Tollhouse Pie

Hope everyone had a good St. Patrick's Day. I don't really have any Saint Patrick's recipes, but I do have a few good recipes for your leftover Irish Whiskey. 

I have been making Tollhouse Pie (A gooey chocolate chip cookie in pie form.) for years. This recipe from Baked is almost identical to my recipe, except with the addition of Whiskey. As a non-drinker I can say there is no taste of Whiskey in the pie, it just adds a little something extra to the overall flavor.  I love it served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, but it's delicious straight out of the refrigerator the next day too.

Tollhouse Pie
From Baked

9" pie crust (recipe follows)
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, cut in cubes
1 tbs whiskey
1/2 cup walnuts
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with a cookie sheet inside.

In a medium bowl, whisk flour and sugars until combined. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the eggs on high until foamy, about 3 minutes. Remove whisk attachment and add the paddle attachment. With the mixer on low gradually add the flour mixture. Turn the mixer to high and beat for 2 minutes. Scrape the bowl and add the butter. Beat on high until the mixture is combined. Scrape the bowl, add the whiskey, and beat on high for 1 minute.

Fold in the walnuts and 3/4 cup chocolate chips into the filling.

Pour the filling into the pie shell, and spread evenly. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chips on the top of the pie.

Bake for 25 minutes, then cover the edges of the crust with aluminum foil and bake for another 25 minutes. 

Pie Crust
Martha Stewart

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for rolling dough
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 tablespoons ice water, plus 2 more, if needed

In a food processor, pulse flour, salt, and sugar several times to combine. Add butter. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with just a few pea-size pieces remaining, 10 pulses. Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons ice water. Pulse until dough is crumbly but holds together when squeezed with fingers (if needed, add up to 2 tablespoons more ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time). Do not overprocess. Turn dough out onto a work surface; form dough into a 3/4-inch-thick disk. Wrap tightly in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour. Before baking, unwrap dough; place on a large piece of floured waxed paper. Roll dough to a 14-inch round. Using paper, lift and wrap dough around rolling pin (discarding paper); carefully unroll over a 9-inch pie plate. Gently fit into bottom and up sides of plate. Trim overhang to 1 inch; fold overhang under itself. Pinch between thumb and forefinger to make a uniform edge around the rim. Crimp edge; refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour

Why I Am Not A Scientist - Chocolate Chip Cookie Project

 

Steps of the the scientific method:
1. Ask a question
2. Do background research
3. Construct a hypothesis
4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment
5. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion
6. Communicate your results

It all sounds easy enough, I mean elementary school kids have been doing this for years, so why can't I do it. I will tell you why, I am IMPATIENT. Instead of following what all 6 years olds learned in school, I just jumped right in and skipped steps 3 & 4.

Steps of the Roxie method:
1. Ask a question - Why did my chocolate chip cookies get so puffy
2. Do background research - Read blogs and message boards
3. Experiment using all the research information - Add more flour, use new cookie sheet, use bread flour, less baking soda, mix less, and refrigerate
4. Communicate your results

Well that worked great, because I have big puffy beautiful chocolate chip cookies. They are very tasty; soft; and picture perfect cookie, but what exactly caused them to be this way? Maybe if I followed the real method I would know, but I changed so many things I am almost back to square one. Well, here is a great recipe for puffy chocolate chip cookies anyway.

Chocolate Chip Cookies #4

3 cups bread flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter (melted)
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Put melted butter in freezer while preparing dry ingredients
In medium bowl combine flour, salt and baking soda
In a large bowl beat sugars until mixed

 

Add butter and beat for 20 seconds

Beat in the eggs and vanilla for 30 seconds9

Slowly add the flour and continue beating for 60 seconds (It will still be very floury)

Add the chocolate chips and continue mixing by hand (It will be very thick and hard to stir)

Place bowl in freezer while oven preheats to 350 degrees

Scoop out on thin baking sheet (not an AirBake) and bake for 10-14 minutes

 Cookies on the left are recipe #4 and on the right recipe #3

The Results: Very good. They were definitely thick and puffy, and taste pretty good. (I am still not a huge fan of thick cookies.) But they didn't have the exact taste of Toll House cookies.

So what was it that made these so puffy? My plan now is to use this same recipe and slowly alter it closer to the Toll House recipe. And I have learned my lesson, this time I will follow the scientific method.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Project...Still

I am still at it. This time I am trying butter flavored Crisco. I have tried regular Crisco before, by itself and in different measurements with butter with no luck. But I have to say I have an issue with all shortenings. For some reason they freak me out. Health wise butter and shortening are both gross, but for some reason the fact that shortening can sit unrefrigerated on a shelf doesn't seem right. So as I get ready to use butter flavored Crisco the outer wrapper throws a wrench into my baking. Right there on the top of the container it say " How to substitute Crisco shortening for butter or margarine in your favorite recipes, 1 cup Crisco + 2 tablespoons water = 1 cup butter or margarine." Crap, Crisco just added another damn variable. So what do I do, just substitute straight across or do I do what Crisco suggests. I decided on the straight across substitution first.

Chocolate Chip Cookies #3

2 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt ( a little shy, because we ran out.)
 1 cup butter flavor Crisco
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs room temperature
2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
In a bowl of a stand mixer, beat Crisco and sugars until creamy.
Add vanilla and eggs, beat until combined.
On low speed add flour and mix for 30 seconds.
Add chocolate chips and stir in by hand.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes.

The Results: Just what I thought, gross. Even my boss at work didn't like them. He asked if I did something different this time. (He doesn't know about my Mission.) I said yes, and before I even told him what it was he said it coats your mouth with a greasy feeling. When I told him what I did, he said I should stick with butter. So that's a big fat NO to butter flavored Crisco. Now what?

Chocolate Chip Cookie Saga

The chocolate chip cookie saga continues. After my afternoon exercise the first thing that popped into my head was to make Chocolate Chip Butterfinger Cookies. (My trainer said it is good to eat high protein food after working out.) I am still on my Chocolate Cookie Project, but I am not sure I can truly qualify this as part of the mission.

Chocolate Chip Cookies #2 (with Butterfinger)

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2/4 cup melted butter
1/4 cup Crisco
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg room temperature
1 egg yolk room temperature
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup Butterfinger chunks

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Chop up Butterfinger bar coarsely.
In a small bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
In bowl of stand mixer beat butter, Crisco, and sugars until creamy.
Add vanilla and eggs and beat until combined.
Stir in chocolate chips and Butterfinger.
Bake 15 to 17 minutes.

Results: Delicious, but the next day the Butterfinger makes the cookie very crispy, which my son liked better. I am definitely going to make these again, probably every time I make chocolate chip cookies. I thought about using Butterfinger BB's but apparently they don't make them any more. With all that said they were not puffy Oregon cookies.

Chocolate Chip Pie

 

Chocolate Chip Pie is one of my favorite desserts. It's always a crowded pleaser and is super easy to make. This time I added a tropical twist.

Tropical Chocolate Chip Pie

2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup melted butter (cooled to room temperature)
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 cup macadamia nuts
1 9" pie shell

Preheat oven to 325. In large bowl, beat eggs until foamy. Add flour, sugar and brown sugar beat until well blended. Blend in butter. Stir in chips, coconut, and macadamia nuts. Pour into pie shell. Bake for 1 hour. Serve warm with ice cream or I like it from the refrigerator.
(I never said it was healthy.)