But it’s all worth it, though, because these cookies could shame a bakery. They could drive a world-renowned physicist to insanity. They could make an angel weep. The recipe makes a lot of cookies, and each one is really big and really dense, so they should last you awhile. And you can taste the fact that these took a long time to make. I’m serious. You can taste how fancy these are.

These cookies come from here at Sugar Plum and they were featured on Savour. (They are very classy cookies.) They are similar to Levain Bakery copycat recipes floating around, but a fair bit more dense. There is quite a contrast between the “crispiness” of the outside and the chewiness of the inside… though the cookies are much chewier than they are crispy. In terms of changes, all I did was add a bit more chocolate and reduced the bake time a bit, because soft cookies are the bomb. If you want to live up to the classiness and seriousness of these cookies, you should only use very fancy and very expensive ingredients. I did not, because I am a poor grad student, and I buy whatever is on sale at Metro.

Walnut Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground sea salt
• 1.5 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

• 1 cup unsalted butter (two sticks)

• 4.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 2.5 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground sea salt, plus additional for sprinkling

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)
• 2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 4 tsp vanilla extract
• 16 oz coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate or chocolate chips

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Melt 2 tbsp butter in a small sauce pan on medium heat. Stir in 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 tsp sea salt, and bring it all to a boil. Whisk frequently until golden brown. Stir in all of the walnuts until they are well coated. Spread the walnuts out onto a greased or buttered cookie sheet and place in the oven for 3-5 minutes, to lightly toast them. (Don’t forget about your walnuts if you move on to the next steps.)

• Melt 1 cup butter (2 sticks) in a small sauce pan on medium heat. Keep whisking, let it boil and start to foam and brown a bit. Remove sauce pan from heat, set it aside.

• Sift together flour, baking soda, and 2 tsp sea salt in a medium-sized bowl, and set it aside.

• In a large mixing bowl and using an electronic mixer, beat 1/2 cup (1 stick) of softened butter with the 2 cups of brown sugar and the 1 cup of granulated sugar until it’s all well combined. (It’ll be grainy; not completely smooth.) Beat in the 1 cup of browned butter you recently heated up. Now beat in the 4 large eggs and the 4 tsp of vanilla. Add the sifted dry mixture (flour, baking soda, sea salt) to your wet mixture, and slowly beat until just combined. Stir in the chopped chocolate and the walnuts until thoroughly mixed. Chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

• Drop large giant clumps of dough (at least 1/4 cup each) onto your cookie sheet. They won’t spread too much, so they don’t have to be too far apart, and you should flatten them a bit, with your palms or a fork. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 11-13 minutes, or until the edges are just starting to turn golden brown. Remove from oven, let ‘em cool for a minute or two, then transfer the cookies to wire racks.

It occurred to me that one way to create my chewy Oreo cookie would be to grind up the Oreos and add them to the batter. The result is this recipe. I also added some cocoa. And as for the Oreo filling, I found that if you separated the filling from the cookies, put it in the fridge awhile, you could then cut it up and shape the pieces into chip-sized… chips.

The recipe worked; the cookies were delicious, and did indeed taste kind of like big, soft, chewy Oreos. My girlfriend thought they were just a bit sweet. Next time I might drop a bit of the sugar.

Soft and Chewy Oreo Cookie Cookies

• 1 stick butter
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1.25 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp cocoa
• 6 Oreos
• 1/3 cup white chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup chocolate chips

1. Separate the Oreo halves and the Oreo filling. Grind up the cookie portion of the Oreos, and put the filling in the fridge. Set the Oreo crumbs aside.

2. Beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add egg and vanilla.

3. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, Oreo crumbs and cocoa. Add this to wet mixture. Fold in chocolate and white chocolate chips. Put the dough in the fridge.

4. Take the Oreo filling out of the fridge and cut it up or shape it (whatever way works for you) into a bunch of little chip-sized chunks.

5. Take the dough out of the fridge, and drop tablespoon-sized cookies onto bake pans or sheets. Add the filling “chips” to the tops of the cookies.*

6. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 8-11 minutes.

* shaping the filling into little chip-sized chunks isn’t that easy. Next time, I might consider just mixing the filling in with the dough, and adding more white chocolate chips.

I ended up baking them one tray at a time. The first tray is what you see pictured. The cookies spread out a bunch (’til they touched each other) and were very flat. While the first tray was in the oven I put the remaining dough in the fridge to cool. When I dropped the chilled cookie dough onto the next tray I also used smaller portions, and the result was a batch of slightly thicker cookies. So if you want thicker cookies, chill the dough first. And don’t flatten the cookies with your fork; they’ll do that themselves while they’re baking. I prefer the thin versions, but you do have to be careful to let them cool before you lift them off the tray, or else they’ll fall apart. Anyways, these are great if you like your oatmeal cookies thin and buttery.

In other news, my Ph.D. applications are finally all done, and I just sent the last three (of six) application packages off this morning using Xpresspost. It’s odd that of the schools I applied to, the advantages that each one has varies quite a bit. One has a professor with research interests more similar to my own than any other. Another is the home of one of my favourite journals. Another is one of the few schools doing research into digital media and new literary mediums. Then there’s the one with the crazy library resources. We’ll see what happens, I suppose.

Plain Oatmeal Cookies Recipe

• 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1.25 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 cups quick-cooking oats

1. Cream butter and sugars until smooth.
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until smooth.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl, then add this to the wet mixture. Fold in the oatmeal.
4. Bake at 325 degrees Fahrenheit for 11-13 minutes. Let cool on the pan for awhile, unless you want them to fall apart on you (especially if they are very thin).

To the recipe I added ground up white chocolate (using a magic bullet), took out some dark chocolate to compensate, and threw in a bit of cinnamon. I love cinnamon on everything, so I am biased, but my girlfriend assures me it was a wise choice. The taste is subtle, bit it’s clearly there.

The white chocolate spread throughout, combined with the oatmeal and cinnamon, makes for a pretty good cookie. If you don’t want to try the white chocolate just add a corresponding amount of regular chocolate chips.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Ingredients

• 1¬†cup butter
• 1¬†cup sugar
• 1¬†cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2¬†cups flour
• 1¬†tsp baking soda
• 1¬†tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2¬†cups quick-cooking rolled oats
• 2¬†tsp vanilla
• 8 oz dark or milk chocolate, chips or chopped
• 4 oz white chocolate

Directions

1. Chop up dark chocolate if not in chip form. Grind up white chocolate chips into a powder.
2. Blend butter and sugars until fluffy. Add and beat in eggs.
3. Sift flour, baking soda and salt; add to wet mixture. Stir in oats, vanilla and chips. Add cinnamon.
4. Drop by batter by rounded tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet.
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until the edges seem cooked. Remove and let cool on wire rack.

I got about 50 oatmeal cookies.

Here is the result of two minutes of Googling: cream of tartar is most often used, it seems, to help stabilize and give more volume to beaten egg whites. Wikipedia has more uses. In baking and making cookies, however, cream of tartar (the acid) is added to baking soda (the leavening agent) so that when combined with the wet ingredients, it causes the reaction that gives cookies their rise. Think back to the volcanoes you made in school: you added vinegar (the acid) to baking soda and water, and that caused the awesomeness you subsequently witnessed. Now, baking powder, on the other hand, contains the acid, the leavener, and other stuff. The more you know.

Back to the cookies. I didn’t add walnuts because, well, I didn’t want to. So I added more chocolate chips to compensate. This little bit of baking genius I thought up all on my own. One thing I’ve also started doing with chocolate chip cookies so to cover up the bottom of the cookies so no chocolate chips are visible. That way they don’t melt to the baking pan.

Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 stick (1/2 cup )butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp. hot water
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1.5 c. chocolate chips

Directions

1. Cream butter and sugars. Beat in egg, then vanilla extract.

2. Dissolve baking soda in hot water (I used a measuring cup to hold the water). Add to batter along with salt and mix. Mix flour and cream of tartar, then add them to the batter and mix it all up. Stir in the chocolate chips. Refrigerate for an hour, even longer if possible.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Add cookies to baking sheets in average sized portions (use an ice cream scoop, maybe?). Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes, or until edges are lightly browned. Remove from oven and cool completely on wire racks.

I made 19 chocolate chip cookies; not huge ones, but they’re bigger than, say, Chips Ahoy. I like my chocolate chip cookies soft, so I leaned quite close to eight minutes.

The original recipe on the bag says you need 1 egg and 2 tbsp butter, and the bag makes two servings. I find it’s easier to just throw the whole bag in a bowl and alter the ingredients accordingly.

I don’t like small cookies, and I usually get around 36-40, though I’m not creating giant cookies. If you get 60 cookies out of this (as the bag says you can) then you’ll probably have awfully small cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 bag Quaker Cookie Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk
• 1 bag sweetened coconut (about 200g)
• 1 handful of Chocolate Chips
• 2 eggs
• 5 tbsp butter (melted)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2.Throw cookie mix into bowl. Throw coconut in with it. Add as many chocolate chips as you like. Add eggs, then 5 tbsp melted butter. Mix it up with a fork. Don’t use an electronic mixer.

3. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove and let cool on pan.*

*I always only bake for exactly 10 minutes, and then put the pan in the freezer after they’ve cooled at room temperature for a minute or two. I like soft cookies, and the freezer seems to keep them from falling apart, even after they warm up later on.

Ingredients:

• 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
• 6 tbsp sugar
• 6 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 tbsp peanut butter
• 1.25 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• A handful of peanut butter chips (or more)
• A handful of chocolate chips (or more)

Directions

1. Cream butter and sugars. Add egg, then vanilla, then peanut butter.

2. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt. Add to wet mixture. Add in various types of chips.

3. Place cookie sized rounds of dough on baking sheet/tray. Press down a bit with a fork, but you probably don’t have to.

4. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes. Let cool about one minute, then place the entire trays of cookies in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Remove, let them come down to room temperature.*

* I find this helps deal with the fact that these cookies are so soft out of the oven, and also prevents them from continuing to cook more as it sits on the still quite warm baking tray.

This cookie, and many like it, are an attempt to copy the giant cookie available from Levain Bakery in New York. On the bakery’s home page, it looks like the Levain cookie is slightly darker on the outside and slightly softer on the inside than the ones I have made. Oh well. That can be fixed with modified bake times and temperatures.

Modified Copy of Levain Huge Chocolate Chip Cookies

• 2 sticks unsalted butter (softened)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate

1. Beat butter and both sugars until creamy.
2. Add the eggs and the vanilla until combined.
3. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a separate bowl, then add this dry mix to the wet mix.
4. Grind up a few ounces of the chocolate until it is in really small bits, much smaller than a regular chip. You should have a variety of sizes of chocolate, some much smaller than regular chocolate chips, some about the same, and a few that are bigger. Add all the chocolate to the batter. Stick the batter in the fridge for 15-30 minutes (optional).
5. Each cookie, when you put it on the pan, should weigh a little over 4 oz,* and you should get a total of 12 cookies, six per pan. Mine were pretty much rolled into balls. I also tried to make sure I covered any exposed chocolate on the bottom of each with more dough, so that the chocolate didn’t melt onto the pan.

Baking: Set the oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 8 minutes. Then, without opening the oven door, re-set the oven to 325 degrees and wait 8 more minutes. Take the cookies out and cool on a wire rack. Or, if you are me, stick the pan on top of a pot because you do not own a wire rack.

Alternate, Easier Bake Times: Bake at 350 degrees 18-22 minutes until done.

I did the first bake method, but if I wanted to go for an even softer inside (though my insides were quite soft) I might try the easier bake method and keep my times closer to the 18 minute mark. I probably will do this, because to me there’s practically no such thing as an underbaked cookie, provided it holds together.

*Note: I have since learned that for Levain sized cookies, 6oz is closer to the real deal. You would have to add a bit of bake time to compensate, I would imagine, but then again soft cookies are awesome and these hold together quite well.