Salted White & Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cookies

I've been baking hella cookies lately. I also can't stop saying hella. Yeah, I don't know what that's all about, but it's happening and even though I cringe every time I say it, I can't stop. The other day I was mistaken for being from the Bay Area, so we can let my excessive "hella" usage slide. 

Okay um... cookies! Yes, that's what were talking about! So I've been baking hella cookies over the past few months because I've been so busy that I don't have: a) the time or b) the patience to bake and frost a lovely three layer cake or make a pie with complete with little fall leaf designs cut out in the crust. I'm starting to think that my teachers convened a devised a special plan to make my life a living hell by extending my original one week of midterms to four consecutive weeks of absolute bullshit. FOUR. WHOLE. WEEKS. Yeah, I'm totally considering dropping out at this point and funding the rest of my life through a series of impromptu bake sales because #sugar. So yeah, this post is super rant-y and conversational but just deal with it, my mental capacity has taken a serious hit so my writing style is definitely more in the vein of "word vomit" than my usual "absurd-story-about-an-absurd-cake-that-doesnt-make-sense-but-kinda-does" act. 

Sorry, but you guys are stuck with yet another cookie recipe for the time being. Wait. Did I just apologize for giving you guys a cookie recipe? Especially one that's hella next-level. 

When I was in New York, I had an epiphany that came in the form of a pistachio cookie at Maison Kayser. I took two bites and I knew that I had experienced something extremely important, so I decided to remake this cookie immediately when I got home. I had a huge chocolate chip cookie taste testing sesh this summer and discovered that the famed Jacques Torres/New York Times cookies actually is the best chocolate chip cookies recipe, even though I hoped I could developed a recipe to dethrone it and award myself the title of Chocolate Chip Cookie King. (It's a real fantasy I have.) Out of 9 other chocolate chip recipes, that one was the surefire winner. To make these cookies, I decided to make a batch of the trusty Jacques Torres dough, but then added hella pistachio paste, hella melty white and dark chocolate chunks, and hella chopped pistachios. Guess what I topped them with. Yep, none other than hella Maldon sea salt flakes. 

How were they? You guessed it. HELLA DELICIOUS. No but really, hella-ness aside, these cookies are amazing and I'm preeeetty sure they're gonna be making the rounds at holiday parties in the coming months. Pin these now, you won't regret it. 

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Salted White & Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cookies 

(adapted from this) 

• 2 cups minus 2 tablespoons cake flour
• 1 2/3 cups bread flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse salt
• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons natural vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup pistachio paste (homemade or store-bought) 
• 10 oz. high-quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped 
• 6 oz. high-quality dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup roasted and shelled pistachios, chopped 
• sea salt flakes (I love Maldon)

DIRECTIONS

In a medium bowl, sift flours, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Set aside.

Using a mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until very light, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla and pistachio paste. Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Fold in chocolate chunks and chopped pistachios. Press plastic wrap against dough and refrigerate for 24 to 36 hours. Dough may be used in batches, and can be refrigerated for up to 72 hours.

Scoop 3.5-ounce mounds of dough (the size of generous golf balls) onto baking sheet. Sprinkle lightly (or generously, like me!) with sea salt flakes and bake until golden brown but still soft, about 18 to 20 minutes at 350F. Transfer sheet to a wire rack for 10 minutes, then slip cookies onto another rack to cool a bit more. 

Bananas Foster Tiramisu

By the time you're reading this I'll either be either in or en route to New York City. Yes, I actually survived midterms and I'm finally on the fall break (!!!) I've been daydreaming of for weeks. I've got a crazy busy weekend planned, but I'll be recapping my trip once I get back next week. In the meantime, I wanted to round out this hectic with something extra sweet and special.

It's been a few weeks since the last installment in my Eating New Orleans series, so I'm tackling one of the most traditional local flavors today. Yep, you guessed it (or you know, you just read the title to this blog post): today is all about Bananas Foster. 

Bananas Foster was created in 1951 at the famed Brennan's in New Orleans' French Quarter, but has since gained status as New Orleans' unofficial dessert. And for good reason too, it's freaking delicious. Butter and brown sugar are melted down with sliced bananas and caramelized for a hot second, before rum and banana liqueur are added, flambéd tableside and served warm with vanilla ice cream. 

Bananas Foster is so simple that I knew I had to dress it up somehow for y'all, so the Bananas Foster Tiramisu was born. Rounds of moist banana bread are soaked in a brown sugar and rum mixture before being topped with a creamy banana mascarpone filling. On top of that goes a layer of bananas foster, then more filling. I topped my little tiramisus off with a banana chip dust and some bruléed bananas, because, let's face it, I'm always looking for a way to wreak havoc upon my kitchen with a blow torch. It only took one bite before I knew this one was a keeper; there's so many different textures going on that I was totally having a mouth party for a (couple) hot second(s). Creamy, chewy, moist, crunchy... it's all there. 

Even my parents, who resent the amount of sugar I bring into this house, were obsessed. I made my mom try them at 10am and the sound that left her mouth after a single taste totally sealed the deal. According to Ellen (hi mom!), these are one of the best desserts I've ever made. What more approval could I ask for?  

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Bananas Foster Tiramisu

Filling:

• 250g mascarpone
• 1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream
• 4 tablespoons creme de banane
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 banana, mashed
• 1 tablespoon instant banana pudding (just the powder, not the prepared pudding)

Soak:

• 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar 
• 2 tablespoons dark rum
• 1/3 cup boiling water

Bananas Foster:

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 2 ripe bananas, peeled and sliced 
• 2 tablespoons dark rum

Extras: 

• 1 loaf of banana bread (homemade or store-bought)
• bananas, for garnish

Cut out banana bread in circles the size of your serving glass, about 1/2-inch thick. Place in the bottom of glasses. 

To make the soak, mix together the brown sugar, confectioners' sugar, rum, and boiling water until smooth. Using a pastry brush, evenly distribute the mixture over banana bread pieces until soaked through. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, make the filling by mixing together the heavy cream, mascarpone, mashed banana, and pudding mix on low to combine. Increase the mixer to high speed and whip until thickened. Layer on top of the banana bread. 

To make the bananas foster, heat the butter over medium heat until melted. Once melted, add the brown sugar and stir until combined. Add in the banana slices and cook until caramelized. Remove from heat and mix in rum. Using a long lighter, flambe the mixture until the rum cooks away. Layer on top of the mascarpone filling, before repeating this step with more filling. 

Chill and serve. 

Reverse Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

It's that time of the year again. No, not the whole drinking a hot apple cider and laying in a pile of crispy orange leaves in the cool fall air fantasy ordeal. Midterms are here to ruin my life!!! 

October is the best month, but it's one of those months that's always insaaaanely busy. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment: I'm trying to do the whole school thing without missing class (too) regularly, we're opening a new restaurant at work, I've officially succumbed to the pumpkin gods so I'm always baking lots of fall things, dragging myself to the gym at obscene hours due to said pumpkin things, and now I'm getting everything ready for a crazy exciting New York trip this weekend. As if my teachers didn't get the memo that my life is busy, now I have to find time to study? No thanks.

 If someone were to ask me how I'm feeling about everything right now, I'd tell them that I'm feeling like that emoji of the girl that looks like her impending mental breakdown is just about to hit, but she is totally unable to react to it yet. (Siri just notified me that this is the "woman with downcast face" emoji. The more you know!) Is it sad that I've become this addicted to emojis that I've begun to think of my moods as emojis, and not in usual emotional terms? Please don't answer that. 

When I'm stressed out, I do some pretty weird things in the name of relieving some tension. Right now, my therapy of choice is spending hours avoiding my problems in the aisles of Target or World Market or Michael's. I think it's something about all of the festive decorations and Halloween candy for purchase, but I find myself in this position multiple times a week. Generally, I peruse the baking aisles for an obnoxious period of time and take the time to examine every single item I could possibly waste my money on. 

Last weekend, I found myself back in this routine, this time aimlessly searching through the aisles of my local Michael's. After convincing myself it was way too early to buy Christmas cupcake liners, I stumbled upon this Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion. I've used the LorAnn bakery emulsions in the past and they're pretty damn near excellent at penetrating anything you're baking with crazy amounts of flavor. I was interested in seeing what the red velvet variety would taste like, so I snagged it up with my coupon. (Craft stores seem to always have crazy coupons available, right?)

I've always dismissed red velvet as one of those flavors that everybody thinks is special, but really isn't. Call me a douchebag, but I was quite the flavor elitist before discovering how well junk food could translate into more refined desserts. Since then, I've been relearning everything I knew about flavor combinations and pushing myself to rediscover, mix and mash different flavors. 

I've been super into red velvet recently. It all started a few weeks ago, when Sucre unveiled a red velvet macaron that rocked my world. Days later, I was eating one too many Sprinkles' red velvet cupcakes that I'm desperately searching to recreate for my personal pleasure. In the meantime, I've been testing out some recipes for reverse red velvet creations; cream cheese as the base, red velvet as the frosting. I wish I could say I was the first to do this, but I thought it was a pretty genius idea when it popped into my head. 

Elizabeth already made a reverse red velvet cake, so I wanted to switch things up. Plus, I haven't been baking cookies lately, and cookies are my thing. The base of these cookies is adapted from my extra special sugar cookie recipe, but with extra cream cheese added to the base for proper reverse red velvet authenticity. These soft and chewy sugar cookies are then filled with red velvet frosting, double doozie style. This way, you can eat more cookies and feel like you've only eaten one! How's that for getting a bang for your buck? :-) 

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CREAM CHEESE SUGAR COOKIES 

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
• 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream or whole milk
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• sanding sugar (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the sugar, cream cheese, and melted butter in a large bowl and whisk. The mixture will form a smooth paste. Mix in the vegetable oil. Stir in the egg, cream, and vanilla. Whisk until the mixture is smooth. Gently fold in the dry ingredients.

Refrigerate the dough for at least 15 minutes. 

Scoop out tablespoons of dough and roll in sanding sugar. Place on baking tray and bake for 10-12 minutes. Let the cookies cool completely before icing with red velvet frosting. 

RED VELVET FROSTING 

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons buttermilk
• 1 tsp. white or cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. Red Velvet Bakery Emulsion (optional)
• 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
• 4 cups confectioners' sugar
• red food coloring

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter until creamy, about 2 minutes. Mix in the milk, buttermilk, vinegar, and extracts. Gradually add the cocoa powder and confectioners' sugar and beat until smooth. Add food coloring until desired color is achieved.