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.