The Making of a Jezebel: Apricot, Almond & Chocolate Chip Cookies

How to Make: Apricot, Almond & Chocolate Chip Cookies
Time Factor: 50 mins
Wow Factor (1-10): 6
Music to Bake By: Nick Glider's Hot Child In The City

Sometimes working mother guilt takes strange forms like proposing "Let's bake cookies together!" an hour before a child's bedtime. I guess worse child abuse has occurred then letting a kid stay up past bedtime and stuffing her face with chocolate. Aside from that, the other reason I needed to bake is that I wanted to make my version of a Jezebel cookie. Jezebel's are only available at my local bakery, La Farine. I've asked several times for the recipe and was told no, no, no. One person, knowing I worked at Clorox, asked me, "Would you give away the secret formula for bleach?" In exchange for the Jezebel recipe??! Hell YES I would! (Quick note: no one has told me the secret formula for bleach.)

As you might have noticed I tend to obsess about things I can't have or don't understand. I couldn't have the recipe and I didn't understand how to re-create it. Batch after batch were trashed. Finally, after making the Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies, Colin pointed out that they were similar to the Jezebels. I didn't think it was the mesquite, but had I inadvertently stumbled upon the recipe without knowing it? I had to find out. Hello crazy Mommy!


Here's how to make my version of the Jezebel (apricot, almond, chocolate chip cookies), or as I call it, The Floozy:

1. If you read the Adventures in Math post (the making of the Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookie) you know

   

   The scale is your friend. So are pearls.

   that I did some elaborate contortions to get the batch size down. On the surface it seems insane but go with me on this. It works. So you know the drill: preheat your oven to 375 and prep the baking sheets the way you like it, parchment or silicon mat. Then in a bowl whisk together 163 grams of white flour and two 1/8 teaspoons plus one-half of a 1/8 teaspoon of aluminum-free baking powder and two 1/8 teaspoons plus one-half of a 1/8 teaspoon baking soda. Add 1/4 teaspoon of fine sea salt.
   
   
   



Probably should've washed her hands first.

2. Beat 73 grams of unsalted butter until soft and then add 133 grams of natural cane sugar. When making the mesquite cookies I didn't have the right sugar and used white - that works too. Scrape the sides of the bowl down as necessary and beat until creamy.
   
   A note on baking with children: you'd be surprised by what they can screw up. Asked to help spoon out flour, they will spill it. Asked to empty a bowl of oats into the wet ingredients, they may, for example, accidentally drop the entire bowl into the batter instead. Asked to help measure chocolate chips, they will eat them, then become obsessed with some old bubble wrap they find in the garbage. Just try to enjoy it.
   
3. Add two small eggs one at a time (or one large one) to the mix and then toss in (crazy math alert!) five 1/8 teaspoons of vanilla extract. I say toss, but you can just pour it gently if that's your way. Once I told Colin to 'toss some veggies in' (indicating a bubbly pot of soup) and he threw them in the garbage instead. Ah, marriage.
   
4. Add your flour mixture in three batches to the wet ingredients and then hand mix in 77 grams of rolled oats.

   

   Some for the bowl, some for the floor.

   Try to explain to your daughter that oats are the same thing that's in oatmeal. Get quizzical look. Move along quickly... Now you need to add 120 grams total of chopped dried apricots, bitter or semi sweet chocolate chips, and blanched almond slivers. You can decide the proportion based on taste, but I tried for roughly equal parts.
   
   
5. Drop mounds of dough (about two tablespoons per cookie) onto the prepared baking sheets. I used a #40 ice cream scoop, only because my #20 (standard cookie size) was in the dishwasher. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Don't overbake. I did and it will be one of the things I regret my entire life. Or until I forget. Let them cool on the sheet and then a rack until you can't stand waiting any longer.
   
   So was it as good as a Jezebel? You'll have to wait for Colin's review to find out!
   
   

   

   Ice cream scoopers can get you fat in two ways!

   
   

   

   A watched cookie does, in fact, bake.

Review: Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

These were very good. Hearty and satisfying. The chocolate chips were very dark and somewhat bitter, which appeals to me of course. The texture was dense and filling, chewy but firm.

The only problem was, these had to follow the perfect chocolate chip cookie that came just before. Those were sweet; these were more savory. See, I am a simple man, a true American who likes classic chocolate chip cookies warming on a windowsill in a 1950s that never really occurred. Simple. These were a little hifalutin', like something out of magazine with a French name (I'm talking to you Saveur!).

They were very good though. Not bad at all. Here's the final score:

Daughter told showed me how to whisk ingredients together. Plus 2.

Highly edible. Plus 1.

Pretty. Plus 2.

Smug. Minus 2.

Hot and gooey chocolate chip. Plus 1.

Forced to eat them while watching Sex and the City 2. Minus 2.

Counterbalanced the bad taste left in my mouth by Sex and the City 2. Plus 2.

After eating them, had to endure remaining 139 minutes and 24 seconds of Sex and the City 2. Minus 1.

Total: 3 points for Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Adventures in Math: Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

How to Make: Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Time Factor: 40 mins
Wow Factor (1-10): 8
Music to Bake By: Lyle Lovett's She Makes Me Feel Good

One night while I was simultaneously texting, surfing, IMing and watching Top Chef: Just Desserts, I stumbled upon a blog called 101 Cookbooks. Heidi Swanson has healthy recipes along with stunning, thoughtful photos of the kind that could not possibly be taken by a woman with young children. (These are the illusions we Moms cling to. If she does have children, I don't want to know about it.) Anyway, she had a recipe for Mesquite Chocolate Chip cookies that she deleted from her site to put into her cookbook. It sounded like exactly the right amount of weird that I like - and thankfully our trusty friend Google found the recipe posted on several other blogs. Thanks Googs!


Mesquite flour sounded like it would have a BBQ flavor, but I was happy to discover it did not. Also happy to discover it wasn't that hard to find - spotted it in two local supermarkets near me. What is hard to find is the right word to describe it - earthy is the best I can do. What was also hard was dividing this recipe into a small batch. I wanted to bake a third of the original version which resulted in many, many calculations and overthinking and absurd sounding portions. Weirdly, it worked. Don't ask how. Just benefit from my insanity. Oh right, and turn your kitchen scale to grams because there is no way to divide so many cups and ounces into thirds properly. By the way, these were the first cookies I've ever made that I can honestly say came out looking somewhat professional. Was it the mesquite? The math? Try it yourself and decide!


Without further ado I bring you a small batch of Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies:

1. 

   The star of the show: mesquite!

   Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line your baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat mat. In a bowl, whisk together 53 grams of mesquite flour and 110 grams of white flour. So far, easy. But then it starts getting weird. How to divide a teaspoon? The best I could come up with is two 1/8 teaspoons + a half 1/8 teaspoon of baking powder and add the same two 1/8 teaspoons + a half 1/8 teaspoon baking soda and then add 1/4 teaspoon of sea salt. Whisk it all together and don't stress. It will be fine.
   
2. Time to bring out the big guns: your KitchenAid, if you have one. I got mine for "free" with Thank You points from Mastercard. I'm having a bit of a love affair with mine right now. Let's not tell Colin, shall we? So either with the KitchenAid or a hand mixer or if you're a member of the Russian women's Olympic team then by hand, beat 73 grams of butter until soft.  This seems like as good of a time as any to tell you I messed up with the sugar. The recipe calls for natural cane sugar

   

   Have you seen sexier butter? I think not.
   

   and I accidentally bought something that was not that. So I used white sugar and all was well. Do not stress. I will tell you when to stress. This is not that time. Add 133 grams of natural cane sugar or white and beat until creamy.  Add either 2 small eggs (or 1 large egg), one at a time until incorporated. Why not throw in the five 1/8 teaspoons of vanilla extract at this point too? Go ahead and get crazy.
   
3. Important tip: lower the mixing speed on your mixer so you do not get a face full of flour before adding the dry ingredients to the wet, in three batches.
   

   

   Minor disaster: the small egg had a harder shell than anticipated and didn't crack properly. Luckily, part of the egg slid into the crack between the oven and the counter, so that was nice. Let's not tell Colin that either, shall we?

   
   
4. You might want to turn off the electronics at this time and start hand mixing in the 77 grams of rolled oats as well as the 110 grams of chocolate chips. Then take an ice cream scoop - I used a number 20 for this one - and scoop even rounds (about 2 tablespoons) onto the cookie sheet. In the home stretch...
   
5. Bake for 10-12 minutes. If anything, you're supposed to underbake them, which is very hard for a child who comes from a home where everything is burnt.  Burnt = cooked. Underbaked = salmonella. But I followed the recipe as told and, I'm telling you, they looked - and tasted - pretty darn good. Of course, you'll have to wait for Colin's rating to find out the real scoop.

Ice cream scoops make evenly sized cookies.

Would you pay $2 for these? How about $.75?