Getting it Right: The Empire Cookie

I heart empire cookies. The proper ones, iced with jam filling. Did you hear that everybody out there? ICED. Also, the cookie itself needs to be like a yummy melt-in-your-mouth shortbread.

I have had them un-iced, filled with marmalade, a dark spicy cookie, covered with sugar. These are not a true empire, they are your version of an empire.

I have always been a fan of the Sticklings Bakery empire cookie. The texture, the sweet white icing and nice jam filling have always been a real treat.

This Christmas things changed. My friend Jillian brought me a tin full of her homemade empires. I have never quite had anything like them. They are sweet little gems, with the smoothest, softest cookie. Her icing is light and creamy (it’s not thick or hard like some). They are a good size (not huge, but average cookie size) They are in fact what I think is the perfect cookie.

Recently she came over with a tray, so we made some tea and took some pictures. She made them tea-cup shaped. This reminds me of how extremely thoughtful she is.

Thanks Jillian for helping me set folks straight on what an empire cookie is.

Oh and I will not ask her for the recipe. Ever.

B. Goods

I have been in love with Brad Campeau’s cookies for a long time now. I first tried his chili-chocolate well over a year ago at Market Organics in the Byward Market. This guy makes these little treasures in a mobile bakery facility-yes a truck! It puts me in mind of the mud truck in NYC, all I can say is GENIUS.

For the past few weekends we have picked up these cookies but they have never made it home (sometimes never to the car) until 2 survived this past weekend after our visit to the Main Market.

The two in the picture are mint chocolate and spelt molasses ginger (my fave), they were still warm when we got them home. Heavenly really, crispy outside, tender, soft and warm inside. The flavours are layered and intense. There is no conversation when eating these cookies we just inhale them, grinning the entire time like complete fools.

Other flavours include, spelt maple pecan, wholewheat double chocolate, cinnamon kasha, orange hazelnut, spelt oatmeal, wholewheat chocolate chip and valencia peanut butter. The mint chocolate, orange hazelnut, cinnamon kasha are gluten-free.

There are many places you can pick these gems up throughout the city, check out B. Goods website for more info. Enjoy!

Death by Cookie

I miss Dave Nichol. I miss him presenting the newest issue of the Insider’s Report, I miss his travel tales, I miss hearing him say “Too Good to be True”.  But, even without Dave, I still love President’s Choice Products and the fabulous recipes found on the website.

A few years back a friend of mine introduced me to the cookie recipe on the back of  the package of PC Decadent Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, these cookies are divine. I think the key is the addition of oatmeal that you have to grind to a flour consistency, it gives the cookies a nutty flavour without the texture of a true oatmeal cookie, its smoother with a bit of a crunch.

The recipe makes quite a few cookies (I got 52 out of it). They were a hit with visitors and disappeared quickly.

We both suffered from yet another sugar hangover.

• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups oatmeal, blended to a fine powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

1. Cream the butter and sugars together.
2. Add the eggs and vanilla.
3. In a bowl, mix the flour, oatmeal, baking powder and baking soda together and slowly mix into the wet ingredients.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Roll into balls and place 2 inches apart on a non-stick baking sheet.
6. Bake at 375°F/180°C for 10 minutes.

Day 5 Recipe:Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

A few days late posting, my apologies, but these holidays and all this good wine and reading….

I decided to make Bon Appetit’s “Dark and White Chocolate Chunk Cookies” http://www.bonappetit.com/dishes/cookies/index/index_20080420

I wanted my kitchen to have that chocolate baking smell and these babies did the trick. I would like to say it brought back great childhood memories, but mom didn’t make cookies, she was a great cook, she just didn’t bake. I had one (I am not lying) and immediately stuck them in the freezer for the Great American Camping Adventure next week. Now if I can just forget they are there until next Friday…………

These cookies are for real chocolate lovers, I used Cocoa Camino chips, and Lindt white chocolate-it is so worth using the good stuff, and frankly these things don’t cost that much more.

I’ll let you know what the true chocolate connoisseurs (my nieces) think when I get back.

see ya’