).  

Flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, and salt were sifted into a bowl.  Remember, measure and then sift.

In another bowl sugar  and butter were mixed until light and fluffy. 

Spin spin spin

This takes longer than you think it's going to take.  Don't rush it.  I added peppermint extract and then an egg.  I know peppermint extract might not be something that everyone has in their pantry but you really need it if you want to bake a lot.  I love the smell of mint so it was nice and invigorating.  Side note: If you get the opportunity to go to the Celestial Seasoning tea plant, I highly recommend it.  The room where they store the mints is awesome--clears your sinuses it's so strong.  The most interesting thing I learned there is they clean with air because if you cleaned with water you make tea.

The flour mixture was added in.  Of course at this point I divvied up the dough into balls, completely forgetting the chocolate chips.  I had to add all the balls back into the bowl, add the chocolate chips, and do it all over again.  

The dough  was rolled into balls, then broken in half and rolled into balls again.  

We sprinkled turbinado sugar on top.  (What? You don't have a selection of sugars to use at home??  Plain brown or white sugar would have been fine).  They were cooked  for about ten minutes.

Remember, I forgot to take a final picture but they essentially looked like this, just cooked.  The cookies were extremely chocolaty and very, very minty.  The phrase "an Andes mint on steroids" was mentioned.  If you like chocolate/mint combos, make these.  You will love them and they aren't very difficult.

Random facts:

• Peppermint is a hybrid of watermint (wtf is watermint?) and spearmint.
• Peppermint is considered an invasive species in much of the world.  It's extremely fast growing.

Nora's Chocolate Chip Cookies (p. 770), Applesauce Cake (p. 732), and Quick Butterscotch (Penuche) Icing (p. 799)

Who doesn't love chocolate chip cookies?  I have to admit, I don't turn to The Joy of Cooking for cookie recipes at all.   Do you?  I tend to go to dedicated cookie cookbooks and I have historically not loved the TJOC chocolate chip cookie recipes but I was hopeful for this one because it's new to the  2019 Edition.  Readers, I didn't love it.  It was certainly easy enough (but not nearly as easy--or as good--as the recipe on the Crisco container).

I love my house and I love my kitchen but I do not love the lighting.  It's absolutely terrible and it will be improved at some point.  Fortunately, terrible pictures have always been a hallmark of TJOTJOC. 

Dry ingredients were mixed:

Ugh, these shadows

Butter was creamed with white and brown sugar (if you don't know what that means, google is your friend). Vanilla, an egg, and an egg yolk were added:

OMG I did not make this in complete darkness

The flour mixture was added in and then the chocolate chips.  We had two different types of chocolate chips left over from Christmas Eve Eve (otherwise known as "cookie baking day") so I just used those.  I got out the cookie scoop.  We have a lot of cookie scoops and they are all terrible except the one my bestie Rachel gave me.  I picked out "Amazon Choice" scoops.  I read a story online right after that about a terrible lady who takes money from companies that make garbage that they pay people to "review" on Amazon and that regularly become "Amazon Choice" and that really irritates me because I formerly trusted the rating.  It explains why I have had so many terrible purchases recently.  Scoops that don't scoop fall into that.  Rant over.  I had to scoop them twice because I used the wrong size.

I never know how much they are going to spread so I always put them too far apart.

After:

Toooooo crispy.  I don't like my chocolate chip cookies that crispy which is why I tend to use Crisco.  I love Crisco.  I could work for Crisco.  The recipe lies.  It calls these chewy, thick cookies--they were not.These will not be made in the future.

The Joy of Cooking Applesauce Cake came next.  The other day I looked in the refrigerator to find a freaking enormous jar of applesauce.  To the best of my knowledge nobody in this house is a big applesauce fan so it was odd.  Jeff said that it was really cheap so obviously he bought it.  Obviously (eye roll).  So I looked in TJOC for a recipe that would use some applesauce and found Applesauce cake (p. 732).

Gwen helped me mix sifted flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, salt, allspice, and nutmeg.  Two points here:

1.  EDUCATION!  If it's "sifted flour" you measure after sifting.  If it's "flour, sifted" you measure and then sift.  I'm not sure everyone knows that and it's super important.

2.  I have Gwen taste all the ingredients as we are cooking including all the spices.  I'll be damned if she's one of those people on a cooking show who fail the tasting challenge--they should all be ashamed of themselves.  Let your kids taste things when they cook with you!

Butter is beaten and sugar is added.  I used brown sugar but you can use white or a combination.  An egg is cracked in and then the flour mixture and the applesauce are alternately added.  I was optimistic about this recipe.  It smelled good and wasn't too sweet.  You can add nuts or dried fruit.  I'm always going to opt in to nuts and dried fruit so I added walnuts and dried cranberries.

The whole thing as cooked for about a half hour.  I decided to use the square pan rather than the loaf pan option.

After cooking:

It popped out extremely easily, which makes sense, as I used about a stick of butter on the pan.

I'm always going to opt in to icing.  I lllloooovvvveeee penuche so I was happy to see Quick Butterscotch (Penuche) Icing (p. 799).  It was easy because all icing is easy.  Butter, brown sugar, evaporated milk, and salt were mixed over heat until they were combined and let cool in a bowl:

Powdered sugar and vanilla were added:

Tell me you don't want to reach into this picture for a taste...

I liked both these recipes!  The applesauce cake was not very sweet and reminded me of the zucchini cake we made every summer to get rid of the huge excess of zucchini.  The icing was absolutely amazing--smooth, brown sugary, fantastic.  Next time I will make the cake in a loaf but I will make it again.  Possibly with the same giant jar of applesauce.  Fast and good.

But I had extra icing so what to do with it...

Sandwich it between cookies!!!  It was amazing.  Penuche icing belongs between cookies.  

Even though I didn't like these cookies I do think they would make fantastic ice cream sandwiches.  For Gwen's second birthday we made homemade ice cream sandwiches and they were really popular.  You have to be careful with the cookie that you pick because they can get way too hard and I think these would have been sturdy enough while soaking up some of the moisture from the ice cream to soften.

What kind of chocolate chip cookies do you like?  Does the rest of your household agree or is it an argument every time? Tell me below!

Note: All three recipes are vegetarian, the icing is GF.