dessert

Everyday Chocolate Chip Cookies

May 9, 2020 by Alyssa

Everyday Chocolate Chip Cookies are the classic chocolate chip cookies from my childhood. It’s the recipe my Mom made my entire life and in honor of Mother’s Day, I’m sharing it with you.

To perfect these cookies, be sure to use brand-specific ingredients as listed.

Some recipes aren’t meant to be changed. In fact, changing them, modifying ingredients, attempting to make them healthy, might actually be WRONG.

Case in fact: my Mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe and what I consider, my Everyday Chocolate Chip Cookies.

When you want your mother’s chocolate chip cookies, you may be craving chocolate….but you may also be craving comfort.

And during this time of uncertainty, I’m sure we can all use a little comfort.

Some of us are away from family, worried about the future, concerned about jobs, or stressed because we’re balancing the needs to homeschooling with work, finances, and this new everyday life.

In those cases, we need some comfort. And these Everyday Chocolate Chip Cookies are just that. Comfort.

Food Evokes Memories

My mom’s chocolate chip cookies are my comfort food. I specifically remember a time in college when I came home one weekend, devastated and upset by an event that happened [something that I look back on now as trivial but at the time viewed as detrimental].

When I arrived home that morning, my mom was in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies. I sat at the kitchen table with a glass of milk, ate warm chocolate chip cookies, and cried while I talked to my mom about what was bothering me. And afterward, I felt better.

Yes, sharing my thoughts with my mom while eating her warm, fresh out of the oven chocolate chip cookies, made me feel better.

It’s often stated that you shouldn’t comfort yourself or hide your feelings with food – but there’s always an exception. And in those cases — like as today in this pandemic, isolating world, my mom’s chocolate chips cookies are love in the physical form.

They are comfort and they make people feel better. I mean, they aren’t magical but I’m damn sure you’ll feel better after eating them.

So when I need some comforting and I’m miles away from my mom (which is always or at least has been for the past 10 years) but yearning for her comfort and a hug – her cookies are the closest thing I get to feeling that embrace.

I’ve also learned that in order for them to truly be comforting, they need to be made using the exact same brands of ingredients she uses. Using an alternate will not deliver the same taste, love, or comfort. They’ll still be delicious, so go for it, but they won’t be exactly like my mom’s.

The Original Recipe

So, in honor of Mother’s Day this weekend, here’s my mom’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, the Everyday Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe with the exact brands you need to make them taste just like my mom’s comforting, loving hug in cookie form.

Tip from mom, for perfectly round and evenly sized cookies, use this scoop, the 1.5 tablespoon which is what’s used for making this recipe.

Enjoy, and Happy Mother’s Day.

Mom's Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Prep time

15 mins

Cook time

11 mins

Total time

26 mins

Author: Alyssa

Serves: 4 dozen

Ingredients

½ cup butter flavored Crisco
½ cup Land O'Lakes unsalted butter**
1 cup domino Granulated sugar
½ cup, packed Domino light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp McCormick Pure Vanilla Extract (brown color, not clear!)
2½ cups Gold Medal All-Purpose Flour, sifted
1 tsp Arm & Hammer Baking Soda
1 tsp salt [table salt, none of that fancy sea stuff]
12 ounces Nestle Semi-Sweet Morsels*
1 cup Nestle Premier White Chocolate Morsels, optional
½ cup chopped walnuts, optional

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F (I bake on the convection setting, adjust accordingly for your own oven if you do not)
In a stand mixer, cream together Crisco, butter, sugars, and vanilla until light & fluffy (like really let the combine for 2-3 minutes). Scrape down the sides of the bowl
Beat in eggs, one at a time.
In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture (in 2 - 3 additions)
Fold in chocolate chips and nuts, if using.
Place 1.5 tablespoon-sized mounds on a cookie sheet lined with parchment or a silicone baking mat and bake for 10-11 minutes or until lightly golden in color. (It's best to rotate the sheet halfway through baking to ensure cookies are evenly browned.)
Let cookies cool slightly on the tray (1-2 minutes). Then move to a cooling rack to cool completely. These cookies are best eaten warm, minutes out of the oven.
Store leftover cookies in a sealed container at room temperature for a week or freeze for up to 3 months.

Notes

*My mom actually used 12 ounces Nestle Semi-Sweet Morsels and 1 cup Nestle Semi-Sweet & Premier White Chocolate Morsels but these are often difficult to find. An adequate replacement would be to sub 1 cup of Nestle Premier White Chocolate Morsels.

** If you can't find Land O'Lakes, just be sure to use unsalted butter or if you do use salted butter, adjust the salt to ½ teaspoon instead of 1 full teaspoon.

***My mom would also, sometimes, add in chopped walnuts. If you like nuts in your chocolate chip cookies, add in a ½ cup chopped walnuts when folding in the chocolate chips.

My Obsession with Milk Bar Continues: Crack Pie

June 4, 2018 by Alyssa

My Milk Bar baking saga continues as I bake and review Milk Bar’s famous Crack Pie, a pop-culture phenomenon and an addictive, cult favorite dessert.

I have no idea why I’m so into making Milk Bar recipes. Maybe it’s because of all the hype around the dessert spot with the release of and her feature on Chef’s Table: Pastry. As a result, Milk Bar’s creations have become a pop-culture phenomenon.

And I guess, as the cult-like obsession grew, my curiosity about the desserts grew as well.

Check out my Milk Bar’s Birthday Cake review here.

What I really wanted to know was are Milk Bar desserts REALLY that good? If words like ‘Crack Pie’ and ‘Milk Bar’ are terms most of the foodie culture easily recognizes then ‘d expect the desserts to be damn delicious.

**And for me, damn delicious means ‘This is the best freakin’ thing I’ve ever tasted. I crave this food every single day. And I cannot stop shoving my face with it.’**

Basically, all self-control should be lost.

And, if you watched Chef’s Table when Christina Tosi talks about the naming of her infamous Crack Pie, her colleagues coined the dessert CRACK PIE because it’s supposed to be addicting — thus, losing all self-control.

So, I just had to make it myself and find out.

I followed the original Crack Pie recipe posted on Milk Bar’s website which actually results in TWO pies.

Though, I’m not really sure why this recipe can’t be split in half and why we need a recipe that results in two pies. Maybe it’s because Christina Tosi believed the pie was so damn delicious and if you make one and finish it took quickly, you’re going to be happy you now have a second one.

Fun fact though, you can freeze the second pie for months before actually eating it so really, having two is quite convenient!

I followed the recipe for Crack Pie pretty much exactly. The only modification I made was for the 1/4 cup of corn powder the filling required.

I wasn’t 100% sure what corn powder was but I made an educated guess that it was super fine cornmeal (corn flour) so I took a leap of faith, poured some cornmeal into the coffee bean grinder and spun the hell out of it until I had a 1/4 cup of light, airy corn powder.

Or, if you want, you can also order the genuine Milk Bar corn powder online. You decide. (My way’s cheaper.)

The recipe overall is pretty easy to make but it was much more time consuming that I had anticipated since there’s quite a few baking, cooling, and waiting steps.

First you have to bake the oatmeal cookie crust and let it cool
Then you have to make the crust and form it into the molds
Then you have to make the filling
Then you have to bake the pies for 15 minutes
Then you have to open the oven door and drop the temp by 25 degrees and bake the pies for an additional 5 minutes at the new, lower temperature

This is the part in the recipe where I was required to again improvise a bit. The recipe says the ‘pies should still be jiggly in the bull’s-eye center but not around the outer edges.’ However, I found that my pies were WAY jiggly all over so I kept them in for another 5 minutes. After checking it here, I noticed the tops getting pretty brown but they were still jiggly all over so I simply turned the oven off, shut the door, and let the pies sit in the heat for another 5 minutes before considering them done enough.

After you remove the pies from the oven and let them cool you then have to FREEZE the pies for at least 3 hours but overnight is best

Seriously, I don’t know what it is with Christina Tosi and freezing her desserts, the Birthday Cake had the same requirement. Sometimes you just want a sugar-rush and you don’t want to have to wait ‘3-hours or overnight is best’ #endrant

Then you have to remove it from the freezer and let it defrost for at least an hour, dust it with some powdered sugar, THEN you can eat it

So here’s my advice when making this pie —

Plan ahead. Make it at least a day in advance
If you have to bake it a bit more to get the filling to set up, you should cover the top with foil to keep the top from browning too much

Now, to be honest, I only had a sliver of this pie because I knew it was very rich in butter, sugar, and cream. And, on first bite, I wasn’t very impressed. I thought it was fine. But by the end of my little sliver, I could honestly say that it was pretty good!

Did it fit my DAMN DELICIOUS definition? No. Because I very easily gave the rest of the pie away. However, others who enjoyed my pies sent me the following reviews:

‘So delicious, just as good as Milk Bar’s itself’

‘O-M-G That may be the best thing I have ever had in my life’

‘OMG BABE! SOOOOOO [bad word here] GOOD’ <<<3M, obviously

And when I put it up for grabs at the office, it was gone in less than 5 minutes. Though, I think it was the Crack Pie’s pop-culture phenomenon that helped it along.

But, you be the judge.

Anyways, my final opinion is I probably wouldn’t make this pie again unless someone asked for it. In fact, I think it’s kind of a play of the traditional Southern Buttermilk Pie, if you’re familiar. I do however, have one more recipe on my Milk Bar bucket list, the Compost Cookies. I’m a cookie fan, so I’m hoping this is the winner.

What’s your thoughts? Have you had Milk Bar’s Crack Pie? Was it addicting or were you underwhelmed as I was?

Chocolate Almond Cheesecake Bites

January 22, 2014 by Alyssa

I lied when I said I didn’t like cheesecake. It’s true. I tell everyone that I don’t like cheesecake but the truth is…I do like it and for some reason, cheesecake seems to be a favorite dessert of most people I know. Americans in general are crazy about it. Heck, there’s even a restaurant named after it! I specifically remember my college roommate declaring her love for cheesecake, stating that she’d be having cheesecake as her wedding cake — years before she knew who she’d be marrying.

[And for the record, she had cheesecake. Darn good cheesecake at that. Some how, she mixed my two least favorite desserts, cheesecake & red velvet cake (I’ll talk about that another day), into a wedding cake and it tasted amazing!]

Unfortunately, with the exception of my college roommate’s wedding cake, I don’t tend to go as gaga as most over cheesecake. Not because I dislike the flavor or taste of cheesecake but mostly due to the fact that the texture is lacking and it’s a rather a calorie dense dessert — from crust to filling to the traditional cherry topping.

Let me break it down for you —

Crust:
This is basically cookies [they try to trick you by calling them crackers, but they’re cookies] mixed with butter and baked to make another cookie to use as the crust. Simply put, you just made cookies with butter and more cookies.

Graham Crackers: Simple enough, not really all that indulgent as long as traditional grahams are being used rather than the cinnamon-sugar topped crackers
Butter: Butter isn’t actually horrible for you. But 9 out of 10 doctors don’t recommend drenching cookies in butter.

Cream Cheese Filling:
This is simply fat-added, sugar sweetened, emulsified milk.

Cream Cheese: This is usually full-fat cows milk mixed with emulsifiers to lend firmness, stabilizing the cream and lengthening the cheese’s shelf-life. [Have you ever looked at the expiration date on unopened cream cheese? It’s at least 3 months. Doesn’t that freak you out?]
Cream: Yep, more cream because the cream from the cheese just isn’t enough.
Sugar: This is totally acceptable, this is a dessert.

Topping:

Cherry Pie Filling [from a can]: Yes, I’m specifically stating it’s from a can because the likelihood of someone actually making their own cherry topping is slim to none. America is all about short cuts and there’s nothing easier than “open & dump” when it comes to can goods.This canned pie filling is unnatural and overly sweet. The red filling sure is pretty against the white creamy cheesecake base but doesn’t it look a tad artificial to you? Have you ever seen cherries that hue of red? No?Me either. That’s because it’s fake. And those cherries, they’ve been soaking in that thick, sugary syrup for god knows how long. They’re basically artificially flavored sugar bombs.

Now, usually, cheesecake – and most cakes at that – are served in oversized portions making that fatty, sugary dessert sitting on your plate that much more of an indulgence. And if that’s what your intention is, to completely indulge, then pick up your fork and savor every bite!

But for those of us that want to enjoy cheesecake without guilt as a regular weekday dessert – I went about healthifying my version of cheesecake, creating Chocolate Almond Cheesecake Bites!

They’re portion controlled bites that have a bit of added cocoa powder, chocolate chips and almonds to make for a flavorful, decadent weeknight dessert without the calorie and sugar bomb splurge of traditional cheesecake. The almonds also add a dose of healthy fat, give the crust a bit of extra crunch and the mini chocolate chips add some texture and a touch of bittersweetness to the filling!

Chocolate Almond Cheesecake Bites

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Prep time

40 mins

Cook time

90 mins

Total time

2 hours 10 mins

Serves: 24 bites

Ingredients

5 sheets reduced fat graham crackers
¼ cup whole, unsalted almonds
3 tablespoons butter, melted
8 oz ⅓ less fat cream cheese, softened*
6 ounces nonfat plain yogurt
¼ cup egg whites **
⅓ cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons lemon juice
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¾ teaspoon pure almond extract
¼ cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Line a mini-muffin pan with 24 foil liners and set aside.
First make the crust -- In a food processor, process graham crackers until they reach a crumb-like consistency. Place in a small bowl and set aside. In the same processor, grind almonds into an almond-meal consistency and mix with graham cracker crumbs.
Combine graham cracker-almond crumbs with the melted butter until just coated, it will still be slightly course in texture. Distribute mixture evenly into cupcake liners and firmly press crumbs together to form a tight crust. Bake 7 minutes or until set. Remove from oven and set aside to cool while making the filling.
Now make the filling -- In a stand mixer, beat cream cheese for 2 minutes. This is mandatory as it helps give the filling a light texture by incorporating air. Beat in the yogurt, egg whites, sugar, cocoa powder, and flour until smooth [about 2-3 minutes]. Add in the lemon juice and the vanilla & almond extracts until just combined. Remove from mixer and fold in chocolate chips.
Evenly distribute the filling into each cupcake liner, filling about ¾ of the way full**. Bake for 16 - 18 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for at least 30 minutes. Finish cooling by placing the pan in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours. Serve after being well chilled.

Notes

* If you forgot to let your cream cheese soften, remove the paper packaging and place it on top of the pre-heating oven while you make the crust. It should be just soft enough once you finish.
** Either store bough egg-whites or traditional egg whites may be used - simply measure out a ¼ cup of either.
*** Depending on how light & fluffy you mixed your filling - you may have some remaining. Place it in an oven safe bowl, lightly coated with non-stick spray and bake along side the mini cheesecake bites for a crustless treat.

And just for comparison – let’s take a look at how my healthified chocolate almond cheesecake bites [left] compare to something similar – like the Cheesecake Factory’s Hershey’s Chocolate Bar Cheesecake [right, source].

I’m not sure about the rest of you but 500 calories is almost 1/3 of my daily calorie intake (roughly 1 meal) and 30 grams of fat maxes out my average fat intake for the day. Plus, this doesn’t even account for the whipped cream and adorning chocolate syrup that accompanies the cheesecake to your table.

I know in my case, I’m much safer enjoying my portion controlled cheesecake bite with a glass of red wine on the side while not having to stress about burning the extra calories at the gym in the morning.