Featuring Bedré Fine Chocolate | Davis, Oklahoma

Sweet and salty. Isn’t that the combination everyone’s looking to perfect? I’ve got news for you: Bedré Fine Chocolate has already done it. Their Bedré Crisps are chocolate-covered potato crisps stacked in a charming, resealable can. Bedré’s divine chocolate covers each individual potato crisp with a perfectly thin layer and provide the sweet-to-salty ratio you’ve been searching for.

I was first introduced to Bedré Crisps in college when my roommate's grandmother would send her six cans at a time. SIX! Being the good roommate that I was, I graciously helped her eat those six cans of Crisps each time they arrived. I don’t think we ever used the resealable lids, but that’s neither here nor there.

Fast forward to today and my fandom for Bedré continues. When they reached out to me to see if I could create a cookie recipe using one of their products as an ingredient, I didn’t hesitate to select the Crisps. I was inspired by Milk Bar’s infamous Compost Cookies and couldn’t wait to put an Oklahoma spin on them. Not located in Oklahoma? That’s okay! You can still join in the fun and try this recipe because Bedré ships nationwide.

Bedré Crisps come in both, milk and dark chocolate. Because I would hate to leave out either type, I’ve created one dough recipe with two different Crisp + chocolate chip flavor combinations for you to choose from. If you can’t decide which combination you want to make, simply cut the mix-ins in half. After you’ve made the dough, half it and stir in the Dark Chocolate Crisp Cookie ingredients in one bowl and the Milk Chocolate Crisp Cookie ingredients in the other. Voila! You’ve got cookies for milk and dark chocolate lovers in one batch.

The Ingredients

2.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks at room temperature)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs (room temperature)

1 tsp. vanilla

Extra kosher salt, for sprinkling

For Dark Chocolate Crisp Cookies:

9 oz. Bedré Dark Chocolate Crisps (2 cans)

1 cup milk chocolate chips

11 oz. bag of caramels, with caramels unwrapped

For Milk Chocolate Crisp Cookies:

9 oz. Bedré Milk Chocolate Crisps (2 cans)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 cup peanut butter chips

The Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda.

With a stand or hand mixer, cream the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until the mixture is light in color and a little fluffy. Scrape the edges of the mixing bowl, add the eggs one at a time, and the vanilla.

Turn the mixer down to low speed and slowly add the flour mixture until just combined. The dough will be very stiff.

The Fun Stuff

Here’s where the fun begins! Take your Crisps and put them in a baggie. Crunch them by hand until you have quarter-sized chunks. They will continue to break into pieces as you stir them into the dough, so you don’t want them to be too small.

Pour the crunched Crisps, chocolate and/or peanut butter chips into the dough. Use your mixer to stir the dough with just a couple of turns so as not to crush the Crisps too much. Continue to stir the crunched Crisps and chips by hand (go ahead and count this as your arm workout for the day—I do!) until combined.

Use a medium cookie scoop or spoon 1.5 tablespoons of dough onto your prepared cookie sheet. Place dough two inches apart. If making Dark Chocolate Crisp Cookies, press a caramel on top of each scoop of dough. Bake for 10 - 14 minutes or until golden on the edges and lightly browned on the top. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack and sprinkle with kosher salt (for both, Milk and Dark Chocolate Crisp Cookies).

Lessons learned

My oven tends to bake a little quicker than others, so you’ll want to watch your time closely and decide for yourself when your cookies have reached the juuuuust right level of golden brown. I also like my cookies a little more chewy, so I take them out when they’re just turning golden on the top. For crispier cookies, leave them in an additional minute or two until the top is golden brown and the edges are darker. If you’re using the caramels, do not try to cut them and incorporate them into the dough. It makes a mess! They are hard to remove from the cookie sheet and the caramel drips through the wire on the cooling rack. Ick, a cleaning nightmare! They were, however, still tasty despite their gooey appearance.

How did your Bedre Crisp Cookies turn out? Leave a comment and let me know!

Colossal Claus Cookies | Maggie Humphreys of Sharing Thyme

Are you looking for a new star cookie recipe? Do you want to blow minds with a cookie that is the perfect combination of sweet and salty? I have good news for you. You’ve found the perfect recipe! This is one of my go-to recipes and it’s also the most-requested. Now that we’re in the midst of the COVID-19 quarantine, I know we are all looking for things to do. Considering I’ve given this recipe out twice in 24 hours, I think there is no better time to share my friend Maggie’s incredible Colossal Claus Cookies.

Maggie created this recipe years ago and, to be honest, I’ve had the recipe open in my Safari browser on my iPhone for many of them. I’m sure it shocks no one to learn that I have a cookie recipe open on my phone at all times and that I basically use it for my browsing homepage. If that’s wrong, then I don’t want to be right! I know these are some of Maggie’s most popular cookies, too. She is an amazing chef, so be sure to check out all of the recipes on her blog, Sharing Thyme.

Photo by Maggie Humphreys, @sharingthyme

Without further ado, here is one of my all-time favorites! These cookies are totally chewy and achieve the salty-sweet balance with a sprinkle of salt on top. As she bakes them, Maggie’s cookies are huge (almost the size of your hand), and make the perfect everyday indulgence. I have tweaked her recipe just a bit by adding more chocolate chips and making them with my smaller cookie scoop that’s the size of a melon baller. I find that they’re a popular size at parties because people don’t feel guilty coming back for seconds (or thirds). Whichever way you bake them, every cookie will be gone by the end of the night!

Directions for both versions of the recipe are listed below, but be sure to head to Sharing Thyme for the full recipe with step-by-step photos!

Maggie’s Colossal Claus Cookies

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup butter, melted

1 1/2 cups brown sugar

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 egg white

2 teaspoons vanilla

To make the original: 14 ounces chocolate chips

Modification: 24 ounces chocolate chips

Kosher salt, for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Melt butter in the microwave for about 10-15 seconds at a time, stirring in between until it is fully melted. Let cool for five minutes.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

Pour both sugars into your mixing bowl and mix together briefly.

Add the melted butter and mix on a medium speed until the mixture is light brown (about 3 minutes).

Add the two eggs and one egg white one at a time while mixing. Scrape the edges and add the vanilla. On a low speed, slowly add the flour mixture until just combined.

Now it’s time for the chips! If you’re making Maggie’s version with the large cookies, stir in 12 ounces of chips and leave 2 ounces to place on top of each cookie dough ball when they are on the sheet. This makes picture-perfect cookies. To make smaller cookies with lots of chips, throw all 24 ounces (or however many ounces of chocolate chips you have) directly into the bowl for mixing. Let the paddle turn on the mixer three to four times. Remove the paddle from the mixer and stir by hand until the chocolate chips are combined as to not overwork the dough.

These cookies will spread, so be sure to leave 2 to 3 inches between each cookie. For large cookies, use an ice cream scoop-sized cookie scoop. For smaller cookies, use the melon baller-sized scoop and still place the dough about 2 inches apart.

Bake 9 to 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. You may need to leave them on the cookie sheet for a minute before transferring to a cooling rack - they will be gooey! Sprinkle each cookie with a little kosher salt while they’re still warm. Enjoy!

What’s your favorite recipe? Join the #CoronaCookieSwap by leaving a comment or finding me on Instagram at @cookie.tour!

Pumpkin Pecan White Chocolate Cookies | Annie Tucker of take a bite

I have to be honest… I don’t typically like pumpkin flavored food. You’ll never see me waiting in line at Starbucks for a PSL. I don’t search through the aisles at Trader Joe’s for their seasonal pumpkin selections each fall. It’s never been on my radar. That’s why I surprised myself when I wondered if I could find a good pumpkin chocolate chip cookie recipe to share with you. Where did this thought even come from?! I don’t know, but I am definitely glad I had it.

When I asked the Insta-verse where they found their favorite pumpkin cookie recipe, my friend Annie Tucker answered the call. Annie is a fellow OKC girl (now Dallas, too) and her Take a Bite Blog is a foodie’s dream. She shares recipes galore as well as her favorite restaurants and food-related products. This continues on her Instagram, where I am a dedicated follower of her weekly grocery haul on Sundays. Trader Joe’s fans unite!

The Cookie

I have nothing to say except that you need to make a batch of these cookies. The pumpkin flavor definitely comes through, but it’s not overpowering. Is it just me, or does pumpkin pie spice give you that warm feeling on the inside? I think this is the key ingredient for keeping the cookies sweet. I found the cookies to be light and pillowy—totally soft. The chocolate chips make these cookies classic even with the added pumpkin flavor. This recipe is great for a crowd, as it yields around 30 cookies.

View fullsize

I loved these cookies so much that I baked a second batch within two days of my first. Confession: I also ate A LOT of the dough before it made it onto the cookie sheet. There aren’t any eggs in this recipe so I didn’t feel bad, not that I ever would! These cookies are perfect exactly as Annie’s recipe reads, but I took her recommendation and used semi-sweet chips instead of white chocolate for batch #2. I liked these even better than the first! I also tested adding more than a cup of chocolate chips as the recipe calls for, and I never thought I would say this, but you really don’t need the extra chips. The dough is the star of this show, so let it shine. Neither of my batches had pecans because, as you may have learned, I’m #TeamNoNutsAllowed when it comes to cookies (or my diet in general). But if you like them, feel free to go for it! I’m under the impression that Annie is a baking genius and will not steer you wrong.

Click the button below to get the full recipe and bake these cookies!

Did you make these cookies? Tell me how you liked them! You could also take a peek at this pumpkin beauty from Suss Cookie Co. to satisfy your cravings.

Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies | Alison Roman

If you follow as many food bloggers or dessert-focused Instagram accounts as I do, you likely saw Alison Roman’s Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread Cookies overtaking your feed earlier this year.  Known affectionately as #THECOOKIES, this unique recipe was getting rave reviews in every post I saw.  Instagrammers were using terms like “MIND-BLOWING,” “LIFE-CHANGING,” and “THE BEST COOKIES I’VE EVER HAD,” so you know I had to find out for myself if #THECOOKIES were worth the hype.

This was a fun and pretty simple recipe.  At first glance, I was surprised at how few ingredients were required.  It calls for salted butter, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla and flour.  I had most of these in my pantry already—check!  The finishing touches require dark chocolate chunks, flaky sea salt and Demerara sugar.  I was a bit worried about finding the final ingredients without a boutique grocery store nearby.  It took a little searching, but I found the perfect items.  I picked up a giant tube of coarse sea salt at Whole Foods (365 brand so it was even inexpensive!). After looking in a few places, Target came through with this six-ounce bag of Scharffen Berger Bittersweet Baking Chunks—exactly the amount of chocolate chunks you need.  I’ve ordered Demerara sugar from Amazon before, but I substituted brown sugar instead and it worked like a charm.

When I say this recipe was fun, I mean it!  You start by cutting your butter into cubes and letting your trusty stand mixer do all the work to mix it with the sugars and vanilla.  After adding the flour and chocolate chunks, you get to roll your dough into two little logs.  Alison does a great job here of explaining exactly what to do in her instructions.  She says your logs should be about six inches long and two inches in diameter.  I feel like somehow exact measurements never work out for me when I bake or cook, so I got out my tape measure to see how my logs compared.  To my amazement, they were perfect!  *Bless you, Alison, for providing a recipe that actually turns out the way you say it will.* As a side note, it was very difficult to make cookie dough logs photogenic, so I apologize for not providing photos of this step.

After crafting your dough into logs, they need to chill for at least two hours.  So, I washed my hands and enjoyed two episodes of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as I waited.  By the way, if you’re not watching, what are you even doing with your Amazon Prime account?!   

Now, for the rest of the fun part.  The egg wash, the rolling in the sugar, and the slicing.  Once you sprinkle the flaky sea salt on top, you will be amazed at how beautiful these cookies are before they’re even baked.  

Into the oven they go!  Be careful of your time here.  My oven tends to be a little warm, so I took my cookies out before the recommended 12 minutes.  What I’ve noticed in all my cookie-baking is that you’ve got to find that perfect amount of time for each recipe.  Even one minute more or less can make a big difference!  

Once out of the oven, I also recommend using a very thin, stiff spatula to move your cookies from the pan to the cooling rack.  I tried using a silicon spatula but it wouldn’t hold up under the density of the shortbread and they broke. This isn’t the end of the world, because the broken cookies always become my tasters!  But if you want to present beautiful cookies to your guests, you’ll want to be a little more careful.

Speaking of guests, #THECOOKIES were approved by party-goers one and all.  I took these to two different Christmas brunches and at each event people couldn’t get enough.  

Comments I heard were:

“ARE THESE SHORTBREAD?!”

“OMG MY MIND IS BLOWN.” 

”I CAN’T STOP EATING THESE COOKIES.” 

”PLEASE MAKE THESE AGAIN AND AGAIN.” 

In conclusion, yes, #THECOOKIES were worth the hype.  I hope you’ll make them for a brunch near you soon.

You can find the full recipe with instructions at  NYT Cooking or in Alison Roman’s cookbook, “Dining In: Highly Cookable Recipes.”  

Enjoy!  Leave a comment to let me know how your batch turned out!