Cream Cheese-Chocolate Chip Pastry Cookies

Oh man, these are pretty awesome. Definitely something that you could serve at a cafe. Also, it's easy to put together and only takes four ingredients: frozen puff pastry, milk chocolate chips, cream cheese, and sugar. The only downside is all the waiting time involved in this recipe. First, you let the frozen puff pastry thaw according to the package directions (40 minutes, in my case). Then you roll one of the puff pastry sheets out on a floured surface until it's about 10"x14". You mix together 8 oz. of cream cheese with 3 tablespoons of sugar, and spread half of it on the rolled out puff pastry. Then you sprinkle one cup of milk chocolate chips, roll it up into a log, and seal the edge using a little water. You repeat this process again with the remaining ingredients and put both logs in the fridge for an hour (see what I mean about wait time?). After refrigerating, you cut the logs crosswise into one-inch rolls; each log makes a dozen cookies. I actually cut off the ends of the logs where there was little or no filling so that the cookies would be as consistent as possible. They're baked at 375 degrees on a lightly greased pan for 20-25 minutes. I went ahead and baked the log-ends too and ate them. Lol.

So, again, this recipe is easy and doesn't require many ingredients, but you definitely have to plan in advance to make them. It's not something you can just whip out last minute, not only because of the wait times but also because the ingredients aren't likely to be on hand in your kitchen. Or, at least, they're not in my kitchen. =P The only thing I don't like about the way these cookies baked was that some of the chocolate chips on the bottoms of the rolls kind of spilled out a little, which I don't find terribly attractive. But the taste is simple and great. The cream cheese isn't overwhelming, and there's just something about pastry and chocolate together that is just wonderful. I wouldn't be inclined to call these cookies any more than I'd be inclined to call cinnamon rolls "cookies," but oh well. It doesn't matter what they're called as long as they're tasty, and they are. <3 I'd give these a 4 out of 5. It was tempting to drizzle a little icing; maybe I'll try that sometime. =)

Cheers, and on to October!

~Jesia <3

Chocolate Oatmeal Bars

This recipe was pretty simple - a cookie crust flavored with milk chocolate chips, oatmeal, finely chopped walnuts, and cinnamon, topped with melted milk chocolate and finely chopped walnuts. The dough is pretty standard, except that there's no salt or leavener (baking soda/powder) involved. Once out of the oven, you sprinkle the remaining milk chocolate chips on top of the hot crust, wait a couple minutes, then spread the chocolate until smooth and top it with the remaining nuts. I was a little surprised that the directions didn't recommend refrigeration at some point, since the chocolate remains shiny and melty even after sitting a while. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this, but I decided not to stack them to lessen the chance of a mess.

I like that this recipe uses milk chocolate, since it's nice and sweet. Also, the cinnamon complements the chocolate well without being overpowering; there's just enough cinnamon to give it flavor, but not too much. The bars are a little dense and chewy, and the melted chocolate on top is just excellent. I'd give these bars a 3 1/2 out of 5. They're good, but not one of my personal favorites.

Cheers!

~Jesia <3

Banana Bars

Well, this was just a fruity kind of weekend! This recipe involves mashed bananas and mini semi-sweet chocolate morsels. The dough was easy to make and bake. Like usual with bar cookies, I lined the pan with foil and used cooking spray. However, these bars come out a little delicate after baking. Once they cooled I cut them into bars, sifted powdered sugar over them, and when I had trouble getting them up with a spatula I started picking up each bar and peeling the foil off the bottom with my fingers. This worked well, except that a thin layer of the bar usually stuck to the foil. Oh well, you can't win them all, and it worked well enough. =)

You can definitely taste the banana flavor in these bars, but I wouldn't say it's overwhelming. The bars are pretty soft and relatively mild tasting. I'd give this recipe a 3 out of 5. Of course, if you love bananas and chocolate, you'll probably love these.

Cheers!

~Jesia <3

Butterscotch Apple Cookies

I saved this recipe for fall because it has grated apple, apple juice, butterscotch, cinnamon, and nuts. Some of the things I think of when it comes to fall is caramel apples and the local apple festival, so it sounded like a great match to me. I guess the only difficult part about making the dough was grating a whole apple. Luckily I had my fearless assistant Lucas to help me - once I got the apple down to a certain point, I was afraid of cutting my fingers on the grater. So Luke jumped in and finished it off down to the core, and without hurting himself! Yay! =) When it came to putting the butterscotch glaze on the cookies, we actually ran out (like I did when I made the Frosted Maple Pecan White Chip Cookies), but luckily I had some butterscotch morsels leftover from a previous recipe and we made some more. If you try this recipe yourself, it might not be a bad idea to use just a little bit less of the chips in the dough than the recipe says so that you can have plenty to make the glaze. I also used a little bit more apple juice in the glaze so that it wasn't too thick but also so that it still firmed up.

This was a fun fall recipe. The cookies look kind of like caramel apples (you'd just have to put a stick in them), so that was cute. One thing I didn't like was that the cookies were a bit difficult to get off the pan without some of the bottoms of them coming off onto the spatula (even though the recipe calls for lightly greasing the pan). Also, the cookies are pretty soft and delicate, so you have to be careful when moving them around so that you don't break them. Despite the bits of difficulty with this recipe, I'd reccomend it for fall holiday parties or even if you just like apple. I'd give it... a 3 1/2 out of 5.

Cheers!

~Jesia <3

Double Espresso Brownies

There's nothing like the smell of chocolate and coffee. It's the epitome of "bittersweet." These brownies could easily be served in a cafe like Starbucks, or in a nice restaurant as an after-dinner treat to be served with coffee. The recipe was pretty different in that everything took place on the stovetop, including making the frosting. The brownies are flavored with a tablespoon of instant coffee crystals (I couldn't find instant espresso powder) and a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips; similarly, the icing contains a teaspoon of instant coffee and a cup of chocolate chips. I suppose the only tricky thing about this recipe is making sure you don't burn anything, which is easy to do on the stovetop. It also took quite a while for the mixtures to come to a boil, so this recipe requires patience.

They're quite delicious, though maybe not something I would want to make often. These brownies are rich as well as unique, and while I don't consider the coffee flavor to be overwhelming, people who dislike coffee aren't as likely to enjoy them. I would give this recipe a 4 out of 5.

Cheers!

~Jesia <3

Frosted Maple Pecan White Chip Cookies

I'm not sure what it is about the combination of maple and pecan, but it makes me think of fall. So I thought that this would be a good recipe to start out the month of September. This cookie recipe calls for both butter and shortening, which is definitely unusual. And while I'm not a fan of nuts, I felt that 1/2 cup of chopped pecans wasn't enough for the amount of dough this recipe makes. I felt like there needed to be either less dough or more nuts to make the mixture more even. I'm sure many of the cookies didn't get any nuts in them at all. Anyway, I ended up with 6 and a half dozen cookies total, and it took me quite a while to frost and top each one with a pecan half. Actually for the last dozen and a half or so, I had to make more frosting and substitute walnut pieces for pecan halves; I ran out!

These cookies are soft and chewy, and the maple and white chocolate flavors go wonderfully together. They're also cute! The frosting and pecan half on each cookie makes them visually appealing as well as tasty. I'd give this recipe a 4 out of 5 stars. It's a good start to a new month!

Cheers!

~Jesia <3