"Jamoca Almond Fudge" Cookies

If you've ever been to Baskin Robbins, you know that one of their classic flavors is their "Jamoca Almond Fudge" ice cream and you probably have tried it before. If you haven't, their "Jamoca Almond Fudge" ice cream is a combination of coffee ice cream, chocolate fudge that is running throughout and roasted almonds. This has been one of my favorite flavors at BR. So, still on my creative project of turning ice cream flavors into cookies, this post is the recreation of BR's "Jamoca Almond Fudge" ice cream. Once again, I used my chocolate chip cookie batter recipe. The recipe I used to use can be found at my old blog post, "The Best Chocolate Cookie Out There". I feel like I should explain why I'm using this recipe constantly. Well, the reason why I always use this recipe in creating new flavors is because it's a great cookie dough to work with. It has a neutral vanilla flavor which goes well with everything, it creates a nice chew to the cookie and it's easy to do. They say, you always need a great base in order to build a building. Well, you also need a great cookie dough to create a great cookie and the chocolate chip cookie dough recipe is exactly that. Anyways, back to my "Jamoca Almond Fudge" cookie. Like I said before, I used the chocolate chip cookie dough recipe. During the stage where I cream the butter and sugar together, I added about 2 tablespoons of instant espresso powder. I then continued the recipe as is. Then when it came time for the "mix-ins", I added 1 cup of chocolate chips and 1 cup of roasted almonds. Once baked, I let them cool and I topped them with a "hot fudge sauce" from a recipe by Wayne Harley Brachman. His recipe didn't taste like a store bought one but it was alright. I would say to buy the store bought stuff though because it is easier to use and tastes great. Overall, these cookies were somewhat of a success in my creative project. They only had a hint of coffee which was alright but it was missing that fudge sauce flavor that this sauce did not give. It was a good trial though! Here's the hot fudge sauce recipe I used.

Hot Fudge Sauce

Ingredients
1/2 cup very hot brewed coffee
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-processed cocoa
1/2 cup light corn syrup
4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together the coffee, sugar and cocoa. Whisk in the corn syrup until all the sugar crystals are dissolved and the mixture is completely smooth.

Place the chocolate and butter in a large, dry bowl or in the top of a double boiler set over barely simmering water. When the chocolate has melted, whisk in the coffee-cocoa mixture until smooth and blended. The sauce is best if left to ripen for a full day before serving. Store in a sealed container. The sauce keeps for 3 weeks in the refrigerator or 3 months in the freezer.

-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Florentines (Almond Lace Cookies)

Yet another week where I have never baked, let alone eaten, this weeks creation before. What kind of foodie am I? haha. Anyways, this weeks creation was Florentines which are also known as Almond Lace Cookies. These cookies come from Italy and are extremely thin and almost candy like. I mean, it's a cookie and candy all in one! How can you go wrong? It is made mostly out of nuts, in this case almonds, and sometimes even dried fruit, usually cherries. However, I didn't want to go the dried fruit route so I opted for a simple version of the cookie. I ended up with this recipe from the food network.

When making this cookie, the one thing I changed in the recipe was the use of orange zest. Call me crazy but I don't fancy the flavor of orange in baked goods, especially the combination of orange with chocolate. To fix this, I used lemon! I love using lemon instead because it only gives a slight hint of flavor and really boosts the flavor of the vanilla. In addition, I really did not believe that this recipe needed 2 tablespoons of zest. Unless you want a strong citrus flavor, go for the full 2 tablespoons. However, I changed the measurement to about 1 teaspoon of lemon zest which is usually the zest of one lemon. Of course you can add more or add less. What I like to do is zest the lemon onto a plate separately and add zest, little by little, to the batter until it has reached the point where I am satisfied with the flavor. (Don't be afraid to taste the batter. That's the only way you'll know if it tastes good or not!)

After making the batter, things seemed strange. The so called "batter" was not a batter. After letting the batter cool as stated, it became extremely crumbly and would not hold it's shape when scooped with a mini ice cream scoop. Because I had never made these before, I assumed that maybe that's how it was suppose to be so I scooped and baked one cookie from this batter. The cookie ended up spreading very little and it had a "lump" of batter in the middle. The next trial was scooping this crumbly batter and flattening it out. The cookie was even in thickness throughout but it barely spread. So, on a whim, I added some milk to see if it would form a dough again, which it did. I was pretty happy when it actually held together. So, I scooped the batter, flattened it in between parchment paper and baked. They came out perfect!! They were circular, golden brown, thin and crispy. So, if you ever have trouble with the batter being crumbly as well, just add milk until it is able to hold together and you should be fine. When you make this, you MUST use either parchment paper or a silpat on your baking sheet!! I can't stress this enough. These cookies WILL stick to your baking sheet if you don't. I mean, you have a candy like cookie which equals STICKY. Plus, this is a very thin cookie and that equals DELICATE. Put two and two together and without parchment paper or a silpat, well, you get the picture right? Overall, these cookies were good. Topped with chocolate and they were even better. If I had to compare them to something I would say that they tasted similar to the "Almond Roca" Candy. I wouldn't say I would eat these all day but they were pretty good. Here's the recipe.

Florentines (Almond Lace Cookies)
Ingredients
1 3/4 cups sliced, blanched almonds (about 5 ounces)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Finely grated zest of 1 orange (about 2 tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
3/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
5 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Chocolate Topping, optional:
2 to 4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped

Directions
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Pulse the almonds in a food processor until finely chopped, but not pasty. Stir together the nuts, flour, zest and salt in a large bowl.

Put the sugar, cream, corn syrup and butter in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a rolling boil and sugar is completely dissolved. Continue to boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, then pour mixture into almond mixture and stir just to combine. Set aside until cool enough to handle, 30 minutes.

Scoop rounded teaspoons (for 3-inch cookies) or rounded tablespoons (for 6-inch cookies) of batter and roll into balls. Place on prepared baking sheet, leaving about 3 to 4 inches between each cookie since they spread.

Bake 1 pan at a time, until the cookies are thin and an even golden brown color throughout, rotating pans halfway through baking time, about 10 to 11 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve.

Optional chocolate topping:
Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. Bring a saucepan filled with 1 inch or so of water to a very low simmer; set the bowl over, but not touching, the water. Stir the chocolate occasionally until melted and smooth. (Alternatively, put the chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Melt at 50 percent power in the microwave until soft, about 1 minute. Stir, and continue heat until completely melted, about 1 to 2 minutes more.)

For sandwiches: Drop about 1/2 teaspoon chocolate onto on the flat side of half of the cookies and press together with remaining halves. Return to rack and let chocolate set.

For chocolate decor: Drizzle melted chocolate over Florentines as desired. Set aside at room temperature until chocolate is set.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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"Cookies N' Cream" Cookies

Whaaa?! Two posts for two weeks in a row? What's happening? I just couldn't resist. I've had a great idea recently regarding cookies. Everyone loves cookies, right? There are so many flavors of cookies out there that there has to be a cookie for everyone. Then we have ice cream. Everyone loves ice cream, right? I mean, once again, there are so many flavors of ice cream out there that there has to be an ice cream for everyone. Well, what if I were to merge the two? No, I don't want to make a cookie dough ice cream. I want to make cookies based on ice cream! Sounds good right?! This explains this second post for today! Lucky you! One of my favorite ice cream flavors is Cookies N' Cream. YUM!! How can you go wrong with vanilla ice cream and Oreo Cookies? Well, that's how I got the idea for this cookie. A vanilla flavored cookie dough with Oreo Cookies running through them, and I gave it more of a chocolate boost with chocolate chips!! Talk about DOUBLE YUM!! Tasted exactly like Cookies N' Cream Ice Cream! For the recipe, I changed the ingredient amounts in my plain old chocolate chip cookie dough by reducing the sugar. Then I added 12 Oreos and 1 cup of chocolate chips. For the chocolate chip cookie dough I used to use, you'll find it here at my old post "The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Out There"
These were beyond good!!

-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Pasencia Cookies

Let's be a little cultural for this post. Pasencia Cookies are filipino cookies that resemble "Nilla Wafers". I think I have had these Pasencia Cookies once before but that might have been a long time ago. So, while surfing the web, I randomly came across this recipe. Since it did look like a "Nilla Wafer" in their photo, I wondered if it would be the same, or even better than those famous "Nilla Wafers". I personally don't like "Nilla Wafers". I mean, there is nothing wrong with the flavor of them. However, whenever I buy a brand new bag and open it up, the cookies always seem to be stale. They aren't as "crispy" as I would like them to be. For instance, when you buy a package of Oreos, the cookies are always "crispy". Then over time, they become stale and have a "soggy-ness" to them. That "soggy-ness" is the same texture I find in a brand new bag of "Nilla Wafers". Does that happen to you? What do you think about "Nilla Wafers"? Leave a comment and tell me :)

Anyways, back to this Pasencia Cookie recipe. This recipe is fairly simple. The only hard part may be the whipping of the egg whites, especially if you're doing that by hand. Thank God for electric mixers! After that, it's pretty simple. Overall, the cookies did not taste like "Nilla Wafers". They tasted more along the lines of a roasted marshmallow with a chewy, sugar-y bite to them. Is it something you will crave? Don't think so. But, for it's simplicity, it has a good amount of flavor. Here's the recipe!

Pasencia Cookies
Ingredients
1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 large egg whites
1/2 tsp lemon juice (or 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar)
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp granulated sugar

Directions
Preheat Oven to 275ºF

Prepare a half-sheet pan or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone.

Sift together 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and flour. Set aside until needed.

In a clean bowl, whip the egg whites until frothy. Add the lemon juice, vanilla extract, and granulated sugar. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks. Using a wide rubber spatula, fold in the sifted flour and confectioner's sugar. Continue folding until the flour and sugar are thoroughly absorbed and the meringue is smooth and glossy. When tilting the bowl, the meringue should
move sluggishly.

Deposit the batter into a pastry bag fitted with a round pastry tip (about 1/4- to 1/2-inch opening). With the pastry tip perpendicular to the sheet pan, pipe 3/4-inch rounds spaced about 1 inch apart.

Bake for 22 to 26 minutes, or until the edges of the cookies turn light brown. Let the cookies cool for at least 15 minutes before removing from the sheet pan. The cookies will be fragile while warm but will crisp as they cool.

-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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Honey Cornbread Muffins

So, I wasn't actually planning on baking Honey Cornbread Muffins today. I was saving this recipe for later on. I already baked Mexican Wedding Cookies earlier and so I thought I was about done baking for the day. I was working diligently to finish my 3 essays, art homework and read for my Asian Studies Class. A couple hours went by and I decided to take a break and get something to eat in the kitchen. While in the kitchen, my brother comes out of his room and says "What you making? Cornbread?!". I replied "No, if you look over there, I already made some cookies". He then said "Come on. You should make some cornbread". Well, that's why I made these Honey Cornbread Muffins. I got the recipe from the Neelys. These were super simple to make and I made them in no time which was great because I had a lot of other work to do. The Honey Cornbread Muffins were moist and had that classic corn/nutty taste from the corn meal, sweetness from the sugar and honey (the honey also gave a nice floral note) and the sweetness was balanced out by the salt. Overall, very good recipe. I didn't like the crumb of these however. I think I need to figure out how to make the crumb better and I have an idea in mind. I also think the temperature should be lower because these did brown up fairly quickly. Well, here's the recipe.

Honey Cornbread Muffins
Ingredients
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup honey
Special equipment: paper muffin cups and a 12-cup muffin tin

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Into a large bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the whole milk, eggs, butter, and honey. Add the wet to the dry ingredients and stir until just mixed.
Place muffin paper liners in a 12-cup muffin tin. Evenly divide the cornbread mixture into the papers. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden.


-Aaron John
My Food Outings: AJ's Food Adventure
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