Delicious Trail Mix Cookies
Finally, a long awaited food post. I know it isn't the Japanese I've been promising, but this is the first actual recipe that I can honestly say is my creation. All the others are either small variants (changing flavors or doing things to taste) of other people's recipe.
This one is an altered derivative pulled from a recipe from my mate's mother Linda, for snickerdoodle cookies re-purposed to hold trail mix. (I will not divulge her recipe without her permission) I couldn't find a good recipe with trail mix ingredients without it also having oatmeal in it, which I don't care for in baked goods.
1 60's looking grainy photo from shitty camera is go!
The Dry Ingredients
2 Cups of flour*
1 and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 tsp baking soda
approximately 1/4 tsp of salt
*use extra flour later on to help consistency of batter
The Wet Stuff
1/4 and 1/8 cup of butter
1/4 and 1/8 cup of shortening
1 cup of brown sugar (I used light brown but I think it would be better with dark)
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla or almond extract (I actually used closer to 1 tsp because we were practically out of both extracts)
Extras
1 cup (or more) of trail mix of your choice. I used Fancy Trail Mix from Snac Time.
You can use any mix of nuts and dried fruit you want really.
Coarsely chop your nuts and fruit either with food processor or decent mortar and pestle (or painstakingly by breaking each nut by hand like I had to). I guess you could use them whole but that didn't seem appetizing to me.
Prepare cookies using Alton Brown's creaming method (described below):
Take out your ingredients. Let your butter and shortening come to room temperature (between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit).
Sift together your dry ingredients. You can use a sifter or handy stand mixer. You might even be able to use a food processor for this as well. Set aside.
Beat your eggs into a bowl, set aside.
Add your butter and shortening to the stand mixer.
According to Alton, you must have a stand mixer for this to work. You Can mix the ingredients by hand but it will taste different, as there is no guarantee for everything to distribute evenly and it is a time consuming process.
Using the paddle attachment, turn it on medium (on mine, 5) to spread the fats around the bowl.
Add your sugar. Set the speed to medium again and then let it do its thing. Occasionally you might want to stop it to scrape down the sides of the bowl since some of the fats will stick to the sides of the mixer and not incorporate properly.
This is the tricky part: Keep an eye on it and turn it off after the sugar has dissolved, but you can still feel it between your fingers and the mix becomes lighter in color and fluffy (or approximately 1/3 more in volume than it was).
Then turn the mixer on low (on mine, 1) and slowly pour the eggs into the mixture. The wet stuff will become sort of like grits looking, but it will, eventually, absorb the eggs. Also add your extracts at this point.
Take your flour and add it in three parts (or simply, slowly), so that it combines with the wet stuff easily. When all your flour has been used, you should get a batter that is somewhat taffy-looking, wet, shiny and sticky. I guess you could, at this point, pour it out and bake it into something, but not cookies.
Add your nuts and fruit. When it is well mixed start adding more flour a little at a time till you get sticky looking cookie dough. Think Nestle Toll-House for a reference.
Stick the dough in the fridge for around a half hour.
Set oven to preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grease up a cookie sheet using more shortening or cover with a piece of parchment paper.
Take out your dough and spoon little balls onto the sheet. You may want to roll them in the palms of your hands. Space them out about two inches on all sides.
Stick the rest in the refrigerator between batches since the dough underneath will be sticker than the dough on top.
Bake each batch for 25 mins or until your cookies turn a golden brown.
Take out and eat. Or store for later, your call. It should yield somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 silver dollar sized cookies (3 in dia, or 7.62 cms. Sorry, I am not going to reconfigure the other measurements into metric at this time).
Cookies should have a nice soft-crumbly texture without being crumbly. If you didn't wait long enough for the fat and sugar to become a cream texture, then it will come out dense and cake-like in texture. Still good IMO.
Hope you enjoy.
Note: These are NOT health food cookies. Seriously, have you looked at the nutrition label on shortening?! I love trail mix. I love cookies. Excellent combination, but you might want to let these last a while before you tear through them or share with others. They should keep nicely for about a week, though they do start to get a little stale after that. But still tasted quite nice on the fourth or fifth day.
This one is an altered derivative pulled from a recipe from my mate's mother Linda, for snickerdoodle cookies re-purposed to hold trail mix. (I will not divulge her recipe without her permission) I couldn't find a good recipe with trail mix ingredients without it also having oatmeal in it, which I don't care for in baked goods.
1 60's looking grainy photo from shitty camera is go!
The Dry Ingredients
2 Cups of flour*
1 and 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
3/4 tsp baking soda
approximately 1/4 tsp of salt
*use extra flour later on to help consistency of batter
The Wet Stuff
1/4 and 1/8 cup of butter
1/4 and 1/8 cup of shortening
1 cup of brown sugar (I used light brown but I think it would be better with dark)
3 eggs
1 tbsp vanilla or almond extract (I actually used closer to 1 tsp because we were practically out of both extracts)
Extras
1 cup (or more) of trail mix of your choice. I used Fancy Trail Mix from Snac Time.
You can use any mix of nuts and dried fruit you want really.
Coarsely chop your nuts and fruit either with food processor or decent mortar and pestle (or painstakingly by breaking each nut by hand like I had to). I guess you could use them whole but that didn't seem appetizing to me.
Prepare cookies using Alton Brown's creaming method (described below):
Take out your ingredients. Let your butter and shortening come to room temperature (between 60-70 degrees Fahrenheit).
Sift together your dry ingredients. You can use a sifter or handy stand mixer. You might even be able to use a food processor for this as well. Set aside.
Beat your eggs into a bowl, set aside.
Add your butter and shortening to the stand mixer.
According to Alton, you must have a stand mixer for this to work. You Can mix the ingredients by hand but it will taste different, as there is no guarantee for everything to distribute evenly and it is a time consuming process.
Using the paddle attachment, turn it on medium (on mine, 5) to spread the fats around the bowl.
Add your sugar. Set the speed to medium again and then let it do its thing. Occasionally you might want to stop it to scrape down the sides of the bowl since some of the fats will stick to the sides of the mixer and not incorporate properly.
This is the tricky part: Keep an eye on it and turn it off after the sugar has dissolved, but you can still feel it between your fingers and the mix becomes lighter in color and fluffy (or approximately 1/3 more in volume than it was).
Then turn the mixer on low (on mine, 1) and slowly pour the eggs into the mixture. The wet stuff will become sort of like grits looking, but it will, eventually, absorb the eggs. Also add your extracts at this point.
Take your flour and add it in three parts (or simply, slowly), so that it combines with the wet stuff easily. When all your flour has been used, you should get a batter that is somewhat taffy-looking, wet, shiny and sticky. I guess you could, at this point, pour it out and bake it into something, but not cookies.
Add your nuts and fruit. When it is well mixed start adding more flour a little at a time till you get sticky looking cookie dough. Think Nestle Toll-House for a reference.
Stick the dough in the fridge for around a half hour.
Set oven to preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grease up a cookie sheet using more shortening or cover with a piece of parchment paper.
Take out your dough and spoon little balls onto the sheet. You may want to roll them in the palms of your hands. Space them out about two inches on all sides.
Stick the rest in the refrigerator between batches since the dough underneath will be sticker than the dough on top.
Bake each batch for 25 mins or until your cookies turn a golden brown.
Take out and eat. Or store for later, your call. It should yield somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 silver dollar sized cookies (3 in dia, or 7.62 cms. Sorry, I am not going to reconfigure the other measurements into metric at this time).
Cookies should have a nice soft-crumbly texture without being crumbly. If you didn't wait long enough for the fat and sugar to become a cream texture, then it will come out dense and cake-like in texture. Still good IMO.
Hope you enjoy.
Note: These are NOT health food cookies. Seriously, have you looked at the nutrition label on shortening?! I love trail mix. I love cookies. Excellent combination, but you might want to let these last a while before you tear through them or share with others. They should keep nicely for about a week, though they do start to get a little stale after that. But still tasted quite nice on the fourth or fifth day.