Brownie Krinkle Cookies

A while back, I reviewed a cookbook called Cookie Love over on Munching on Books, but I usually don't think cookbook reviews are really complete until I've written about at least one of the recipes. People who want cookbooks are interested in the recipes, not the plot, right?

When I saw the Brownie Krinkles, I knew I had to try them. They look a lot like cookies I've made for many years, but the recipe is different. And these promised a soft center, which really interested me. As much as I like a crisp cookie, I also like soft, chewy, and fudgy cookies.

These delivered on the promise - they're deeply chocolate-flavored and not overly sweet. They're soft in the center. They're pretty marvelous.

This certainly isn't the most unusual cookie in the book, but it's the one that called to me the loudest. It was a good choice for a review, that's for sure.

The one downside of making this recipe is the number of bowls it uses. But ... it's not like you're putting things in bowls just to hold them. You might reduce the number of bowls needed if you cracked the eggs straight into the batter, but that's something I never do - there's nothing worse than having to fish an errant eggshell out of a batter. So I always crack eggs into another container just to be safe.

Brownie Krinkles
Adapted from Cookie Love by Mindy Segal

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes
1/2 cup canola or sunflower oil
1 3/4 cups sugar
For coating:
1 cups powdered sugar

Melt the chocolate in a double boiler (or in a bowl over a pot of simmering water), stirring occasionally. Keep warm.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and both salts.

In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the oil and sugar on low speed for one minute. Add the melted chocolate and mix for another 30 seconds.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed, throughout the mixing process.

Add the eggs one at a time (along with the vanilla) while mixing at medium speed. Wait until one is incorporated before adding the next.

Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, then mix again on medium speed for another 30 seconds.

Add the dry ingredients all at once, and mix until the dough comes together, but it's still shaggy rather than smooth. Do not overmix.

With a plastic bench scraper or spatula, continue mixing the dough by hand, until it comes together.

Cover the bowl or transfer the dough to a more convenient container and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight.

When you're ready to bake, heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a few baking sheets with parchment paper.

Put the powdered sugar in a bowl. You'll be rolling the cookies around in it, so make sure it's larger enough for that.

Use a small disher - about 1 1/2 tablespoons - to portion the dough. Roll them into balls, then roll them around in the powdered sugar to coat them completely.

Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Add another pinch or two of powdered sugar to the tops of the cookies.

Bake for 8 minutes, then rotate the pans and bake for another 3 or 4 minutes, until the cookies have formed a crinkled surface and the cookies are set in the middle. For the best result, they should be set on the edges and the tops should no longer look raw - overbaked cookies won't be fudgy, which is the point of these.

Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the pan for a few minutes before moving them to a rack to cool completely.

Continue portioning, rolling, and baking until you've used all of the dough - or if you prefer, you could make a small batch and store the unbaked dough in the refrigerator to be baked another day.

Rolling the Dice Cocktail: Rye and Orange

I have to admit that I'm smitten with the idea of the TV show, Chopped. Some days, my cooking is just like that. Open the refrigerator and pull out several things, and brainstorm.

Unlike Chopped, though, I'm working with things I've chosen to work with. It's not like some crazy person in my refrigerator is handing me radishes and sweet pickles and telling me to make dessert. But I do like the brainstorming that happens when my eye wanders onto random things.

So when I got Recipe Dice, I knew I was going to have fun. And then ... Chai Dice and Cocktail Dice.

These cute little brainstormers-in-a-bottle are wooden dice with different ingredients on different sides of the dice. I played with the recipe dice first rolling different dinner ideas and brainstorming what I might make.

This time, though, we're "cooking" with the cocktail dice.

The instructions say you should set aside the black-and-white dice for a later roll, but I think the method and glassware on those dice help the brainstorming process. And then you eliminate up to two dice that you think won't work. Which makes sense. You really don't need that many ingredients in a cocktail, and of course you can add things.

The six ingredient dice for the cocktails are for the type of alcohol, a mixer, a juice, a garnish, and an add-in (like mint or basil) and another liquid, like simple syrup or grenadine. I'm sure there are names for all of those components, but it's a logical way of setting things up.

I rolled this: simple syrup, lime slice, nutmeg, cola, double old fashioned glass, poured, whiskey, and orange juice.

Whisk(e)y is a pretty broad category, which allows some personalization. I just received a bottle of Crown Royal Northern Harvest Rye, so I decided to use that for my alcohol component. It seemed pretty obvious that I needed to choose either orange juice or cola - a mix of the two didn't seem appealing to me at that moment. I chose the orange and the simple syrup and the lime.

I have to say that none of my glassware is all that traditional when it comes to cocktail making. I have taller glasses and short squat ones. I have wine glasses and a few other odds and ends. The roll of the dice told me I needed a short squat glass and that the drink was poured rather than blended or shaken. So I put ice in my short squat glass and carried on with drink testing.

I know, it's a hard job. But someone has to do it, right?

While the dice tell you what to use, they don't tell you how much. So, again, there's personalization.

This was a very drinkable cocktail. Sort of like a whisky sour, but not.

I have to admit that my whisky education started rather late, and I'm still learning a lot about the different types of whiskies available. Thanks to the generous folks at Diageo, I'm learning a whole lot more than I'd probably learn from wandering around the liquor store.

Besides the new Northern Harvest Rye Blend, the company has expanded the the Crown Royal Hand Selected Barrel program. See, I didn't even know that existed. The program allows retailers to purchase an entire barrel of whisky featuring Coffey Rye.

They said, "Whisky adorers can savor the signature Crown Royal smoothness through this single barrel liquid that is produced from the brand’s Coffey Rye Still, the only known still of its kind in North America, located in Gimli, Manitoba." So there you go.

Along with the bottle of the regular rye, they send along a taster of the single-barrel rye that I'll be sipping soon. Meanwhile, I've been enjoying the blended product a lot.

As far as those dice go, I rolled a rum cocktail, too. What do you think of this combo?

The wild card means just that - you can add whatever else you like - and maybe not something super-common. I actually have an idea for this drink, but if it was you, what would you choose? This roll includes vermouth, a cherry, sugar (or maybe a sugar cane?), lime juice, rum, and the wild card. It's supposed to be a stirred drink served in a martini glass. Which is a little odd for a rum drink ...

One more roll gave me a gin combo: lemon juice, lemon-lime soda, olive, gin, double old-fashioned glass, shaken, mint spring, and grenadine.

I might just re-roll on this one. I mean, it's not like I'm in a competition, so I can just use these for brainstorming and if I don't like the results, I can re-roll a few dice, or even the whole thing.

The recipe dice set includes more dice for more ingredients. I'll be using those for a recipe a little later. Meanwhile, let's have a cocktail, shall we?

Roll-of-the-Dice Rye and Orange

1 1/2 ounces orange juice
1 ounce Crown Royal Rye
1/2 ounce simple syrup
1 lime slice, for garnish

Put ice in a short, squat glass. Add the orange juice, Crown Royal Rye, and simple syrup. Give it a little stir and garnish with a lime slice. Serve.

I received the Recipe Dice, Chai Dice and Cocktail Dice at no cost to me from the manufacturer for the purpose of a review. I'll be reviewing all three on Cookistry Reviews a little later. I receive products from Diageo companies on occasion for my use. They supplied the Crown Royal Rye.

Southwestern Pierogi Ravioli with potato, corn, and chiles

Have you read my review of the Fonde ravioli pin made by Repast Supply Company? You should. Right after you check out this recipe. Because this is a little bit crazy.

I was trying to think of something different than the typical ravioli fillings of cheese, meat, and mushrooms.

My mind wandered to pierogi, which are also stuffed pasta.

While pierogi also might be filled with meat, cheese, or mushrooms, there are some other common pierogi fillings that are very different from what you'd find in ravioli - like potato, sauerkraut, and fruit-filled dessert pierogi.

But I didn't want just make a square pierogi. I liked the idea of potato as a filling, but i knew I needed to add something that was non-traditional in both cuisines. I settled on corn to add sweetness, and decided to use creamed corn because of the smaller pieces and to take advantage of the creamy liquid that would add moisture to the potatoes.

I made a batch with the corn and potato filling, and fried them in butter with some onions and prosciutto, and it was pretty good.

But the onions and prosciutto overwhelmed the filling a little bit, and the sweetness of the onions competed with the sweetness of the corn. It was a good dish, but not amazing.

I really wanted the pasta and its filling to be the thing that people would comment about. So i added peppers to give the filling a spicy southwestern flair. I tried the final dish with a number of different toppings, and my favorite was the combination of a  green salsa along with guacamole.

Southwestern Pierogi Ravioli

For the pasta:
4 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 whole eggs
Water, as needed (about 1 cup)

For the filling:
2 pounds baking potatoes, baked or microwaved until done
1 14.75-ounce can creamed corn
4 ounces cream cheese
1 teaspoon salt (or to taste)
2 4-ounce cans diced Hatch chiles (mild or hot, your choice)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

To make the pasta:
I made the pasta dough in my stand mixer, but you can certainly knead it by hand.

First combine the flour and salt, then add the egg and then begin mixing in the water. you want a firm dough, but not super-solid, so add as much water as you need to get to that point. If you add too much water, you can add a little more flour as you knead.

Knead by hand or with the stand mixer until the dough is elastic. Form the dough into a ball and set aside for at least 20 minutes to rest. You can also make it ahead and stash it in the refrigerator.

To make the filling:
Peel the potatoes or scoop the flesh out - whichever is easier for you.

Rice or mash the potatoes, then add the creamed corn, cream cheese, salt, chiles, and pepper. Mix well. It should be fairly smooth with just small lumps from the corn and peppers.

Taste for seasoning and add more salt or pepper, if desired.

To make the ravioli:

For easiest handling, divide the dough into 4 pieces.

Roll the first two pieces on a lightly floured work surface until each is a rectangle a bit wider than 17 inches by about 15 inches. They shouldn't be paper thin, but they should be considerably thinner than a corn tortilla.

If the pasta bounced back too much as you roll it, cover it and let it rest for 10 minutes, then continue rolling.

Make sure your work surface has a light sprinkle of flour. Lay one of the pasta sheets in front of you with one of the 17-inch sides facing you. Spread half of the filling on top of the pasta, then top with the second sheet of pasta. You can stretch it to make sure it fits over the bottom sheet.

Use the Fonde ravioli pin to crate the ravioli. Trim the outside edges, then cut the ravioli apart with a pizza cutter, pasta cutter, or sharp knife. If you need tips about using the pin, check out this post.

Continue with the rest of the dough and filling.

If you're not going to cook all of the ravioli, you can place them on a baking sheet (make sure they're not touching each other) and freeze them.

Once frozen, you can put them in a plastic bag to store them in the freezer. You shouldn't thaw the pasta - just cook it from its frozen state. It takes slightly longer to cook, but not much.

To cook the pasta:
Use a wide, short sided pan with a lid. Add 1 tablespoon of butter and just enough water to barely cover the bottom of the pan - just a barely 1/8 inch is plenty. Cover the pan and heat  on high until it bubbles, then add as much pasta as will fit in a single layer with a little space between them. Cover the pan and cook for 3 minutes then remove the lid and let the pasta continue cooking until all the water has evaporated and the pasta begins to fry in the butter. If you've added the barest amount of water, it should evaporate very quickly. If the pasta seems to be swimming in water, drain some of it out - since the pasta is fresh, it cooks quickly - you don't want it to get mushy.

When the pasta has browned a little on one side (it should be spotty browned), flip it over and brown it on the second side.

Serve hot with the condiments of your choice: Salsa, guacamole, sour cream (or crema or creme fraiche) would be my choices - or a combination of two or more of them.

If you want to tone down the heat of the chiles without adding any strong flavors, a little crema does that very nicely.








I received the Fonde pin from the manufacturer at no cost to me. I'm sure you'll be seeing more of it here, since it's so much fun to work with!