Melanie's Famous Chocolate Chip Shortbread Logs

Source: The Famous Melanie

1 cup butter
1/2 cup confectioner's (powdered) sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups mini chocolate chips or 12 ounces finely chopped chocolate
1 tablespoon shortening
1 cup finely chopped, toasted nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°. Cream butter and sugar until smooth, add vanilla and continue to mix until combined. Incorporate flour and half of the chocolate. Roll dough out into logs that are 1/2" wide and 2" long, place on greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Cook for 10-13 minutes. Allow cookies to cool completely on cookie sheet as shortbread can be brittle.

Melt remaining chocolate with shortening over a double boiler. Dip one end of each cookie into the melted chocolate and then roll in nuts. Place on waxed paper to set.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Yield: About 36 Cookies
Source: Allrecipes.com

This is my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe, it's the only one I ever use. I'll make them with chopped pecans and dark chocolate chips for me, or leave out the nuts and use milk-chocolate chips when making them for The Kid. The baking soda and hot water thing sounds weird, I know, but it gives the finished cookies this almost shiny outer shell with crispy edges and a chewy center. I'm Queen of the barely cooked cookie and these are perfect. They will keep for a couple of days in a sealed container (anything with real butter starts to taste odd to me by about day 3) or months in the freezer. I actually prefer them straight out of the freezer.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups all purpose flour
2 cups chocolate chips (your choice)
1 cup chopped nuts (your choice or not at all)

Preheat your oven to 350° and grease two cookie sheets.

Cream the butter and sugars until smooth. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water (out of the tap is fine), add to the batter along with salt.

Add the flour, one cup at a time. When the flour is fully incorporated, add the chocolate chips and the nuts.

Use a No. 40 disher (about 1.5 Tbs) to scoop the dough out onto your baking sheets. Leave about 2 inches between each one. Bake for 11-12 minutes in preheated oven, or until the edges are light brown. If you're cooking two sheets at once, rotate them halfway through and give them an extra minute of cooking time.

Beatty's Chocolate Cake

Yield: One 9x13 cake

This is my go-to chocolate cake, every time I make it we blow through it like locusts. It's that good. The recipe came from the Barefoot Contessa at FoodTV.com. It's really easy and doesn't call for anything special. The only change I make is that I leave the egg yolk out of the frosting and I'm generally too lazy to sift the powdered sugar.

For the Cake
Butter, for greasing the pans
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder*
2 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
Chocolate Frosting, recipe follows

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and flour the pan.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Cool completely before frosting.

For the Chocolate Frosting

6 ounces good semisweet chocolate
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 extra-large egg yolk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1 tsp coffee

Chop the chocolate and place it in a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until just melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until light yellow and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolk and vanilla and continue beating for 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to low, gradually add the confectioners' sugar, then beat at medium speed, scraping down the bowl as necessary, until smooth and creamy. On low speed, add the chocolate and coffee to the butter mixture and mix until blended. Don't whip! Spread immediately on the cooled cake.

*I use Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder and Hershey's Special Dark chips. I just melt the chips in the microwave. This fills a 9x13 pan nicely, cook for 30 minutes. I have found that while this frosting recipe works well for the top of a 9x13 cake, if I were doing a layer cake or cupcakes I would make a double batch of it. Happy eating and good luck on the self control.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Sugar Cookies

Yield: 3 dozen cookies

Last Christmas I was really feeling the need for chocolate covered cherries. That lead to attempting to recreate them in cookie form, as I'm not about to make anything as convoluted as chocolate covered cherries are sure to be. And, let's face it, unless you're dropping some serious dough, the store-bought ones — while tasty — are chock full of scary candy chemistry that will put you off sugar for life. (Thank you very much Marc Summers and Unwrapped, you've ruined so many treats for me...)

1 cup Butter, softened
3/4 cup + 1/2 cup Sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 t Almond Extract
2 1/2 cups All Purpose Flour
1 t Cream of Tartar
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Ground Nutmeg, fresh if you've got it
6 oz Dried Cherries, chopped
1 cup Slivered Almonds
6 oz Chocolate Chips, I prefer the Hershey's Special Dark Chips
2 tsp Vegetable Oil

Preheat oven to 350°.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and 3/4 cup of sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla and almond extracts. In another bowl combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ones. Mix in dried cherries and almonds.

Roll round teaspoonfuls of dough in the remaining sugar and bake 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8-10 minutes or until light brown. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Carefully melt chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl or a double-boiler. Once smooth, thin with 2 t vegetable oil. Put paper towels or newspaper under your cooling racks and drizzle cookies with melted chocolate. Allow to set before storing.

Adapted from Soft Sugar Cookies at AllRecipes.com