Mr. Beefgnaw's Wild Ride

Yeah, the Bake-a-Week kinda went off the rails during Day Job Hell Season and the subsequent Three-Ring Shitshow of Automotive Issues and also the hurricane and shit. I'm trying to get back on track. I'm trying to remember that the Bake-a-Week is supposed to push my skills and I really shouldn't do easy shit every week. I'm going to do macarons someday soon I swear but today was not that day.

Anyway! Recipe here. I added white chocolate chips and walnut chunks. Also the recipe says to bake them at 350 for 9-11 minutes but the second batch, which stayed in for 12 minutes, is my platonic ideal for a piece of what is basically... brownie jerky.

Yes. Brownie jerky. You know brownie brittle? That stuff that's just real thin and crunchy and it's good but it's not what we really love about brownie edges, right? Well, these cookies scratch the chewy-edge itch brownie brittle falls short on.

Technically a repeat but not really because a) this time I used bittersweet AND white chocolate chips and b) the chocolate chip cookies I did a few weeks ago were a small batch recipe and this one was uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh not small. three dozen cookies. I took two dozen to church Sunday morning and kept the remaining dozen for myself. They were great.

Recipe here.

I did not scoop these; I had such good results from the roll-chill-slice method I used on those chocolate chip cookies a couple weeks ago I figured it'd work here too. They probably could have stayed in the oven another minute or two but they're delicious as is.

I used white and dark chocolate chips because fuck it, we only live once.

Also it occurs to me that in my "oh shit I got accepted to culinary school NOW WHAT" brain weaselnado, I forgot to post last week's bake. I did finally get around to baking focaccia. It was tasty but uh... not very photogenic. PRO TIP: if you accidentally grab the fat free mozzarella instead of the good shit like I did, go back to the store and get the good shit, do not fucking use that fat free cheese, it doesn't brown and just turns into a ghastly pale plastic-like coating.

I was going to do focaccia this week. Upon reading the short list of recipes I'd gathered, I realized focaccia is not a recipe to be made when you have had a full day of Stuff and Meetings and have to go to bed at a reasonable hour to work tomorrow. I made chocolate chip cookies instead.

Instead of scooping these, I rolled the dough up in a log in plastic wrap, threw it in the freezer while I poked around in Infinite Wealth for a while, then took it out and chopped it into nice neat rounds with a bench knife. Worked great!

They are still cooling and I haven't tried one yet but boy they look and smell amazing. And the recipe made eight cookies for me. Eight cookies. That is a reasonable amount of cookies to share with my three friends Me, Myself, and I over the next few days.

(recipe)