Surefire impressive cookies

[NulloModo]

Hi,

I need to make up a batch of cookies to send to someone. I would like something marvelously tasty, not too far out there (they don't have super sophisticated taste), and here is the catch: I won't be able to eat any myself to test them, so the recipe has to be foolproof (and I am a pretty big fool when it comes to baked goods).

Other than that, the options are open, so, let the good ideas flow ;).

[amyd]

Are you bringing it yourself or do you have to ship them (i.e., they have to stay really fresh for a few extra days)? My favorite party cookie for unsophisticated tastes is a whoopie pie from Carole Walter's All American Cookie Book. They are very tasty and lots of fun! One note on her recipe, though, make the cookies half the size she suggests; they are very filling. PM me if you want more information.

[NulloModo]

They will have to be able to stand up to shipment through good 'ole USPS, forgot to mention that ;). What exactly is a whoopie pie? I would love to hear more details, feel free to PM me.

[Gifted Gourmet]

They will have to be able to stand up to shipment through good 'ole USPS, forgot to mention that ;).  What exactly is a whoopie pie?  I would love to hear more details, feel free to PM me.

Whoopie!!

A whoopie pie manufacturer has received hundreds of orders after being featured on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" this week. Isamax Snacks' whoopie pies were included in a segment about great gifts for under $25. A short time later, the orders started coming through the company Web site and over the phone.

"We have Oprah-overload,"

Must be pretty good ... anyway, check out the recipes from the Amish .. they have great stuff!

[DiH]

They will have to be able to stand up to shipment through good 'ole USPS, forgot to mention that ;). What exactly is a whoopie pie? I would love to hear more details

I just sent 4 dozen Whoopie Pies off with a gal enroute to Austin... and I'll be mailing another dozen somewhere else tomorrow. Individually wrapped, they hold up extremely well to the gorillas tossing the mail about. I ship them all the time.

A Whoopie Pie is a creamy, marshmallow/Crisco filling that is sandwiched between two palm-sized rounds of devils food cake (baked as cookies). Comparable to Suzy Q's and Devil Dogs.

I'll post the recipe if anyone is interested.

My husband grew up on 'em and can't get enough... but the filling is toooooooo sweet for me.

Di

[NulloModo]

I would be very interesting in seeing the recipe. I don't know if it is exactly what I am looking for, sounds more like a snack cake than a cookie, but it could still be fun.

[DiH]

Yes, these are very much a snack cake/cookie rather than a regular cookie.

Whoopie Pies

1 C. Hershey's cocoa

2 C. water

Bring to boil, stirring constantly; set aside to cool.

1 C. butter, softened

2 1/2 C. sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

Cream together on high speed until fluffy and very pale in color; approximately 10 minutes.

Add 4 eggs; blend

Mix in the cooled chocolate; blend

3 C. A/P flour

3/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. baking soda

2 tsp. baking powder

Sift together 5 times, then add to previous mixture. Mix til flour is no longer visible, scrape sides of bowl, then mix on high speed for one minute.

Can be baked in four 9" cake pans, 20-25 min. at 325 degrees.

For Whoopie Pies, refrigerate batter 3-4 hours, or overnight; also refrigerate batter between baking usages. Drop batter by level 1 1/2 oz. scoops (household cookie scoop) onto lightly greased baking sheet, spacing them quite a ways apart as they really spread out. (8 cookies/half-sheet pan) Bake 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees; cool before filling. Makes 44 cookies for assembling 22 Whoopie Pies.

Whoopie Pie Filling

3/4 C. Crisco

7 oz. jar of marshmallow cream

2 tsp. vanilla

4 C. powdered sugar

5 Tbsp. milk

Cream together the Crisco, marshmallow cream and vanilla. Gradually add sugar and mix well. Add in the milk a little at a time; mix til blended. Turn mixer on high speed and beat til mixture is fluffy, approximately 7 minutes.

Turn half of the cookies upside down, place a level 2 oz. scoop of filling in center of each. Cover each with a remaining cookie, topside up. Press tops down gently until the filling squishes evenly to the outside edge.

Di

[Rhea_S]

My favorite party cookie for unsophisticated tastes is a whoopie pie from Carole Walter's All American Cookie Book. They are very tasty and lots of fun! One note on her recipe, though, make the cookies half the size she suggests; they are very filling.

Does Carole Walter's recipe also have shortening in the filling? I've always wanted to try making whoopie pies, but I'm a bit of a shortening snob. However, I do trust Carole Walter recipes. I have her Great Cakes and use it often, and I frequently borrow Great Pies and Tarts from the library.

[viva]

I make my whoopie pies with jarred marshmallow creme

It just has the consistency I like better than the fillings with shortening! Actually, the next batch will be with the marshmallows from the Homemade Marshmallows thread, but in a pinch, the mallo-creme jar is in the cupboard!

[amyd]

The All American Cookie Book recipe (which, BTW, is written by Nancy Baggett, not Carole Walters as I previously posted under a temporary brain freeze) calls for marshmallow creme, shortening and butter. PM me and I can expand on the quantities.

[cakewench]

This brings up an interesting question (well, interesting to ME): Are there people around who discovered Woopie pies as an adult and loved them?

seriously. Most people I know who just go all over them actually grew up with them. Anyone I know who has tried them (or their Moon pie cousins) as an adult tends to be a lot more um... restrained in their description.

I'm just curious.

[helenjp]

Are there people around who discovered Woopie pies as an adult and loved them?

Err...me?!

Except, I didn't recognize them from your description of them! Chocolate? Marshmallow creme in jars (I keep hearing about this stuff, but have yet to see it...gotta visit the US one of these days!)

About 10 years ago, I found 2-3 recipes over a short period of time which had things like dark, spicy pumpkin cookies with sour cream or cream cheese fillings. There was a cocoa cookie, true, but I liked the pumpkin one so much that I forgot all about the "original".

The ones I fell in love with were a sort of portable one-man carrot cake without the carrots, and with more crunch. There was never any question of *not* loving them...

And returning to the original question, given that the cookies have to look good when you open the box, how about butter cookies with stripes or checkerboards - just press the different flavored dough strips together and cut out?

Coffee, chocolate, and vanilla taste good as well as looking good, but add a titch of powdered sugar to the vanilla dough, or it will not cook as crisp as the other flavors.

Or add a little powdered green tea to about 1/3 of your basic butter cookie dough, and press a ball of that onto a ball of plain dough, flatten 'em, and press a few shreds of lemon peel into the green ball before baking. Gold leaf looks good too, but lemon peel definitely tastes better!

Also, weather's a bit warm yet, but gingerbread cookie dough rolls better when aged. I've aged it for a week or two in a cool place, and it rolls without sticking, bakes smoothly, and tastes great! I imagine the same is true for any honey or molasses type cookie. Even a plain peanut butter cookie tastes heaps better with shreds of lemon peel mixed into it, and a few on top to garnish.

[JAZ]

Are you still looking for a cookie recipe? I make one most years for Christmas (and use it in a lot of classes) that's as close to foolproof as I know. It's easy too, and produces cookies that ship very well.

It's a sort of butter cookie, but calls for browned butter, so the flavor is sort of caramel-like. They're flavored with a hint of cinnamon and cardamom. The only drawback is that they're not the most visually stunning cookies in the world.

Let me know; I'll post the recipe if you're interested.

[chefpeon]

This brings up an interesting question (well, interesting to ME): Are there people around who discovered Woopie pies as an adult and loved them?

seriously. Most people I know who just go all  over them actually grew up with them. Anyone I know who has tried them (or their Moon pie cousins) as an adult tends to be a lot more um... restrained in their description. 

I had actually never heard of them until I needed to make them when I started my current job back in May. They sounded good, and the recipe looked interesting, but after I made them and tasted them, I thought that they were ok and nothing more. It really reminded me of a Suzie Q, and I'm not really interested in making stuff that is already mass produced by a huge conglomerate. I also had that gut instinct that told me, "Kids would love it". Well, lucky for me, the market that we sell to doesn't really have kids as a large part of the demographic. Our market is "old hippie eclectic, wheat grass grazing, label reading, sandal wearing, holistic healing,

refined sugar shunning, folk music loving, antiestablishment, Wal-Mart haters".

Wait.....did I say "lucky for me"?

Well, when it comes to having to make Whoopie Pies, yeah.

I don't have to make them anymore because they didn't sell. Duh.

Not here.

Our best selling cookie (and what I attribute most of my paycheck to), is our Sesame Flaxseed

Oat Cake Cookie. Also known as a "Hippie Biscuit". It's probably the worst piece of dried out

over-rated, "it must be healthy 'cause it has flaxseeds in it" crap I've ever had to make. But it

SELLS. Why, God, why? I cannot predict the fickle public.....or their lack of taste.

I'd never share this recipe (because ethically I shouldn't), and I'd never subject a fellow foodie

to that kind of cruelty....

To prevent this from becoming the "Whoopie Pie" Thread, I suppose I should offer a suggestion

for a "knock your socks off cookie". But since I'm so confused about what most people consider

"a great cookie". I don't know where to start.

The phenomenon of the Hippie Biscuit has ruined me FOREVER!!!!!

[Wendy DeBord]

I've never eaten a moon pie.........I feel a bit left out.

Some cookies that I thought were 'impressive' off the top of my mind:

Chocolate Sparkle Cookies, by Thomas Haas

Sugar Cookies, by Carole Walters

White Chocolate Peppermint Crisps, by Marcel Desaulnier

Vanilla Shortbreads, by Claudia Flemming

Coconut Tuiles, by Payard

Coconut Chocolate Chip Macaroons, by Martha Stewart

Mexican Wedding Cakes........by my Mom

Noah Bedoahs, by Judy Rosenberg

Langues de Chat, by J. Torres

Toll House Cookies, by my husband eaten warm

[DiH]

Couldn't get my Quote button to do anything but light up... must be a glitch in the otherwise beautiful new site.

Anyway, this is is reference to Cakewench's, "Are there people around who discovered Woopie pies as an adult and loved them?"

Yes, yes, yessssss! They're just one of those things that you either love, or you don't. Like Chefpeon sez, they're pretty much like a Suzy Q.

Okay... back to the original question, the following are excellent cookies that also fare well in shipment:

SOHO Globs

10 oz. semi sweet chocolate

6 oz. unsweetened chocolate

3/4 C. butter

4 eggs

4 tsp.vanilla

2 tbsp. instant espresso powder

2/3 C. flour

1 tsp. salt

1-1/2 C. sugar

1-1/2 C. chocolate chips

1-1/3 C. coarsely chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Melt chocolates and butter together; set aside to cool. Mix moist ingredients with espresso powder until thick. Add melted chocolate/butter combo, then sifted dry ingredients; mix just untill blended. Fold in chips and nuts. Drop by tablespoon-sized globs onto ungreased pans. Bake for aproximately 13 minutes. *Do not overbake... cookies will puff up but won't firm up until they are cooled.

[Wendy DeBord]

I definately ditto the reccomendation on the SoHo Globs. They are very similar to Thomas Haas's sparkle cookies in that they are dark rich little cookies, like eating a flourless chocolate cake. The Globs have the addition of coffee and the sparkles have the crunch of sugar on it's exterior.

[NulloModo]

Are you still looking for a cookie recipe? I make one most years for Christmas (and use it in a lot of classes) that's as close to foolproof as I know. It's easy too, and produces cookies that ship very well.

It's a sort of butter cookie, but calls for browned butter, so the flavor is sort of caramel-like. They're flavored with a hint of cinnamon and cardamom. The only drawback is that they're not the most visually stunning cookies in the world.

Let me know; I'll post the recipe if you're interested.

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Yes, I would love to see this recipe.

[JAZ]

Here you go. You don't even need to use a mixer for these -- a spoon works fine. The only trick to them is that you can't make them very large -- the texture gets weird. I use a small cookie scoop but you can also use a pastry bag and squeeze out teaspoon-sized balls.

Browned Butter Crisps

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

pinch salt

1. In a small heavy saucepan, melt the butter and continue to cook until it browns. Watch carefully to make sure it doesn't burn. Let cool slightly.

2. In a large bowl, mix browned butter, sugar and vanilla. Add the egg and mix until smooth.

3. Stir the flour and spices until spices are distributed evenly; add to butter mixture and mix until blended thoroughly.

4. Drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment lined cookie sheets about 2 inches apart. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, or until edges are turning golden and the tops have begun to crinkle.

5. Let cool on the sheets for a few seconds, then remove and cool completely.

[JAZ]

I should mention that with my cookie recipe (above), the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That is, it doesn't sound like much, and as I mentioned, they're not the greatest looking cookies in the world. But trust me: once people try them, they can't stop eating them.

[tejon]

I should mention that with my cookie recipe (above), the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. That is, it doesn't sound like much, and as I mentioned, they're not the greatest looking cookies in the world. But trust me: once people try them, they can't stop eating them.

I made these cookies today and they're almost gone! The subtle hit of cardamom hidden in what initially seems like a crisp sugar cookie has me hooked. I ended up making them with a Tablespoon sized scoop, and they came out nicely:

Thanks for sharing this recipe - it's now one of my favorites.

[helenjp]

JAZ & Tejon, thanks for the recipe and for the photo!

I have a slightly different brown butter cookie, I think JAZ' recipe is better...but brown butter does make GREAT cookies! The texture is much crisper than a regular cookie, if I recall correctly.

Now the trick is to make them look as good as they taste.

[JAZ]

I made these cookies today and they're almost gone! The subtle hit of cardamom hidden in what initially seems like a crisp sugar cookie has me hooked. I ended up making them with a Tablespoon sized scoop, and they came out nicely:

Thanks for sharing this recipe - it's now one of my favorites.

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I'm glad you liked it. And it's good to know they worked in a larger size. The one time I tried to make them larger, I used maybe two tablespoons of dough and the centers didn't get cooked by the time the edges were done, so they were gummy. I never tried it again.