For June 2

A couple of new recipes this week:

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies, from Martha Stewart
Blondies, from Alice Medrich, Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt In Your Mouth Cookies

I first encountered the Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies in a Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies magazine that I picked up in the grocery store last fall.  There are a lot of good recipes in there, but somehow I didn't really make much out of that volume before my Christmas (and then my post-Christmas "buy what you wanted but didn't get") cookbook avalanche began.  But I have to say, from the first minute I read the title for this cookie, I knew I had to make it.  This is a very nice chocolate cookie that is quite nice but a bit boring and traditional up until the point you roll it in a cinnamon-sugar-chile powder mixture before placing each mound on the baking sheet.  The Martha Stewart link I have given you says that this chile powder is "optional" but go for it - it really isn't optional, and these would be very nice, but not very interesting, cookies if you omitted it.  The version that I have recommends using a chile powder that is not the usual blend (when you buy chile powder in the store, it is a blend) but instead to get a chile powder that shows that it is arbol, chipotle or pasilla chile powder.  We used the chipotle, because that was what we could find.  Smoky, yum. With different chile powders, your results will vary.

Anyway, our experience of these was that they were really nice - the cookie has a bit of a crusty exterior, but a soft and wonderful interior.  A great texture, probably my favorite style of cookie.  And the chile powder was definitely a flavor, but a subtle one - you notice it more when you are done with the cookie than when you are eating it.  One person told me I could have upped the chile content for more of a kick.  On the other hand, this is a very individual issue, and I was taking the middle road.  But I think I probably would add a bit more, maybe to the cookie dough, next time....

As for the blondies, well, they were blondies.  This was a nice recipe from Alice Medrich (whose Chewy Gooey cookbook by the way, just won the baking cookbook of the year from the IACP), and I was looking for a bar cookie for this week.  These are good.  Again, ingredients are key - I used the best brown sugar I can get, and since, in a blondie, brown sugar is the major flavor ingredient, I encourage you to look for and use good quality brown sugar if you make these.  At the end, you sprinkle the top with chocolate chips and some reserved walnuts.  As regular readers know, I usually eschew chocolate chips in favor of hand cutting chocolate.  Here, though, I used chips.  The Cook's Illustrated magazine did a taste test a few years ago and pronounced the Ghirardelli 60% Bittersweet chocolate chips the best (or among the best that are easily available) and that is what I used here.  Two people said they would like to try this recipe without any chocolate.  I looked at them sympathetically and nodded, but, well, really?  Actually, it would be good w/o the chocolate, so maybe next time I will try it that way.