Hi, there! Remember me? Pink? Fluffy?

It’s been a crazy last few weeks, between preparing Freakin’ Flamingo samples for the swag bags at Eat, Write, Retreat (#EWR11), making more jam (because it seems that everything’s in season right now!), and organizing (and baking for) the National Food Bloggers Bake Sale – Miami, benefiting Share Our Strength.

In the middle of all this, I also decided to join up with The Secret Recipe Club, created by Amanda of Amanda’s Cookin’. This is how it works: Every month, you get to scour the blog of another member of the club (assigned to you by Amanda), and pick out and cook or bake any recipe from that person’s blog. And of course, it’s a Secret. Until the big reveal, that is.

My secret mission, this month, was to select a recipe from Kate’s isn’t everything in the kitchen trial & error? (Great blog name, don’t you think?) So I scoured Kate’s blog, literally from the very beginning, searching for a great Bake Sale cookie. You know – chocolate chip, but not so, well, ordinary. Then, just two weeks ago, Kate posted these Hot Chocolate Cookies. Instead of using cocoa, the recipe calls for using full-sugar hot cocoa mix, which gives the cookies a milder, yet rich and chocolatey depth of flavor.

I didn’t change a thing in this recipe, believe it or not. Kate gives you the choice of which type of chips you feel like using that day, so I used all three – milk chocolate, semi-sweet, and white chocolate chips. ‘Cuz that’s just the kind of girl I am. I used a small scoop, about the size of the large end of a melon baller, and got the full 4 dozen cookies – the perfect amount I was looking for.

The texture was – in my mind – perfect. Crisp and chewy at the same time. As Kate observed in her blog post, they freeze really well, too. And look how pretty they look, all dressed up for the big Bake Sale!

It was really fun, searching through another blogger’s recipe posts for inspiration and a different point of view. Wanna play? Join the Secret Recipe Club here.

Now follow along and see who got who – I can’t wait to see who got me and what they chose to make from my eclectic collection. Will it be a dessert? A main course? A 30-minute family meal? Let’s find out, together!

I recently began cooking and writing occasional mini-reviews for Cooks & Books & Recipes, an awesome website that focuses exclusively on reviews of the latest cookbooks, featuring a sample recipe from each one. Okay, I’ve done two, so far. But if you’re thinking of buying any of the new cookbooks coming out, be sure to check Cooks & Books & Recipes for the inside scoop!

One of the latest cookbooks reviewed at Cooks & Books (I call it for short), is Abby Dodge’s Desserts 4 Today. The recipe featured from the cookbook is Mini Bittersweet Chocolate Cheesecakes. Cheesecake? How could I pass up trying a recipe for personal-sized cheesecakes that takes 5 minutes to throw together and only 15 minutes in the oven?

Abby encourages creativity and even gives suggestions for ingredient switch-ins (or outs) and additions in case you want to “Gussy It Up.” I, of course, couldn’t leave well-enough alone and adapted her recipe even further. Not once, but twice! Because I’m just that kind of a girl. I give you

Coffee Chocolate Chip Mini Cheesecakes
(makes 6 mini cheesecakes) (Recipe adapted from Desserts 4 Today by Abigail Johnson Dodge)

Ingredients:

1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened at room temperature
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 tsp. instant coffee powder
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips (do not use regular-sized chips)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 300º F.

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric hand-mixer until smooth. Add the brown sugar and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl between each step.

Dissolve the coffee powder in the vanilla extract and add to the cream cheese mixture, then add the egg. Beat thoroughly. Add the mini chocolate chips and stir to combine completely.

Take a regular-sized muffin tin and place foil liners into 6 of the cups, then spray with no-stick cooking spray. Alternatively, you can use reusable silicone cupcake liners without the cooking spray.

Bake for 15-18 minutes. The centers should barely jiggle when you nudge the pan. Set the muffin tin on a rack to cool completely, then refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.

Notes:

About 30 minutes prior to serving, take the cheesecakes out of the refrigerator and remove from the liners. If using the silicone liners, just pull back the edges slightly with your fingers, then turn them over and push the bottoms with your thumbs. They should pop right out. This allows them to take some of the chill off and the cheesecakes to return to that creamy mouthfeel we all love about them.

And because I couldn’t stop playing with it, and because I love you, here’s your *Bonus* Recipe:

Mini Nutella Cheesecakes
(makes 6 mini cheesecakes) (Recipe adapted from Desserts 4 Today by Abigail Johnson Dodge)

Ingredients:

1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened at room temperature
1/3 cup natural cane sugar (or granulated white sugar)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/3 cup Nutella
A few hazelnuts, finely chopped for garnish

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 300º F.

In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese with an electric hand-mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until thoroughly incorporated. Make sure you scrape down the sides of the bowl between each step.

Add the egg, vanilla, and the Nutella, and beat till thoroughly combined.

Take a regular-sized muffin tin and place foil liners into 6 of the cups, then spray with no-stick cooking spray. Alternatively, you can use reusable silicone cupcake liners without the cooking spray.

Bake for 18 – 20 minutes. The centers should barely jiggle when you nudge the pan. Set the muffin tin on a rack to cool completely, then refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours. After unmolding, garnish with the chopped hazelnuts.

For the original Bittersweet Chocolate Mini Cheesecakes recipe and a full review of Desserts 4 Today (and my mini-review!), click here.

Just think of the make-ahead possibilities for the Holidays. Or any day. Ooo… wonder what I could do with pumpkin…

The 12 Christmas Cookies series snuck up on me, this year, mainly because the group decided to start now, and – very wisely, I might add – to post one cookie a week instead of one cookie a day.

So, I’m starting off simple, with my favorite chocolate chip cookie in the world. I’ve never made another chocolate chip cookie recipe that could beat it for flavor and texture – chocolaty, chewy, and crispy. It keeps well in an airtight container or plastic storage bag, and freezes well. Although it’s not a fancy schmancy “holiday” cookie, I don’t think any cookie platter would be complete without a really good, rich chocolate chip cookie.

The “Neiman Marcus” Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe started making the rounds of the Internet (such as it was), as an urban legend, about 15 or more years ago, back when the Internet as we all knew it, consisted mostly of e-mail and dancing babies. I’m betting that most of you have never heard the story, having been way too young to remember green screens and DOS, so a quick retelling. The story goes something like this:

A man and his young daughter were eating lunch in a Neiman Marcus restaurant, and ordered their chocolate chip cookies for dessert. They loved the cookies so much, that the man asked their waitress if they could have the recipe. She replied that they could have the recipe, but it would cost them two-fifty. The man thought that $2.50 was pretty reasonable and the waitress gave them the recipe. When he received his Neiman Marcus bill sometime later, he noticed a restaurant charge for $250. Outraged, he called customer service and was told that they could not remove the charge and he was stuck with it. Now apoplectic, the man told them that as revenge, he would e-mail the recipe to all his friends and relatives and urge them to do the same. The End.

This recipe makes an enormous quantity of cookies, so feel free to halve or even quarter the amounts. I quartered it and ended up with 30 cookies. The calculator is your friend.

“Neiman Marcus” Chocolate Chip Cookies
(makes approx. 112 cookies)

Ingredients:

2 cups butter
2 cups brown sugar
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
4 cups flour
5 cups blended oatmeal *
2 tsp. soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
24 oz. chocolate chips
8 oz. milk chocolate candy bar (grated) *
3 cups chopped nuts (I made these with California Walnuts)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 375º F.

Cream the butter and both sugars. On low speed, add eggs and vanilla till completely incorporated.

Add the flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, mixing till combined, then add the chocolate chips, grated milk chocolate, and nuts.

Roll into balls about the size of a ping pong ball and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for several minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely. Or not. A cold glass of milk or hot cup of coffee at this point would be awesome.

Notes:

* To make “blended oatmeal”, measure the amount of oatmeal and run through the food processor or a blender on high, till ground to a fine meal consistency.

* The “original” recipe called for an 8 oz. Hershey Bar. Now, you and I know that Hershey Bars haven’t come in an 8 oz. size in probably 10 years. Also, this time, I didn’t have any Hershey Bars, so I used some Hershey milk chocolate Kisses. In order to grate the chocolate, put it in the freezer for about an hour, then pulse it in your food processor.

Well, of course it’s too early for Christmas, so why wait to make these fabulous cookies? Make ‘em for Halloween or Chanukah, or anytime at all!

Yes, I’m a day behind, but I will catch up! I promise! Didn’t you enjoy yesterday’s French macarons? Twelve cookies in 12 days from the Bon Appétit 2008 Holiday Cookie-a-Day collection – that’s the goal and I refuse to disappoint you!

First the recipe, then my notes.

Hazelnut-Butter Cookies with Mini Chocolate Chips

Preparation:

Notes:

Let’s start with my changes, which were not made out of preference, but rather because I didn’t want to go shopping. I didn’t have any hazelnut butter in the house, but I did have almond butter (which my husband bought awhile back purely out of caprice), and so I used that. I also didn’t have any mini chocolate chips, so I used regular-sized ones. In the end, we decided that these changes had no affect on the outcome.

Well, maybe the mini chips would have fit better in these little, ittty-bitty, bite-sized cookies. If you look at the cookie photo on the Bon Appétit site, they look enormous. They are not. These cookies really don’t spread much, if at all, and the one-inch spacing on the cookie sheet is more than enough.

I don’t know whether to call this a dough or a batter, but either way, once you manage to get the nut butter stirred up, this comes together really fast and easy. In fact, it probably took me twice the time to get the almond butter stirred up, than it did to put the whole recipe together!

When you’re ready to bake, you should absolutely let the dough/batter warm up for at least 30 minutes. When it chills, it gets hard as a rock. I tried to scoop some out for the first cookie after 15 minutes, and not only did I nearly bend my measuring tablespoon, I managed to fling a wad of the stuff across the room. You could put an eye out! Be patient. Or wear goggles.

I also reduced the baking time from the recommended 12 minutes to 10 minutes.

The verdict? This is a rich and tasty chocolate chip cookie. It’s got a lot of flavor, and I suspect you could use any of the smooth, natural nut butters in this recipe. It’s quick to put together and isn’t high maintenance. Of the nine cookies I’ve baked for this series so far, my husband rates this is as a top 3 contender (along with the biscotti and pecan lace cookies). I would definitely bake this cookie again. I’ll just make my husband stir the nut butter.

Please visit my partners in holiday baking, below, and see what they’ve got in store for you. And don’t forget to come back tomorrow for the tenth (and maybe the eleventh!) installment!

Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes (honorary member and our founder but not participating this year)
Claire of The Barefoot Kitchen
Courtney of Coco Cooks
Di of Di’s Kitchen Notebook
Judy of No Fear Entertaining
Kelly of Sass & Veracity
Michelle of Big Black Dog
RJ of Flamingo Musings (hey! that’s me!)
Sandy of At the Baker’s Bench
Tiffany of The Nesting Project