This week I struggled with baker’s block added to a mild temporary case of baking burn-out. Last week I had a lot of fun baking a lot of cookies. I was baking as a gift for my friend Laurel’s daughter, Dara. Dara had her bat mitzvah ceremony on Monday. Afterwards, there was a beautiful luncheon celebration. I baked dessert for the 120 guests.
I filled 6 trays with baked goods made with a few of my favorite food blogger recipes. When decorating, I kept in mind the party colors of teal and violet and the theme of music. The sugar cookies with faux royal icing are from Bakingdom (5 dozen). The cookie tastes delicious and is just firm enough to handle well. The icing is great for a decorating novice like me. There must be a reason that people use real royal icing with egg whites but I can’t tell you what the reason could be. This icing dries hard and shiny. It is super easy to mix up and use. I also made Jen’s Biscoff Blossoms (3 dozen), Sally’s chocolate fudge cupcakes for the mini cupcakes(4 dozen), my own M&M cookies(3 dozen), brownies (2 dozen) and chocolate dipped oreos (some in molds and some hand-dipped, I lost count of how many dozen). It was crazy, but crazy in a good way. I consider my resulting baking burn-out minimal.
But my baker’s block was due to the nature of this blog. There are few resources for care package recipes. Cookbooks rarely indicate how long a cookie stays fresh. It’s frustrating. In order to audition a recipe for The Monday Box, I bake and wait. If my taste testers give me round one approval, I wrap 4 cookies as I would for shipping, double wrapped in plastic wrap and stored in a zip lock bag. Once a week, for up to four weeks, I take out a cookie and nibble, checking freshness, so that I will know what to write on the blog.
All of that obsessive quality control makes it necessary to plan ahead. (Yeah, I know I should be doing that anyway, but I am a professional procrastinator.) The only time I bake a new recipe and post about it the same week is when I am baking a variation on a recipe I’ve already posted or if I find a long lasting recipe published by a trusted baker.
Because I appear to enjoy making my life difficult, I am trying, during the hot summer months, to post only recipes that can be desert safe adapted. The swap out of Crisco instead of butter seems to work in many recipes. It’s the use of granulated sugar only that is difficult. So many cookie recipes are based on the moisture and flavor from brown sugar, molasses or honey.
The perfect cookie solution is biscotti. I adore biscotti and would happily rename this blog The Biscotti Box, but the general cookie eating world hasn’t embraced biscotti deliciousness. Even my rich, sweet and decadent Chocolate Espresso Biscotti and Oreo Biscotti received minimal attention. I will continue to include biscotti recipes because they are just too delicious and too care package perfect to ignore but they can’t be the main content.
Meanwhile, I wasn’t having any recipe epiphanies. Perhaps I was sleeping too soundly to think cookie thoughts in the middle of the night when I normally have my best cookie thoughts. In desperation (that is a tad dramatic, I admit) I just began baking. Most of what came out of the oven will never be posted here. But then my cookie thoughts finally clicked in and I adapted a desert safe bar cookie recipe by Nestle’s Test Kitchens, into a regular cookie with some ingredient changes that offered a different taste and texture profile.
I am calling these Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies due to the addition of Rice Krispies that give this chewy cookie a slight crunch. Though chewy for more than a week, the cookie does get crunchier over time.
You can read more about desert safe ingredients and find an index of all of the desert safe recipes on The Monday Box by clicking here.
Butterscotch Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup quick-cook oats
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- ½ cup butter or butter-flavored vegetable shortening***
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ cup dark chocolate chips or semi-sweet
- ½ cup butterscotch chips
- ½ cup Rice Krispies
- Optional: additional ½ cup each chocolate chips and butterscotch chips for drizzle topping
Directions
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
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In medium bowl, whisk together flour, oats, baking soda, salt, cinnamon.
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In bowl of electric mixer, combine butter(or shortening) and sugar until creamy.
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Add egg, vanilla, and water. Beat about 3 minutes until fluffy.
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Slowly add flour mixture until combined.
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Stir in chips and Rice Krispies.
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Chill batter about 15 minutes until firm enough to scoop.
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Scoop batter into golf ball sized (2 tablespoon) balls and place 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet.
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Bake 10-12 minutes or until edges begin to brown. (Slightly under-bake if shipping cookies for a long time period.)
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Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes then complete cooling on wire racks.
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To top with decorative drizzle: Place chocolate chips in a small zip lock bag and microwave about 1 minute until melted. Cut a tiny bottom corner off the bag and pipe zig zags over cooled cookies. Repeat with butterscotch chips. Allow drizzle to harden completely before storing.
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Cookies will remain fresh 2 weeks or longer when stored at room temperature in an air tight container or zip lock bag.
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***Desert safe adaptations: Use vegetable shortening. Do not use drizzle decoration.
Packing Tips
Double wrap pairs of cookies (with bottoms together) in plastic wrap, then place in an airtight container or zip lock bag
Wendy,
Wow! You made dessert for 120 people? What a wonderful thing to do for your friend and the music cookies look great! And I love your quality control system. You’re really setting up you care-package bakers for success. As for biscotti, maybe if you renamed them Coffee-Dipping Cookies. That’s how I like to have them. I’ve never sent them in a care package but if did, I think I’d send with a mug and some ground coffee 🙂 Although even then, they’ll never be voted Most Popular on the cookie tray. I probably like them because they remind me of going to my grandparent’s house. My Italian grandfather loved them.
Thank you, Gina for your kind words and support!! I loved baking the cookies for my friend. It felt good to be helpful. 🙂 Food of all kinds tastes better when it brings to mind a loved one or a fond memory. How wonderful to have a “sweet” reminder of your grandfather! I agree that biscotti belong with coffee. Your Coffee-Dipping Cookies idea has me thinking. You may be on to something. I will let you know what I come up with. 🙂
oh no! baker’s block + burnout is so hard to get past sometimes! there are moments when i feel both of those things coming on, and i’ve learned by now not to fight it. if i DO try to fight it, everything i touch in the kitchen is terrible. so i give in to it.
what you do is SO difficult in terms of the nature of this blog: making recipes successfully is hard enough, but having to adapt them to climate and travel could be overwhelming, i’m sure, at times. you just keep doing what you’re doing; i think you’re fantastic.
your cookie tray looks beautiful! you’re an excellent drizzler, i’ll say. 🙂
Thank you so much Shannon for your encouragement and support!! When I read over my post, I worried that it sounded a little like I was whining and complaining. I worried what reaction I would get. Instead of what I expected, I got wonderful comments like yours full of empathy and encouragement. I have been smiling all day because I feel so lucky to have such wonderful, supportive blogging friends. 🙂 Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. It really helped! 🙂
Looking back over my posts, I believe that you are correct in noticing my tendency toward drizzling….That may become my niche expertise. 🙂
Wendy – I can’t believe you baked all these treats for 120 people! You are ready to go into business! I can’t imagine all the baking, chocolate-dipping, and decorating that took place but it sure looks wonderful. I also admire your quality-control standards – wow! I, for one, adore biscotti and I am planning to send some to a friend of mine once things calm down with end of school year these few weeks. Keep up the good work! : )
Thank you, Monica! Luckily the weather last week made it possible to eat meals on our screen porch because my kitchen table was always covered with cookies! Many items could be packed away or frozen but there were days when things like 60 iced sugar cookies needed a place to dry. 🙂 I may be ready to go into business but I don’t think my husband would be too happy about it! 🙂 You and I may be some of the few who adore biscotti but I plan on continuing to bake and post about them. Perhaps we can create some converts to the wonders of the worlds best dipping cookie. 🙂
These sound amazing!
Thanks, Jennifer! I love butterscotch and the rice krispies give these a great crunch! 🙂
Wendy these are adorable! I love every flavor happening in this cookie, and I am always up for a bit of crunch (Totally biscotti-addict here!). You know I was suffering from blog burnout as well since you gave me such heartwarming advice. You should trust your own wisdom though because it did miracles for me. Take some time to just do “you” and see what inspires you. Even if it means falling a little behind in blogging – inspired cookies like these are worth the wait. 🙂
Thanks, Jess! You are such a sweetie. 🙂 Don’t you know that advice is much easier to give than to follow? 🙂 But of course, you are right. I am so glad you are feeling refreshed! I look forward to all of your posts and recipes. 🙂
These cookies are gorgeous! I love that drizzle on top!
Thanks, Dorothy! I fear I may be turning into a drizzle addict. 🙂 I do love how it fancies up a cookie though.
I love all of the cookies!! Especially the decorated ones. So pretty!!
Thanks, Jocelyn! I know you have been busy filling cake orders as well as the amazing treats on your blog. I am awed at how you do it all! This project was great fun despite being time consuming. 🙂
Girl, you are a machine! I can’t believe you made all of those incredible cookies! And you put Rice Krispies into cookies. Then drizzled them with chocolate and butterscotch. In other words, you’re my hero.
Thanks, Nancy!! You are so funny. 🙂 The cookie-a-thon was fun. Seeing someone smile when you give them something you’ve baked is worth the work. Its baking up some love and the recipient knows they are loved. 🙂 As long as I don’t have to wear lycra and a cape, I am happy to be a hero…oh, wait. Lycra and capes are super heros. Good. I can be a regular hero in an apron. 🙂
You do need to open up your own business! You are a busy lady. Wow! These cookies sound terrific and my best recipes come from when I am lying in bed also. My brain just never stops thinking of food 😉
Thanks, Suzie! I bake because its fun and still a mystery to me. Its a homemade present made with love. I think if I had a business it would be a job and stop being fun, though I know some amazing talented bloggers, like Jocelyn (BruCrewLIfe), who do it all! Do you think there is a formal medical term for our sleep disorder, like “Food Thought Insomnia”? 🙂
Wow, those are some seriously gorgeous cookies! I love anything with butterscotch.
Thanks, Jocelyn! Me too. Butterscotch add a warm sweetness that goes so well with the oats and rice cereal in these cookies.
You are such a good friend to bake all those cookies! I think the butterscotch chocolate cookies look terrific – love the drizzle! I never tire of baking – but that many desserts may be the icing on the cake – so to speak. I want to thank you for your wonderful sweet comment today. Thanks – I could hardly read it out loud to my husband without crying. I guess it’s only natural to be a bit weepy right now – thank you, thank you!
Tricia, I have a 25 year old daughter. She is not making wedding plans at this time, but when you talked about dancing with your daughter, it was easy for me to put myself in your place. 🙂 As for weepy….who knew we moms had such a stock pile of love tears? 🙂 And these drizzled cookies…I fear I am becoming a drizzle queen! 🙂
I love how you drizzled the icing over the cookies! So pretty.
Thank you, Tina! The cookies are surprisingly delicious on their own but kind of plain to look at. The drizzle is bling. 🙂 (though tasty bling)
That is a LOT of baking to do! I bet everyone loved your home baked goodies! Lucky people. Your cookies look very soft and delicious! I love all that drizzling and that there’s rice krispies in the mix! What a nice surprise.
Thanks, Reeni! It was a bake-a-thon. 🙂 I am very happy to say that very little was left at the end of the celebration. Drizzling appears to be my trademark method of adding pizazz to any cookie. 🙂 These cookies needed a bit of crunch and the rice krispies did the job!
I would be having baker’s block after all you’ve done, too! Your cookies look scrumptious…and thanks for doing the extra research on each of your recipes!
Thanks, Liz! I really do appreciate the baker’s blocksupport from those who understand. 🙂 If I could figure out an easier way to ensure a recipe was care package worthy, I would do it, but the whole purpose of this blog is to provide info. that I couldn’t find elsewhere. It means a lot to me that the info. can be helpful. 🙂
Thanks for stopping by! I am happy you “stumbled” onto the Monday Box and hope you will enjoy the recipes.:)