chocolate chip shortbread cookies

So…. hi! Remember me? I figured that the best way for me to get back into the world of blogging was to start with something short & sweet, and what could fulfill that promise better than chocolate chip shortbread cookies? Ha, I crack myself up. That pun wasn't intended until I reread the "short & sweet" bit. Man I'm a natural. 

Anyway… This recipe. YUM and so easy. It only requires 5 ingredients! Perfect for taking with you to Thanksgiving when you need to look like you put forth some effort when in reality there's so little time that you'll probably be baking these treats at 1 am Wednesday night. But be forewarned: this recipe isn't one you can just throw together and have cookies in 30 minutes. The butter needs to be at room temperature & the dough needs to refrigerate for at least 2 hours before baking. And if you're feeling like an overachiever, I think this recipe would be incredible dipped in dark chocolate & I'm pretty sure your guests would think so too ;)

Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies

Yield: about 3 dozen

Ingredients

8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2/3 cup confectioners' (aka powdered) sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

1. In a stand mixer, beat butter and confectioners' sugar together on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until the mixture is very smooth. Beat in vanilla, then reduce mixer speed to low and add flour, mixing only until it disappears into the dough.

2. Fold in the chocolate chips with a spatula.

3. Gather dough and place in between two sheets of parchment paper, the bottom sheet on a cookie sheet. Roll the dough into a rectangle shape 1/4-inch thick. 

4. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours.

5. After the dough is firm, preheat the oven to 325 F. Cut the dough into 1 1/2-inch squares.

6. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until the edges turn golden brown.

Word to the wise: You might have noticed the cutesy cut cookies in the picture. If you do want cookies in some shape other than the cut squares, consider doing that before you refrigerate them for 2 hours. I didn't think about it until as I was pulling them out of the refrigerator with an idealistic "Oh, we have those fun biscuit cutters! Let me find those somewhere…" The dough is now firm by this point which means if you're cutting with some shape other than straight lines, the dough will crumble and your cookies will look less than amateur status, and you'll end up with shapes that look like the state of New York because it'll be harder to reform them than to just leave them be… So if you're cookie cutting them, do so before you refrigerate. 

And that friends is my first post back to the blog world. Sometime in the coming days or weeks I'll share our trips to Maine & Orlando, but considering that I haven't blogged in two months I'd hedge a bet that it won't be tomorrow ;) 

alphabet gummies + strawberries: the perfect popsicle

So call me naive, but all my life I've been under the impression that popsicles were too messy, too involved, too everything to make the effort to create your own. Ha. That's just silly. But the effort to make ice cream? That's another story. But I digress...

While perusing the bulk candy aisle at Wegman's, I made a pact that by golly, I was going to make popsicles so that I could have an excuse to buy the super fun alphabet gummies! Husmate laughed at me, & this is what transpired: simplistic yumminess.

We're talking 4 ingredients, plus the gummies {if you have a sweet tooth like me}.  So the mystical number 5! That's it, & if it's summertime, there's a darn good chance that you already have the core four: strawberries, water, sugar, & a lime. Lucky for me, I picked up my popsicle molds on a whim for cheap at IKEA, but if you don't have molds, just use little paper cups.

1 cup mashed strawberries

1/2 cup water

3-4 tablespoons sugar

juice from 1/2 a lime
fun gummy bears, letters, fish, etc. {optional, but yummy}

Add the first four ingredients together, put gummies in your molds, pour the mixture over that, & freeze.

A few notes: I used 3 tablespoons, banking on the gummies adding a sweeter taste. 

Don't be brave & try mashing the strawberries in the measuring cup with spoon like I did at first. It will fail miserably & cause your counter to turn a darling shade of rosy red. Just whip out the potato masher you were gifted or bought because mashed potatoes are totally your comfort food. It's much easier. Believe me.

That amount filled six little molds for me, but it could make more or less depending on what you're using.

& voila! Easy popsicles. Perfect way to cool down during these muggy, humid summer days, & quite tasty, too, if I do say so myself.

remember the time... {vol. V}

{lately}

+ we ran a "fast mile" together {fast for pitiful me & slow for husmate the pacer} & then split up for our own paced mile. Husmate ran his best time in a few years {that cause of lengthened time was thanks mainly to moi & the beginning/duration of our relationship} while I huffed it out on my own. Just call us the tortoise & hare team from here on out...

+ Monarch the Mouse made his fifth cameo in this little condo of ours, & husmate was in the room AND STILL DIDN'T SEE HIM. But it's okay. I'm not hallucinating...

+ pretty sure the woman at the post office thinks I'm a bit weird for knowing about a new release of stamps that apparently hadn't made it to her branch yet... & that she had never heard of. I definitely blushed a little as we went through all the flowery stamps that she had to offer, none of which looked anything like the seed packet stamps I've been sorta coveting. #nerdalert

+ we walked to Trader Joe's for cookie dough & milk... & got called out by the cashier on it. "Will that be all for you?" "Yep, just those two..." [chuckles at us] "So y'all walked down here for cookies & milk?" We're just revolutionizing dessert over here at the Berry residence.

{auld lang syne}

+ husmate stuck around after Bulldog Bash our senior year in college & helped his then over-involved girlfriend pick up trash along her route in the Cotton District so that she {& her best friend, Sarah, & their SA committee} could get to bed earlier than 4 am. Proof #48 then that he was a keeper :)

a weekend of flora + fauna

It's fiiiiinally spring around here, & simply put, it. is. glorious. Husmate & I spent the majority of our weekend trying to catch the cherry blossoms blooming around the tidal basin {with about a zillion other people}, but wouldn'tyaknowit, they just aren't ready yet. So while the much coveted blooms thwarted our plans, we found a few other things to take their place, like the Baltimore National Aquarium residents, long walks across the Arlington Memorial Bridge to the Mall & Georgetown, & cupcakes at Baked + Wired. Here's a few of the things we discovered this weekend:

+ We came across the coolest fish at the aquarium: the Seven Spot Archerfish, which can spit water up to 3 meters at an insect in a low hanging tree to knock it into the water & eat it. Seriously an incredible thing to watch, especially amongst an audience of elementary-aged kids :)

+ A dolphin show at age 24 is just as awesome as a dolphin show at 13. & getting splashed by a dolphin? Hilarious. 

+  For any & all who think that Georgetown Cupcake is the best thing in the world, you are wrongggg. Baked + Wired, another Georgetown bakery, is without a doubt SO much better {& bigger proportions, too- in fact, two people could share one & should for calorie reasons...} than anything I've tried at Georgetown Cupcake. & as usual, husmate & I preferred each other's choice over our own. We tried the Red Velvet & the Pretty Bitchin' {chocolate cake with crunchy peanut butter icing & the closest thing I've come to Muddy's Bake Shop's Tomboy in Memphis}, and both were delicious.

+ FYI that whole "don't take naps after 3" thing is definitely true, considering that both of us took a late afternoon nap yesterday & neither one of us really slept last night. Never before have I been so wide awake at husmate's alarm at 4:45 am. Just call us the Zombie Berrys.

And for any of you who haven't seen in the past month or so, we'll be saying RIP to Google Reader come July. I finally bit the bullet and switched over to Bloglovin' & you can follow me and all your other blogs there! And for those of you who think I'm talking in gibberish, Bloglovin' (and Google Reader) are sites that pull the recent posts from the blogs you follow & compile them onto one site so you don't have to hop around all day to a zillion other pages. Pretty handy if I do say so myself.

& in case you missed it last week:

a sunrise at arlington

uva crush

married life observations

a melodramatic moment

delightfully delicious chocolate chip cookies

First, to Laney, I apologize for caving on our agreement & posting a recipe. I did my best to make a compromise & post it on a Friday which generally has the lowest viewership, so... you're welcome.

Also, this is by far the best chocolate chip recipe I have ever made. So, you're welcome twice, readers. I stumbled upon it while perusing this wonderful cooking blog, A Tender Crumb. Now for my disclaimer: {DISCLAIMER} this recipe calls for a whole heck of a lot of fattening ingredients, but it redeems itself by making 8 1/2 dozen cookies. So when your eyes bug out & your arteries prematurely stress after glancing at the ingredients list, quickly draw your attention back up here and read that disclaimer again.

Jacque Torres' Secret Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

|| My Helpful Hints ||

+ tastes the best when using 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate or higher (we obviously prefer Ghiradelli)

+ to make chopping chocolate bars easier (& your wrist hurt less), stick them in the microwave for 15-20 seconds

+ if you're having trouble finding pastry or bread flour that isn't whole wheat, that's what we've been using & it tastes great. Plus it's healthier for you, and with the components of this recipe, you need all the help you can get

+ we've found that this recipe is a lot bigger than our Kitchen-aid stand mixer, so we use a big ole mixing bowl & a hand mixer

+ because this recipe is so large, I tend to measure out everything before I start mixing, combining the first group (sugars) in a small bowl and the second group (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda) in a large bowl. That way the only thing I have to do individually is crack eggs & measure the vanilla extract

+ for the best results, chill the dough 8-48 hours before baking. It really makes a difference on the texture of the cookie {as noted by our flat cookies above which proves we were too impatient to wait to eat them the next day}

+ the original recipe calls for baking the dough at 350 F for 15 minutes, but we've found that cooking them at 325 F for 12 minutes gives you a softer cookie {you know, if you prefer that kind of thing}

+ this cookie dough freezes really well. So if you don't have a hankering for eating 102 cookies at once or even in the near future, don't worry you can just pull it out in a few weeks or more. We tend to bake some, refrigerate some, & freeze some just for good measure :) we're cookie dough stock holders as evidenced by this post {by the way, still no shame}

|| Ingredients ||

1 lb. unsalted butter

1 3/4 c. granulated sugar

2 1/4 c. packed light brown sugar

4 eggs

3 c. + 2 T. pastry flour

3 c. bread flour

1 T. salt

2 t. baking powder

2 t. baking soda

1 T. vanilla extract

2 lb. chocolate {we go closer to 22 ounces, which breaks down to 1 (10-oz) chip bag & 3 (4-oz) bars OR 2 (10-oz) chip bags & 1 (4-oz) bar. The former tastes better, but the latter costs less. I would still throw in some cut up bars because frankly they taste better than chips (plus, they make you feel way more professional)}

|| Directions ||

1. Chop bars into chunks. Preheat oven to 350 F.

2. Cream together butter and both sugars.

3. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

4. Reduce speed to low & add both flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda, & vanilla; mix well until combined.

5. Fold in chocolate.

6. Using a 4-oz scoop for larger cookies or a 1-oz scoop for smaller cookies, scoop cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets, about 2" apart.

7. Bake until lightly browned, but still soft, about 20 minutes for larger cookies & 15 minutes for smaller cookies.

8. Cool slightly on baking sheets before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 26 5" cookies (have not tried those out yet), or 8 1/2 dozen 1 1/4" cookies