National Homemade Cookie Day
Yes, it’s already NHCD and my new book, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-In-Your-Mouth Cookies is still about 3 weeks away. Who plans these things?
To celebrate the perfection of my timing, here’s an enticing preview of the book to come, complete with recipe. It’s the least I can do.
Look for killer brownies (including the ones with the ice bath technique), incredible new chocolate chip cookies, amazing graham crackers, French macarons, a gaggle of gluten free cookies, gooey caramel-filled alfajores, healthy whole wheat biscotti, and more. Some of my newest favorite cookies involve mixing nut butters (such as peanut butter or sesame tahini) with meringue. The results are fantastic!
CHUNKY PEANUT BUTTER CLOUDS
When you add crunchy toasted hazelnuts or almonds and generous shards of creamy milk chocolate to melt-in-your mouth peanut butter meringues, you get a symphony of textures with a sweet and salty finish. Make sure you use natural peanut butter—yes, the kind you have to stir in order too blend in the oil. It’s pesky, but the other kind is too sweet, hard to disperse in the meringue, and just generally not as good. Trust me.
Makes 30-36 cookies.
Ingredients:
3 egg whites, at room temperature
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
2/3 cup (4.625 ounces) sugar
1/3 cup (3 ounces) chunky or smooth natural peanut butter, well stirred before measuring
2/3 cup (3.3 ounces) toasted and skinned hazelnuts or toasted almonds, very coarsely chopped
3 ounces coarsely chopped milk chocolate (such as Scharffen Berger Rich Milk Chocolate), or 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
3 tablespoons finely chopped salted peanuts
Equipment:
Cookie sheets lined with parchment paper
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven
Combine the egg whites and cream of tartar in a clean dry bowl. Beat at medium-high speed with a heavy-duty stand mixer (or high speed with a hand mixer) until the egg whites are creamy white (instead of translucent) and hold a soft shape when the beaters are lifted. Continue to beat on medium to high speed, adding the sugar a little at a time, taking 1 1/2 to 2 minutes in all, until the whites are very stiff. Scatter small spoonfuls of peanut butter over the meringue. With a large rubber spatula, fold about three strokes. Scatter the nuts and chocolate over the batter and continue to fold until they are dispersed
and the peanut butter is mostly blended; a few uneven streaks of white meringue are okay.
Drop rounded tablespoons of meringue 1 1/2 inches apart on the lined cookie sheets. Sprinkle each meringue with a pinch of the chopped peanuts. Bake for 1 1/2 hours. Rotate the pans from top to bottom and from front to back halfway through the baking time to ensure even baking. Remove a test meringue and let it cool completely before taking a bite (meringues are never crisp when hot.) If the test meringue is completely dry and crisp, turn off the oven and let the remaining meringues cool completely in the oven. If the test meringue is soft or chewy or sticks to your teeth, bake for another 15 to 20 minutes before testing another.
To prevent cookies from becoming moist and sticky, put them in an airtight container as soon as they are cool. Cookies may be stored in an airtight contain for at least 2 weeks (but usually a lot longer).
Love cookies; thanks for sharing the recipe.
http://youcanfacetodaybecausehelives.blogspot.com
Congratulations, Alice on your new book! I just can't wait to meet you when you are coming to MN!
Thank you for the simple instruction
Hooray for weights! Recipe looks great…crispy, crunchy, sweet and salty with milk chocolate…yum.
Can’t wait to get your book! I’ve been baking my way through my favorite Rosie’s Bakery’s cookie book and I am looking forward to doing the same with yours…
I can’t wait for this book!
These cookies sound incredible! I will be making them with hazelnuts for my husband when he comes from a three week trip. I think he will be very happy to come home to these!
Thanks Alice! 🙂
Oh, Alice, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this book forever (Amazon’s been taunting me with pre-order pics for months!).
I’d no idea you’d begun a blog, and am tickled to find you here. You’d better believe we’ll be giving these meringue lovelies a go.
Until then, happy baking and blogging.
Cheers,
Molly
Hiiii Alice, we are sure all looking foward to ur new book!!
Can i ask u in which book is ur recipe for lemon Apricot bars posted , i thought it was Pure dessert but it aint there so was left wondering…helpppp!!
hugs and regards,
mia.
Dear SPF, those lemon apricot bars will show up in my upcoming cookie book (Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy etc. Cookies…almost in bookstores as I write this) but was also in the old cookie book, which is where you may have found them. Hope you enjoy.
Hi, Alice. I just got a copy of this book and was wondering if it was OK to reprint one of your recipes in my blog. I made your chocolate chunk cookies with cherries and pecans [used craisins instead of cherries] and loved them so much I want to share this recipe and write about your book. I see people posting recipes from cookbooks all the time but I wanna make sure its ok and I’m not breaking the law or something… This is the first book I buy from you and I’m getting Cookies and Brownies, Pure Desserts and one [or two] of your Chocolate Books for Xmas. I was also wondering if you were on Twitter, as I couldn’t find you there.
Have a great day 🙂
I’ve been baking through your new book and absolutely love it! I so appreciate the extensive testing you do on all of your recipes. Yesterday I made the peanut butter cookies and gf oatmeal cookies. Divine!
I do have one question. I tried to make the dulce de leche and once it curdled, as you said it would, it never turned smooth or thick even thought I kept at it and simmered for over 1 1/2 hours. I always use non-homogenized milk and have never had a problem with it in any recipe but am wondering if this may be why my dulce de leche didn’t work? Do you have any thoughts or ideas about this? Thanks so much!
Alice, could you please answer the dulce de leche question and give more details about the recipe? I, too, had problems with it. Mine did thicken, but the final texture is grainy and unappealing.
Thanks to both of you for your patience waiting for a response to the dulce problems. I will post about this topic very soon. The good news is that I think I have it solved. The other news is that I don’t have experience with non homogenized milk, so I may not have solved that one…but we’ll see. Anyway, thanks to both of you for writing and please stay tuned just a little longer!