Millions of cinnamon rolls!

You know you’re a food blogger when…

1) You are used to eating meals at room temperature because you had to spend 10 minutes photographing the darn thing.

2) You have the grocery store aisles memorized.

3) You bring baked goods to bars during happy hour just so you can get them out of the house.

Number three is exactly what happened with this delicious thing. I made it, photographed it, ate more of it than I should have and then rushed out the door to catch a beer with some friends.

I was about to leave when I decided… what the heck… let’s bring it to the bar! This was a good idea. People loved it because the tiny little rolls are bite-sized. Even our server snuck a few pieces!

While I was going to write that this recipe is really great for brunches, it also happens to be perfect for bars.

Chocolate Chip Monkey Bread

Yield: Serves 10.

Prep Time: 30 minutes + rise time

Total Time: 4 hours

Ingredients:

Dough:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup milk, warm
1/3 cup water, warm
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon instant yeast
3.25 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
2 teaspoons salt
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips (opt.)

1-2 tablespoons butter, soft for bundt pan.
1 teaspoon vegetable oil, for rising

Brown Sugar Coating:
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
8 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons milk

Helpful Equipment:
Bundt Pan

Directions:

1) Butter pan with 2 tablespoons softened butter and set aside for later.

2) In a large bowl, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar and yeast. Meanwhile, mix flour and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase speed to medium and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, 6 to 7 minutes. If at any point dough is very sticky, add more flour by the tablespoon.

If you don't have a mixer, just mix the ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon until the dough forms a rough ball. Then turn out onto a floured surface and knead the dough until it forms a smooth ball, about 5-6 minutes.

3)Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form smooth, round ball. Coat large bowl with vegetable oil or nonstick spray. Place dough in bowl and coat surface of dough. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until dough doubles in size, about an hour.

4) For the sugar mixture, mix brown sugar and cinnamon together in a bowl. Place melted butter in second bowl.

5) To finish bread, remove the dough from the bowl, and pat into a rough 10-inch square. Sprinkle chocolate chips on half of the dough and fold it over. Then roll out again to a square. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut dough into tiny 1/4-1/2 inch pieces.

6) Roll each piece into a rough ball and dip into the melted butter, allowing excess butter to drip back into the bowl. Roll in the brown sugar mixture, then layer balls in the Bundt pan. Try to stagger the balls so they form a single thing.

7) Cover the Bundt pan tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for another hour until the balls are about 2 inches from the top of the pan.

8) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap the pan and bake until the top is deep brown, about 35-40 minutes. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a late and allow to cool slightly, about 10 minutes.

9) While the bread cools, whisk the confectioners’ sugar and milk in a small bowl until the lumps are gone. Using a spoon, drizzle the glaze over the monkey bread. Serve warm.

Adapted from a Brown Eyed Baker recipe.

The Dough

This dough is basically a cinnamon roll dough. It’s pretty much the easiest kind of dough to work with in my opinion. It’s really easy to mix and knead. It’s very soft and stretchy. It’s really easy to roll out and shape!

Start it by mixing all the dough ingredients except the salt and flour in a small bowl. Stir them together and let them sit for a minute or two to make sure the yeast is dissolved and active. It should start foaming a bit.

In a mixing bowl, combine your salt and flour and add in the liquid stuff. If you have a stand mixer, just mix this all together with the dough hook on low-medium speed until it comes together in a soft ball, about 5 minutes.

This is a really easy dough to make without a mixer though. Just stir the ingredients together with a wooden spoon and once they are all together, knead the dough on a floured surface until it’s a nice smooth and soft ball.

Mixer or no mixer, if the dough ever gets sticky, add more flour.

Pretty straightforward

Once your dough ball is formed, add it to a bowl that’s been lightly oiled. I just used some vegetable oil and coated the inside of the bowl. Turn the dough ball over in the bowl so it gets nice and coated and then cover the dough and let it rise for about an hour. It should double in size.

This was my finished dough ball.

After a short rise.

Making the Balls

Now for the fun part. Scoop the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out into a large square. Then sprinkle your chocolate chips on half of the square.

The chocolate is optional, but I thought it worked perfectly in the recipe. You can use almost any chocolate chip. I just used some semi-sweet chips that I had in my pantry.

You only need a few ounces to get some nice chocolate flavor.

No need to go crazy with chocolate.

Fold the dough over and pack it down so the chocolate chips are more or less enclosed in dough.

Folded and lightly rolled.

Then use a knife or a dough scraper to chop up the dough into bite-sized pieces. You should shoot for 60-70 little pieces. About 1/2 inch squares is a good goal.

It’s actually good to have different sizes though so don’t worry about them all being totally even.

Approximately a million.

Filling the Pan

In a small bowl, mix together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Also use a separate small bowl and gently melt some butter in the microwave.

Working with a few pieces of dough at a time, roll them into rough balls and dunk them in the melted butter.

No substitutions here...

Then toss them in the sugar and cinnamon mixture and roll them around. A light coating is all you need.

Like an inside out cinnamon roll

Then toss the finished balls in a bundt pan that has been pretty heavily buttered.

Keep going until you use all your dough. If you have a normal sized pan you’ll probably about half fill the pan which is perfect.

About half full is good.

If you don’t have a bundt pan, I don’t see why you couldn’t make this in a normal baking dish. It might not be quite as attractive, but it would still be delicious.

Regardless of the pan you choose, after you finish stacking all the balls of dough, cover the pan and let them rise a second time. About another hour should give you a great puffy dough.

While it might not look like these have risen much, keep in mind that they are also expanding to fill a bunch of little cracks that are in between all the dough balls. This second rise is really important.

A longer second rise.

Baking and Glazing

Once your dough has risen a second time, bake them at 350 degrees for about 35-40 minutes. They should be a nice golden brown and you might also notice some brown sugar bubbling up around the edges. That means it’s done!

This was my finished bread and it not only looked great, it smelled amazing!

Hello beautiful.

Let this cool in the pan for a few minutes and then invert it on a plate or platter.

Meanwhile, just stir together the powdered sugar and milk to make a very simple glaze.

Once the bread has cooled for 10 minutes or so, go ahead and drizzle the glaze all over it.

A simple glaze.

You could slice this, but I actually preferred serving it with toothpicks so people can just pick off the bread piece that they want.

Some people prefer the outer ones that get kind of crispy. Some like the inside ones that are soft.

So good!

For the delicious and show-stopping dessert that is produced, this thing really isn’t that hard to make. The dough is really easy to bring together and then it’s just a matter of rolling it, dunking it in butter and sugar and baking it.

In other words, you make do this. Anyone can make this.

And everyone should.

What's up England?

It’s no secret that I’m not British, but there are many things that British people do that I also enjoy. Things like:

• Drinking tea.
• Drinking tea with milk in it.
• Eating cookies with tea.
• Speaking in a British accent.

Lemon Tea Cookies

Yield: 30 cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes + chill time

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar + plus some for dusting
1 1/2 teaspoons lemon extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Cream together butter and powdered sugar using a hand mixer or stand mixer.

2) Once the mixture is light and fluffy, add in the lemon extract and continue to stir.

3) In a separate bowl, mix together flour, salt and baking powder.

4) Slowly mix in dry ingredients into butter mixture. Stir until just combined.

5) Wrap dough with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for an hour.

6) Break off a large tablespoon sized piece of dough and roll it into a ball with your hands. Gently flatten the ball and put it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Repeat. You should get about 30 cookies out of the dough batch.

7) Bake cookies at 375 for 10-11 minutes. They should be lightly browned around the edges.

8) Let cookies cool completely and dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Easy Cookies

These cookies are about as easy as cookies can be. There are two interesting things about them that give them a very unique texture.

1) They have powdered sugar instead of regular sugar. They aren’t quite as sweet because of this and have a much lighter texture.

2) There aren’t any eggs in the recipe. This again makes the cookies really light and also makes them nice and crunchy which is a good texture for a tea cookie.

I've used a lot of butter this week...

The first step to these cookies is just like 99% of the cookies you’ll ever make. You need to cream together the butter and sugar even though the sugar is powdered.

Just use a hand mixer or stand mixer and beat the butter and sugar until it’s a nice, light consistency.

Easy...

The Extract

I wanted to add a very simple flavor to these cookies and a tiny amount of lemon extract did the trick.

You don’t need much of this stuff. It’s very flavorful.

Mix the extract into the butter mixture. It’ll make your kitchen smell like a lemon bomb went off.

Very strong stuff.

The Finished Dough

In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, salt, and baking powder and then slowly mix it into the butter mixture.

Once it’s combined, your dough is done. Don’t overmix it. Once you can’t see any more flour, it’s ready to go!

Done.

The dough should be easy to mold, but pretty dense.

Take all the dough out of the bowl and wrap it in plastic wrap. Let this chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, but an hour would be best.

Cool it down.

Making the cookies

You could actually roll this dough out and cut out different shapes if you wanted to.

I went the easy route though. I just made my cookies by breaking off a small piece of dough about the size of a large tablespoon.

Then roll it gently into a ball using your hands.

Form a ball.

Gently press this into a disc shape and lay the cookies out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

You should get 15 cookies per sheet because these guys are smaller and they won’t really expand that much.

Should get 15 on a sheet.

Bake these guys at 375 degrees for about 10-11 minutes.

They are done when the edges are lightly browned.

Small is okay here.

Let these guys cool a bit and as they cool they will get nice and crispy.

Then give them a dusting of powdered sugar and serve them with your favorite cuppa tea!

Really light and tasty.

These will smell way more lemon flavored then they taste. As they bake they lose some of the lemon so the flavor ends up being subtle which is nice.

These are very light cookies. Perfect for an afternoon snack without being super-sweet or super-decadent.

So Mate. If you fancy a tea cookie, give these a jingle! 

An army!

You guys happened to pick one of my favorite dessert flavors for the poll last week. It’s a rare day that what I want to win actually wins. I got lucky this time around!

Besides using something with almond, I also wanted to make something super-easy to make.

In fact, these guys are so easy to make you don’t even have to turn on your oven!

This was my first attempt at making truffles and while they didn’t turn out perfectly shaped and I would probably need a few professional lessons before getting hired by See’s candy, I was completely happy with the result.

Almond Truffles

Yield: Makes about 40.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
2 ounces cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted
4 ounces almonds, about a cup, ground
1/4 cup cocoa powder, for coating

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Food Processor

Directions:

1) Cream together butter and cream cheese using a hand mixer or stand mixer until it is fluffy and smooth.

2) Toast coconut in a dry skillet over medium-low heat until it's a light brown color, about 4-5 minutes. Be careful not to burn the coconut.

3) Process almonds in a food processor until they are a rough meal.

4) With cream cheese/butter mixture, add in extracts and powdered sugar. Then stir in coconut and almond meal.

5) Make teaspoon sized balls of the dough and roll them into a tight ball with your hands. Toss them in cocoa powder until completely coated.

6) Chill for storage or serve immediately. These are best served at room temperature.

Adapted from a Food52 recipe.

Truffle Basics

I had never made truffles before and the first thing that shocked me was how little material actually goes into the balls. To make about 40 truffles, I only used 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 ounces of cream cheese.

Sure, there are a lot of add-ins and stuff, but the actual binder for the truffles is just a very tiny amount of these two ingredients.

The basics.

Add the butter and cream cheese to a mixing bowl and beat it until it is a light and smooth texture. I used my stand mixer for this, but you could just as easily use a hand mixer.

After a few minutes of beating you should be all set.

This actually makes a lot of truffles.

After this, mix in your extracts (vanilla and almond) and also the powdered sugar.

The Add-ins

Now for the fun stuff. This is where all the flavor and texture comes from for these truffles.

No need to peel.

For the almonds, just measure out 4 ounces (about a cup) and quickly process them in a mini-food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, I would just put my almonds in a plastic bag and crush them with a mallet or something.

Your goal is to get a really nice almond meal.

Easy breazy.

Besides the almonds, there’s also coconut in this recipe. I’m not always a huge coconut fan, but I really liked it in this recipe.

The key to coconut is to make sure you toast it lightly before using it. I just toasted mine in a dry skillet for a few minutes over medium-low heat. Be sure to keep an eye on the coconut and stir it frequently.

It can go from toasted to burned in about 30 seconds.

This is what you’re shooting for!

Don't burn it!

Add in the almond meal and coconut to the butter, cream cheese, and powdered sugar.

Stir this all together and your truffle mixture is done!

Try to not eat this with a spoon.

Making the Truffles

Keep in mind that truffles are supposed to be bite-sized treats. This stuff is pretty rich and nobody wants a candy bar sized truffle.

I literally used a teaspoon to measure out my truffles. To make one, scoop out a heaping teaspoon of the mixture and then lightly roll it into a ball using your hands.

See how small it is?

Small is good.

Toss the ball into a bowl of cocoa powder and shake it around to coat it completely.

You can do more than one at a time.

Once you get the hang of it, you can do 5 or 6 at a time and then just toss them all with the cocoa powder at the same time.

It took me maybe 10 minutes to pop out about 40 of these bite-sized goodies.

As I finished them, I just set them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. The paper just makes it a bit easier to clean up. There’s really no danger of the truffles sticking to anything.

Not bad for my first truffle.

While these are supposed to be one bite treats, I bit one in half so you can see the story.

Pretty delicious stuff. The cocoa powder is sharp and intense and then then the whole thing just melts in your mouth.

Chomp!

Store these in the fridge, but they are best served at room temperature. So, if you can, take them out of the fridge 10 minutes before eating them.

I find this next to impossible because when I open my fridge, there they are, and I just pop one in my mouth.

So, that serving method works too.

These are really unique and they look and taste way harder than they actually are. Give them a shot if you’re a truffle fan, an almond fan, or a fan of good stuff that requires very little work!

Unassuming, but delicious.

This year I decided to participate in my first ever Cookie Swap!

This means that I sent out three boxes of cookies to three food bloggers and three other food bloggers will be hopefully sending me three boxes of goodies.

While I was mailing my boxes of cookies I did have this moment of thinking that this might be some very elaborate pyramid scheme to get millions of free holiday cookies for a few lucky people!

I had this vision of the creators (Lindsay and Julie) sitting around hundreds of boxes of collected cookies… laughing all the way to the dentist’s office.

Of course, that won’t really happen. Food bloggers are generally the nicest people ever and I have full faith that I’ll receive my delicious boxes of cookies.

This year I think something crazy like 700 food bloggers signed up for the cookie swap. I have no earthly idea how long it took Lindsay and Julie to organize and match that many people, but I do honestly hope they sent themselves a few free boxes of cookies just for the trouble!

If you want to sign up for next year’s cookie swap, there’s already a signup form for it.

These brown butter guys are the cookies I sent out to my matches!

Brown Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Yield: 36 cookies

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, browned
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup oat flour
3 1/2 cups rolled oats (not instant kind)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 Cup dried cherries, chopped
1 Cup chocolate chips

Helpful Equipment:
Stand Mixer or Hand Mixer

Directions:

1) Add butter to a small saucepan over medium heat. Melt butter, stirring slowly. After butter melts, continue to cook for a few minutes until the butter solids start to brown. It easy to tell this if you use a non-dark colored pan as you'll be able to actually see the brown bits on the bottom. You can also tell when the butter is browned by the smell. It will start to smell very nutty which means it's done!

2) Pour off browned butter carefully. Try to leave most of the browned solids in the pan, but it's okay if some go with the butter. Let this cool.

3) Cream together sugars with brown butter until they are smooth using a hand mixer or stand mixer.

4) Beat in eggs one at a time and vanilla extract.

5) In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients except chocolate chips and cherries.

6) Slowly mix in dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.

7) Stir in add-ins (chocolate and cherries).

8) Spoon large tablespoons of cookie dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

9) Bake cookies at 375 for 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned around the edges.

10) Let cookies cool on a wire rack.

Butter, Browned

What I like about these cookies is that they are surprising. They look just like normal old oatmeal cookies, but they are jam-packed with flavor.

Step one to creating that flavor is to brown some butter. That gives the cookies a great nutty flavor that goes really well with the brown sugar.

If you’ve never browned butter before, it’s not all that hard. Just add your butter to a small saucepan and melt the butter over medium heat. Stir it frequently and after a few minutes the butter solids will separate out and sink to the bottom of the pan.

If you have a light colored saucepan, you’ll be able to actually start to see them brown a bit. You’ll also be able to smell the butter. When it’s done, it will have an intense nutty smell.

Start to finish, the butter browning process maybe takes 5-6 minutes.

Then you can pour off your browned butter. Try to leave behind most of the butter solids, but its okay if some get mixed in. It won’t affect the recipe at all.

Flavor town.

The Cookie Dough

Start this dough by mixing together all the dry ingredients in a bowl. If you can’t find oat flour, you can definitely use just all-purpose flour.

All the dry business.

Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, beat together the browned butter and sugars until they are smooth and light. This should take a few minutes.

Then slowly mix in your eggs and your vanilla.

Once that is all mixed together, slowly mix in your dry ingredients, working in batches.

Try not to overmix this dough. When the flour is incorporated, it’s done!

Pretty simple.

The Add-ins

I figured these cookies would have lots of flavor and great texture as-is, but this is a cookie swap so I wanted to amp up the flavor even more.

So I mixed in some chocolate and dried cherries. I figured it’s hard to go wrong with these flavors.

Don't skimp on these!

Once those are mixed in your dough is done and you’re ready to make some cookies!

This makes a lot of cookies.

Baking the Cookies

Scoop large tablespoon-sized balls of dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 36 cookies out of this recipe.

Twelve cookies per baking sheet should be about right.

Ready to go!

Bake these guys at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

The should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the center.

Let them cool on a wire rack if you have one.

If you’re photographing your cookies, here’s a TIP! Don’t photograph them on a counter that is almost exactly the same color as the cookies.

Talk about camouflage!

My counter is like camo for these...

The Packaging

I stressed out a lot about how to ship these cookies. I ended up letting the cookies cool completely and then sealing them well in a large freezer plastic bag.

Next I lined a large box with plastic wrap and filled the bottom with spicy kettle corn! I figured that would cushion the cookies a bit and also give the recipients a little extra treat.

The finished package!

Signed. Sealed. Delivered.

Now I need to make another batch of these for myself!

Very yummy.

These are called Andes Blondies, but when you say it, you should pronounce it like, “Andes Blaanndies.” So it rhymes.

Rhyming is important for a dish like this.

Other things that are very important for this dessert: peppermint, chocolate, butter.

More good news: These blaanndies are super-easy to make. Just a few ingredients and maybe ten minutes and you’re on your way to some delicious dessert bars that will absolutely disappear.

They are rich and chewy and have an awesome chocolate and peppermint flavor.

Andes Blondies

Yield: 20 blondies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 Teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Teaspoons peppermint extract
Pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Cup white chocolate chips
Butter, for dish
28 Andies mints (one package)

Directions:

1) Melt butter and sugar together in a double boiler until the sugar is dissolved.

2) Whisk together well and let cool to room temperature. Then whisk in eggs, vanilla, and peppermint. Once those are combined well, stir in flour.

3) Stir in white chocolate and pour batter into a lightly buttered 9x13 baking dish.

4) Bake blondies for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.

5) Let cool slighly and add half of your chopped Andies mints.

6) Let the blondies cool to room temperature and add the other half of the mints so some are melted and some are not. Gently press on the mints so they stick to the blondies.

7) Slice and serve!

A Blondie Batter

If you’ve never made blondies before, they are very similar to brownies except not brown. Basically, there’s no chocolate mixed into the batter itself, but you can always fold in chocolate chips or something like I did.

I think the texture is great because it’s just a butter, sugar, flour, egg mixture that ends up being really dense.

I recommend using light brown sugar, but you could use dark in a pinch.

Hard to go wrong with these...

Besides those basics, you can go crazy with add-ins. I made some blondies awhile ago that had all kinds of add-ins.

For this version, I kept it pretty simple because the topping has a pretty rich flavor. I had to add these three guys though.

The flavors!

To start the batter, just melt the butter and sugar over a double boiler or in a pan over low heat. You don’t want to burn the butter or sugar so just be careful with it.

Once the sugar is dissolved with the melted butter, take it off the heat and whisk in the extracts (vanilla and peppermint). Continue to whisk the butter/sugar mixture gently until it cools down a bit.

It won’t take long to cool down, but you want to make sure it’s not hot when you add the eggs or you’ll end up with an Andies scrambled egg casserole which is definitely not delicious.

Really simple batter.

Whisk in the eggs and then stir in the flour and the pinch of salt.

Once your batter is mixed up, you can fold in all those delicious chocolate chips!

You could use normal chocolate also.

Baking and Topping

Pour your batter into a lightly buttered 9×13 baking dish and bake it at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. I always err on the side of under-baking stuff like this so you might want to start checking yours around 28 minutes.

Ideally, the blondies will be lightly browned around the edges and still slightly soft in the center.

After 3o minutes, mine were perfect.

Still a bit soft in the center.

I’ll be honest. The most annoying part of this recipe is unwrapping 28 Andes mints.

Once you have them unwrapped though, give them a very rough chop.

Kind of annoying to unwrap...

I decided to add my Andes mints in two batches. I added about half right away and those kind of melted onto the blondies.

Then I let the blondies cool down to roughly room temperature and then I added the last half and just gently pressed them into the blondies so they stick.

This way half of them are whole and half are melted.

I like the look that this gave them, but it’s not really necessary. I think you could add all of them right away or wait. Whatever works for ya.

Some melting is good.

Use a knife to chop these guys up once they are cool. You should get about 20 bars out of one baking dish (4×5).

Chop'em up!

These are dense and chewy bars that have a very delicious flavor.

Besides being wonderfully decadent, they also have the added bonus of giving you minty fresh breath!

Ice cream in winter? Sure.

All this week on Macheesmo I’m making cookies! Be sure to check out the full list of cookie recipes on Macheesmo for even more cookie ideas.

As you’ll learn if you stick around for this full week, my definition of “cookie” is pretty broad. I should’ve probably called it “Dessert-that-you-can-eat-with-your-hands week”, but that doesn’t have the same flair.

Some might be shocked to see an ice cream based recipe in December, but I’m just not one of those guys that only likes to eat ice cream when it’s warm outside.

In fact, I’m up for eating ice cream pretty much any time. I could have hypothermia and be lost in the Canadian wilderness and probably still be up for a double scoop.

Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches

Yield: 24 sandwiches

Prep Time: 1 hour + ice cream resting

Total Time: 2 hours + plus freezing time

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chip Cookies:
Makes 48 small cookies.
8.5 ounces cake flour (2 cups minus 2 Tbsp.)
8.5 ounces bread flour (1 2/3 cups)
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
12 ounces chocolate chips

Vanilla Ice Cream:
Makes about 1 quart.
1 cup milk
1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
3/4 cup sugar
1 pinch salt
2 cups heavy cream
6 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Helpful Equipment:
Stand mixer or hand mixer
Ice Cream maker (I used the kitchenaid attachment which works okay.)
Mesh Strainer (for straining ice cream custard)

Directions:

1) For ice cream, slip vanilla bean in half and scrape out seeds into a medium saucepan with milk, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat immediately, cover, and let sit for one hour.

2) Whisk together yolks in a bowl. Bring milk mixture back up to heat (not simmering, just hot). Once hot, whisk in about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture slowly into the yolks to temper them. THen whisk yolks back into milk mixture.

3) Cook over low heat, scraping regularly and stirring with a heat-resistant spatula. Cook until the custard thickens enough to coat the spatula, about 5-6 minutes.

4) In a separate bowl, add cream and set bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice (ice bath). Once custard is thick, strain into cream. Stir well to combine and cool, then stir in vanilla extract.

5) Chill custard overnight or until thoroughly chilled. Then add to ice cream maker and churn according to instructions for your machine. Freeze ice cream until it's solid. I like to stir mine a few times while it is freezing solid to remove ice crystals.

For cookies:
1) Mix together dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking powder, baking soda). Set aside.

2) Cream together butter and sugars. Then mix in one egg at a time, slowly. Once all the eggs are incorporated, stir in vanilla.

3) Slowly stir in dry ingredients. Once dry ingredients are mixed in add chocolate chips and stir just until they are evenly distributed. Try not to overmix.

4) At this point you can chill the dough for up to 2 days if you want.

5) To bake, scoop tablespoon sized balls onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. You should get about 48 cookies out of the batch. Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes until they are lightly browned, but still somewhat soft.

6) Let cookies cool completely (preferably on a wire rack).

Making the sandwiches:
1) Once your cookies are made, transfer them to a large container and freeze them for about an hour.

2) Scoop a few tablespoon of ice cream and sandwich it between two cookies. Eat immediately or transfer to a freezer safe dish and freeze for up to 2 months.

Cookie recipe adapted from NY Times. Ice Cream adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe.

The Ice Cream

The most obvious shortcut that you could take for this recipe is just to buy ice cream from the store. You could sandwich almost any ice cream between these cookies and be in good shape. Since I figured I’d be snacking on these for a long time, I thought it would be worth it to make a really rich and delicious vanilla ice cream.

Any good vanilla ice cream recipe has to start with real vanilla beans. They are expensive, but the flavor is hard to beat.

Anytime you’re working with vanilla remember to split the bean and scrape out all those tiny vanilla seeds. Lots of flavor there!

Caviar? Nope. But still expensive.

If you’ve never made homemade ice cream before, it isn’t really that hard. You basically just make a custard and then chill it.

So start by combining your vanilla, sugar, salt, and milk in a saucepan. Bring this to a simmer and then let it sit, covered, for about an hour. This will infuse the milk with all that vanilla flavor (top left).

In a separate bowl, whisk together your egg yolks. Then heat up your milk mixture again (not simmering but hot). Then slowly whisk in about 1/2 cup of the milk mixture into the whisked yolks. This will bring them up to temperature and then you can whisk the warm yolks back into the hot milk mixture without worry that they will cook.

Cook this mixture over low heat until it thickens enough to coat a spatula. Be sure to stir this constantly and scrape the bottom of the pan to make sure it isn’t sticking. After 5-6 minutes, it should start to get very thick (bottom left).

Then strain this mixture and whisk it into your heavy cream. Add the vanilla and cool this as quickly as possible. I like to do this by putting the bowl in a larger bowl filled with ice (bottom right).

This might seem like a drawn out process, but minus the hour that you have to wait for the milk to infuse, it’s really only about 10 minutes of work.

Let this custard mixture chill thoroughly before making the ice cream. I recommend chilling it in the fridge for at least a few hours.

The Leftovers

A good vanilla bean will probably cost you $3-4. So don’t throw it away after you’re done with it in the custard mixture. There’s still tons of flavor in that bean actually. I like to cut my bean into a few pieces and add it to a dish with a few cups of sugar. Seal this and shake it up and after a week or so you’ll have some delicious vanilla sugar that you can use for a ton of things.

Still lots of flavor in those beans.

Making the Ice Cream

Depending on your ice cream maker, there will be different instructions for actually churning the ice cream.

I used my KitchenAid attachment which works pretty well. If I were buying an ice cream maker today though, I think I’d get a stand alone model.

Churn it!

Once your ice cream is churned to a nice soft serve consistency, you can scoop it into a dish and let it freeze solid in your freezer.

I actually like to take my ice cream out and stir it every hour or so just to make sure large ice crystals aren’t forming in the ice cream.

Soft serve.

The Cookies

I’m not going to go into a huge amount of detail on the chocolate chip cookies that I made for this. I used the same recipe that I used for my pretzel chocolate chip cookies. You can also check out the printed version of this recipe for thorough instructions.

Instead of making 18 huge cookies though, I made about 48 smaller cookies.

The cookies are pretty straightforward. Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Cream together butter and sugars. Stir in eggs and extracts. Then slowly mix in flour followed by chocolate chips.

At this point you can chill the dough for a few days, but I just baked them immediately on this day. For the cookies you want to shoot for large tablespoon-sized cookies and should get 12 per baking sheet.

I recommend using parchment paper to make sure they don’t stick to the baking sheets.

Pretty straightforward.

Bake these cookies for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. They should be lightly browned around the edges and still a bit soft in the middle.

Let them cool completely.

Building the Sandwiches

The only trick to making these sandwiches is that I would recommend freezing the cookies quickly before actually making them. I just stacked all of my cookies in a large casserole dish and then froze them for about an hour. That will make them more firm and easier to work with.

Chill these guys first.

A few tablespoons of ice cream smashed between two cookies is all you need for a really delicious dessert.

These are a bit of work, I won’t lie, but they make a bunch and keep perfectly so your work will pay dividends. You could also take some shortcuts if you want like using store-bought ice cream.

So good.

There’s a couple of things that I love about this treat. First, it combines my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and my favorite vanilla ice cream recipe. So yea. These are good.

Second, I love that since you freeze these, they keep for a really long time! This recipe makes about two dozen ice cream sandwiches and eating more than one at a time is a feat. So they keep for a while and you’ll have easy access to a quick frozen dessert should the urge strike you.

Even though I made these about a month ago, I’m still snacking on them and they are basically as good as they were on day one!

Checkmate!

I had never even heard of chess pie until about two years ago. Betsy and I were picking out a caterer for our wedding and when we finally selected one, we told him that we were going to make our own desserts.

He was totally cool with this, but he did recommend that we at least try his chess pie. Considering I had never even heard of chess pie, I was pretty skeptical.

After taking one bite, we ordered a bunch of them. I had no idea what was in it, but it was good. Some sort of deep rich custard mixture in a pie shell. I had to immediately apologize for eating half of the poor man’s pie before he even knew what happened.

While traditionally chess pie has a lemon base, I decided to change it up a bit and try one with a chocolate and orange flavor. It kind of turned out like one of those chocolate oranges you can get over the holidays, except in pie form.

In other words, freakin’ good.

It’s a really rich pie and one could easily serve 10-12 people. It would be a great and unique pie for the holidays!

Chocolate Orange Chess Pie

Yield: Serves 12.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients:

Crust:
3 cups graham crackers, crushed
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon sugar
1 pinch of salt

Filling:
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 ounces semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 orange, zest only
1/4 cup orange juice
4 large eggs
1 pinch of salt

Helpful Equipment:
Zester
Tart pan with removable bottom

Directions:

1) For crust, crush graham crackers until they are finely ground. The easiest way to do this is to pulse them in a food processor, but you can break them up by putting them in a plastic bag and rolling them with a rolling pin also.

2) Mix melted butter in with graham crackers and add sugar and salt. Mix well.

3) Press crust mixture into a 10 inch tart pan with a removable bottom. You can also use a normal pie pan if you don't have one of these.

4) Bake the crust at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. Then let it cool.

5) For filling, melt butter and chocolate in a pan over low heat.

6) Stir in sugar, cornmeal, vanilla, salt and orange ingredients. Make sure mixture is roughly room temperature and then beat in the eggs.

7) Pour filling into prepared crust and bake the pie for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

8) Let pie cool on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes before serving.

Making the Crust

I used my standard graham cracker crust for this recipe. When you’re crushing up your graham crackers, you can use a food processor or take it as an opportunity to get some aggression out!

Just stick all the crackers in a large plastic bag and whack them with a rolling pin until they are finely ground.

Then mix them with your other crust ingredients. Be sure to measure out your 3 cups of graham crackers after you crush them into bits.

Making the crust.

I used a cool tart pan with a removable bottom for this pie, but you could use any pie dish that you have.

Just add your graham cracker mixture to the pie dish and pack it evenly around the bottom and up the edges of the dish. I use a combination of my hands and a measuring cup to make sure the crust is really packed in evenly. Take your time with this step. You want a nice even crust.

Take your time here...

Once you’re happy with your crust, bake it at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes and then let it cool.

Meanwhile, you can…

Make the Filling

This filling is really close to fudge. It doesn’t have flour in it though so it’s more custard-like I guess. Whatever you want to call it, it’s very rich and perfect for a pie.

Start by melting your chocolate and butter together in a pan over low heat. I actually use a metal bowl over some boiling water (double boiler) just to make sure my stuff doesn’t burn.

Hard to go wrong here...

Once it’s melted, there’s a few key ingredients that need to get whisked in to the filling. You can take it off the heat after everything is melted.

Sugar, vanilla, and salt are all pretty standard ingredients, but one that really makes this filling is orange zest.

You’ll need a zester for this obviously.

Balance!

When you’re zesting, try to just get the orange part of the zest. If you get a lot of the white part of the peel, then it starts to get a bit bitter.

You will only be able to get a teaspoon or so of zest off of one orange, but the zest is really flavorful. It will be plenty to flavor the filling.

Aggressive zesting.

I also stirred in a small amount of orange juice just to round out the orange flavors.

The other secret ingredient that you might not think about is cornmeal. One tablespoon will do the trick, but it just gives the filling some body.

It’s the ingredient that will give the filling a texture that people won’t expect. You could leave it out and the filling would still work, but it’s a nice touch.

Secret ingredient alert!

Finally, make sure that your filling has cooled down to around room temperature and then mix in your eggs.

Stir this all together and your filling is done!

A filling... a soup... whatever.

Baking the Pie

Pour your filling into your prepared pie crust. Keep in mind the filling will puff up as it cooks so make sure you have 1/2 inch of space at the top. Don’t fill the pie all the way up even if you have enough filling to do so.

Looking good.

Bake this bad boy for 40-45 minutes at 350 degrees.

It’ll come out of the oven puffed and beautiful.

Looking better!

Chess pie is really just fudge pie in my opinion. The top of the pie gets a bit crunchy, but the filling is just like a delicious fudge.

This should go without saying but the chocolate and orange flavors are awesome together. That was just a no brainer!

This is a dense slice!

If you’re sick of the classic pumpkin pie every year, try out chess pie. It’s rich just like a pumpkin pie and can be served with whipped cream.

I was really happy with how this turned out.

Any chess pie fans out there? Leave a comment!

Crunchy and delicious.

When I first moved to DC 6ish years ago, I lived in a group house for about 3 of those years. For those that aren’t familiar with a group house, it’s basically when 4-6 adults try to live together in large house.

Think “The Real World” except it’s actually the real world and not a reality TV show. So it’s even more real.

The house I lived in took holidays seriously, but none more serious than Halloween. Every year we would throw a lavish 150 person Halloween party and spend way more time and money than we should’ve setting up for said party.

One of my favorite traditions was always pumpkin carving. There was something awesome about five twenty-somethings sitting around, watching “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” and carving pumpkins that somebody would inevitably puke in a few days later.

As we carved, we would always snack on roasted pumpkin seeds. We always had leftover seeds though and they would kind of just sit around and get stale.

This recipe is the definitive way to handle left over pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin Seed Amber

Yield: 1 large sheet

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups pumpkin seeds, roasted
1 Teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 Teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 Teaspoon cinnamon
1 pound 6 ounces sugar
12 ounces water
1/4 cup light corn syrup

Helpful Equipment:
Silmat
Digital Scale

Directions:

1) Rinse pumpkin seeds well and toss with seasonings.
2) Spread seeds out on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
3) Bake seeds at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4) Meanwhile, combine water, sugar, and corn syrup in a sauce pan. Bring to a simmer.
5) Simmer, over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until syrup is a light amber color and very thick, about 45 minutes.
6) Stir pumpkin seeds into syrup. Work quickly.
7) Spread onto a silicon baking mat and let cool for 15-20 minutes. Then break into pieces.

Roughly adapted from an Alton Brown recipe.

Roasting the Seeds

While you can buy pumpkin seeds, that’s kind of cheating. Especially during the Halloween season. Also most pumpkin seeds that you buy are shelled (so they are a light green color), but I actually like them with the shells on. They have a bit more texture.

The seed hole.

Once you get all of your seeds out of your many gourds, just rinse them off under some cold water and try to get off any huge bits of pumpkin guts. Then mix them with the salt, cinnamon, and pepper flakes and lay them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

The parchment paper just helps to make sure they don’t get really stuck to the sheet.

Ready to roast!

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Stir them a few times throughout the cooking process.

They are done when they are slightly crunchy and lightly toasted.

Try not to eat too many...

Making the Amber

This kind of candy has a lot of different names: brickle, brittle, sugar candy, addictive, etc. I chose to call it Amber this time around because for some reason it reminded me of when they have bugs trapped in tree sap.

Whatever you choose to call it, it’s actually pretty easy to make, but does require one thing: Patience.

To start, measure out your sugar, water, and corn syrup and add them to a pot. I like to use a digital scale for this just so I can make sure my ratios are exact. At the end of the day though, you can eyeball it, it just might make your cooking time longer if you mess it up.

Just good old sugar water.

It’s possible that you don’t need corn syrup for this, but I think it makes it a little easier to work with. If it’s your first time making sugar candy like this, I recommend it. If you’re an expert, you can probably do it without the corn syrup.

Anyway, just bring this mixture to a simmer and simmer it over medium heat. After about 20 minutes, it will be bubbling like crazy and start to reduce significantly. Stir it occasionally and just keep letting it reduce down.

Don't touch this.

After about 35-45 minutes, it will start to turn a light amber color and foam. This means that most of the water is out of the mixture which is exactly what you want.

At this point, you’re racing the clock.

Kill the heat and stir in your pumpkin seeds. Again, work quickly here. The last thing you want is for this to solidify in your pan!

Work quickly people!

Pour this mixture out onto a silicone baking mat and use a spatula to spread it out evenly.

If you don’t have one of these nice silicone mats, I think you could use wax paper or parchment paper. You definitely don’t want to let this stuff cool on something that isn’t nonstick as it’ll fuse to it and you’ll never get it off.

Cool it down!

Let this huge block of awesome cool for about 20 minute and then you can start cracking it into pieces.

I love just breaking it into random shards.

Take out some aggression.

This stuff ended up being completely addicting. It’s obviously sweet, but it’s also salty and a bit spicy from the pumpkin seeds.

The seeds also give the candy some great texture. So you get this big crunch from the candy and then kind of a chewy texture from the seeds.

Plus it just looks cool!

Sweet and salty!

So, if you have some seeds laying around from your pumpkin carving, give this a shot.

It takes some patience, but the results are really delicious!

Sometimes I have good ideas.

One of the things that I really like to do when I’m coming up with a recipe is turn stuff inside out. Put what’s normally on the inside on the outside.

If you have a good flavor combo, it keeps that combo but can give you really interesting, new textures.

Now that you’re kind of inside my brain, you can probably see how it’s not a huge leap to take a chocolate covered pretzel and flip it all around.

This cookie is the result and I think that it might be the best cookie I’ve ever made. I’m not going to go so far as to call it The Best Cookie EVER like so many people do, but I’ll just say that I would put it up against any other cookie in a taste test and leave it at that.

Pretzel Chip Cookies

Yield: 18 cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

8.5 ounces (a scant two cups) cake flour
8.5 ounces (1 2/3 cups) bread flour
1 1/4 Teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 Teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 Teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/4 Cups unsalted butter
1 Cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 Cups sugar
2 eggs
2 Teaspoons vanilla extract
1 pound chocolate chips, at least 60% cocoa
Hard pretzels, crushed

Helpful Equipment:
Kitchen Scale
Stand mixer or hand mixer

Directions:

1) Sift together flours with other dry ingredients except sugar.

2) Cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Mix in eggs one at a time and vanilla.

3) Mix in dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Then fold in chocolate chips.

4) Cover dough with plastic wrap and let rest for 24 hours in the fridge.

5) When ready to bake cookies, preheat oven to 350 degrees.

6) Make 3.5 ounce balls of dough (a large golf ball). Press dough ball into crushed pretzels on top. Press on a lot of pretzels.

7) Add cookie to baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Six cookies should fit on each baking sheet.

8) Bake cookies for 18-20 minutes until lightly browned but still chewy on the inside.

9) Let cookies cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to rack to finish cooling.

Adapted from an NY Times Recipe.

The Flours

I’ve been eyeing the recipe that I adapted for these guys for a while. One of the things that intrigued me about it was how it ditches all-purpose flour for a mixture of cake flour and bread flour. I could see how that would give the cookies a soft texture but still be somewhat chewy which sounds like a winning cookie to me.

Interesting flour combo.

I usually don’t worry about weighing cookie ingredients, although I know I should, but for this recipe it seemed to call for a very exact ratio of cake flour and bread flour so I pulled out my digital scale.

Gotta weigh it!

As far as the chocolate goes, the article in the NY Times goes on and on about how to get the absolute perfect ratio of chocolate to dough and exactly what kinds of chips result in the best cookie.

I’m sure they are right, but I’m not really going to order chocolate off the internet just to make chocolate chips cookies. So I just picked up a few different kinds of chips that looked good to me and tossed them in.

Use a few different chips.

Making the Dough

This is a pretty standard cookie dough to make.

Start by sifting together the flours and other dry ingredients except the sugar. It is somewhat important to sift the flours here because cake flour can sometimes clump up pretty badly.

Then, using a mixer (hand or stand) beat together the sugar and butter until it’s a light, fluffy texture. Then mix in the eggs one at a time on low. Then add the vanilla.

Next, add the dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture and mix until the flour is incorporated. Mix on low and don’t over mix it or your cookies will get too chewy.

It should take under a minute to get your flour mixed in, then gently mix in your chocolate chips until they are evenly incorporated.

Don't over-mix it!

The Waiting

There was one part of the article that I was a bit skeptical about. They said that it’s very important to let your cookie dough rest in the fridge for at least 24 hours before baking your cookies.

This is a serious test of willpower. You have these delicious cookies just sitting there, but you have to wait.

The idea behind it is to give the dough plenty of time to absorb all the liquid. If you bake them right away, the flour won’t get a chance to even absorb the eggs.

I didn’t actually bake a cookie right away to compare, but I must say that the dough had a much different texture after sitting overnight.

So I think it’s worth it if you can stand the wait.

Once the dough is mixed, just cover it with plastic wrap and store it in the fridge overnight.

Patience people.

Forming the Cookies

When you’re finally ready to make the cookies, just scoop out about 3.5 ounces of cookie dough. I actually weighed mine to make sure it was right, but basically it should be the size of a large golfball.

This amount of dough makes a pretty enormous cookie. You can only fit six of them on a baking sheet at a time.

When each cookie is rolled into a ball, press it into some crushed pretzels on one side. Make sure a good amount of pretzels are stuck to the cookie.

Then add each cookie to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Seriously large cookies

Bake these guys at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes. The cookies should be nicely browned on top, but still soft in the center.

These guys turned out so perfect.

Done deal.

Once they come out of the oven, let them cool on the baking sheet for five minutes and then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Serving them a bit warm is a really good idea.

I do not mess around.

Biting into one of these is a pretty intense experience. The salt from the pretzels is the perfect topping for the cookies. It really brings out the chocolate flavor in the cookies.

At the same time there’s this fantastic texture thing happening between the soft cookie and the crunchy pretzels.

This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but maybe it’ll give you an idea!

Chomp!

There’s a few tricky parts with this recipe and you could ignore them if you dare. You could not weigh or sift your flours. You could not let your dough sit for 24 hours. You could make wimpy little cookies. They would still be good.

But if you do take the time to follow some of the more annoying steps, you’ll be well-rewarded.

Pretzels. Chocolate. Cookies.

Is it the best chocolate chip cookie IN THE WORLD? I don’t know, but I definitely wouldn’t turn one down.

These homemade trials posts are quickly becoming my favorite series to do. It’s so fun to try to beat out store-bought stuff!

And I’m always surprised by the results.

Running chocolate pudding through the trials was Betsy’s idea and I immediately jumped on it. There are so many different kinds of chocolate pudding in the store. I knew this would be a tough battle.

As always I compared a few different kinds of store-bought puddings (the snack pack and the standard instant mix) with a homemade version made with real milk and chocolate. I compared the results with regards to TIME, COST, NUTRITION, and, of course, TASTE. Let’s check out the results!

TIME

When it came to time, I knew my homemade version was a surefire loser. The snack pack takes approximately 5 seconds to pop open. So that’s clearly the time winner. Even the instant mix takes about 5 minutes to mix up and then it has to chill in the fridge for an hour or so to really set up nicely.

Meanwhile, my homemade version took about 25 minutes to whip up from scratch. Then it had to cool completely to set.

This was an easy one then. The TIME category goes to the Snack Packs!

Whisking takes time!

COST

I figured this one would be close, but that my version would probably lose. I mean, real chocolate is pretty expensive. I did splurge and buy the nice stuff because if I’m making chocolate pudding, I want it to be good.

So I lost on cost, but it was actually closer than I thought it would be. If you could save some money on the chocolate and milk, you could easily match the instant costs I think.

I’m going to call COST a TIE between the Snack Pack and the Instant Pudding. While the Snack Pack was a bit cheaper per ounce, I used organic milk for the instant pudding and the Snack Pack was on sale. That one cent per ounce is easily accounted for I think. Unfortunately, my homemade version loses again.

Nutrition

Here’s where I thought things might get interesting. Of course, the thing to remember about these instant mixes and snack packs is that they have a lot non-food stuff in them. I mean, heck, the snack packs don’t even have to be refrigerated! They claim to have “No Preservatives” in them, but anytime you see a product theoretically made with dairy that doesn’t have to be refrigerated, something weird is going on.

The instant mix doesn’t bother me as much since you add milk to it. Ironically, it’s the product with preservatives in it.

Here’s the actual nutritional breakdown.

This one was tough for me to look at because it’s pretty hard to say that the homemade variety won. There’s more fat, more calories and more sugar per serving. The only saving grace for the homemade version is the low sodium content and the protein increase.

But you know what? My version is made with real food. So take that. Here’s a list of a few of the ingredients in the snack packs and instant varieties that my version doesn’t have:

- Vegetable and palm oil
- Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate
- Disodium Phosphate
- Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate
- Mono- and Diglycerides
- Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 1
- BHA (in the instant variety)

But facts are facts and so I guess I’ll give NUTRITION to the Instant variety mainly just because it seems to have less fat and more protein and it’s made with milk.

At the end of the day though, you’re eating PUDDING, so nutrition really shouldn’t be a big player in your decision.

In my opinion, what pudding I’m going to pick is almost always the one that tastes the best. So let’s do the big category:

TASTE

I actually knew this was going to be hard. I mean, I grew up eating the instant variety of pudding almost every week. Betsy did also. Frankly, I love the stuff.

But the real stuff had real chocolate in it. A lot of it. I thought maybe it could stack up.

Action shot!

I set Betsy up with a blind taste test of the three different varieties. I made sure to keep them all in the fridge so they were the same temperature.

This is what she saw…

The Blue one won...

I wish I had this test on video. It was pretty hilarious.

She tasted them all. Thought about it for about half a second and then said, “Well, the red one is definitely the worst. It’s way to chocolatey.”

That was, of course, my homemade version. We both picked the instant version for taste.

I didn’t mind the homemade version, but I agree that it was a bit too heavy. Of course, this could be the recipe that I used which I’m not even going to bother reprinting since it can’t beat instant pudding mix.

Begrudgingly though, I have to give TASTE to the Instant Mix.

CONCLUSION

Well, it finally happened. My homemade version took a loss in this one. I think with everything put together, I’m going to give the win to the instant variety. Honestly, I’m surprised that my homemade version doesn’t lose more often. I mean, these products have teams of people engineering their flavors and millions of dollars in research going into them. How am I supposed to compete with that?!

At the end of the day though, it could be that Betsy and I chose the instant variety because we’ve been eating it since we were kids. It’s literally the flavor that I think of when I think of pudding which is great if you’re Jell-o. It’s also very possible that the recipe I used was a bomb.

So. Here’s a challenge.

Someone send me a pudding recipe that can beat instant pudding mix in a taste test.

Please.

I hate losing…