Cheese puffs and the giant cookie from hell

Not cheese puffs like you're thinking of cheese puffs. When I say "cheese puffs," normally I think of those things that are kind of like cheetos but smoother, and possibly made out of styrofoam.
Not that those kind of cheese puffs are bad. I looooooooooooove those kinds of cheese puffs.
No, these things are technically called "gougères" according to David Lebovitz and something else entirely by my boyfriend. Something like "_____ ____ fromage." I know it ended in fromage. I didn't have him write it down, so I may have to do a further update with an actual name for these.
Anyway, they are so very easy to make, and soooo very good. This recipe makes "about 30 bite sized puffs."

Via

1/2 cup (125ml) water
3 tablespoons (40g) butter, salted or unsalted, cut into cubes
1/4 teaspoon salt
big pinch of chile powder, or a few turns of freshly-ground black pepper
1/2 cup (70g) flour
2 large eggs
12 chives, finely-minced (or 1 to 2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme)
3/4 cup (about 3 ounces, 90g) grated cheese (See above for ideas)

1. Preheat the oven to 425F (220C.) Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.

2. Heat the water, butter, salt, and chile or pepper in a saucepan until the butter is melted.

3. Dump in the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture pulls away from the sides into a smooth ball. Remove from heat and let rest two minutes.

4. Add the eggs, one at a time, stirring quickly to make sure the eggs don't 'cook.' The batter will first appear lumpy, but after a minute or so, it will smooth out. (You can transfer the mixture to a bowl before adding to eggs to cool the dough, or do this step in a food processor or electric mixer, if you wish.)

5. Add about 3/4s of the grated cheese and the chives, and stir until well-mixed.

6. Scrape the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a wide plain tip and pipe the dough into mounds, evenly-spaced apart, making each about the size of a small cherry tomato.

7. Top each puff with a bit of the remaining cheese, the pop the baking sheet in the oven.

8. Bake for 10 minutes, then turn the oven down to 375F (190C) and bake for an additional 20 to 25 minutes, until they're completely golden brown.

{End.}

That's really all.
We couldn't resist eating the majority of the puffs right off the cookie sheet. Only about 6 survived longer than 30 minutes.
But, there are 2 things I must mention:
Because I am poor, I decided I would just use bagged, pre-shredded Parmesan cheese in the mix and to top off the puffs. I would have absolutely loved to go out and buy some comte or gruyere, but unfortunately those are just too rich for my blood at the moment. The parmesan looked, worked, and tasted just fine.
The second thing is, don't panic when you put the 2 eggs in and it seems too runny. Just keep mixing it until it looks more like dough than egg soup. Remember, it needs to be squeezed out of a hole in a bag, so it should be a little runnier than you would think.
The best thing about this recipe is that it really only dirties one dish. If you're careful enough with your parchment paper, the cookie sheet shouldn't even be messy at all.

Now, the giant cookie from hell.
It wasn't supposed to be a giant cookie, it was supposed to form a bunch of little swirly pinwheel cookies. But something went wrong with my dough (I suspect not nearly enough flour, although I measured it correctly) and it would not peel off the damn parchment paper so that I could even begin to roll it.
The idea was posted on The Kitchen Sink around about Christmastime, and I only just now got around to making it. Oddly enough, that blog post was even about how much the cookies went wrong, although they were still good. Mine went even wrong-er. Unbelievable, but true. But I was determined to try to make something that day that involved chocolate and peanut butter, and since this recipe involved both those things melted together, I decided it was fate and I had to make them.

Here is the recipe, via the link above.

For filling:

6 ounces semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chunky peanut butter I WILL NOT USE CHUNKY PEANUT BUTTER! It is against my religion. I used regular, and it was awesome.

For dough:

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature [UPDATE: see Ellen's comment below. 2 sticks it is.]
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour (sift before measuring)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Make filling:
Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally, and remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter.

Make dough:
Beat together butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, then beat in egg and vanilla. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into egg mixture and beat until combined well.

Assemble rolls:
Halve dough and roll out each half between sheets of wax paper into a roughly 12- by 8-inch rectangle. Remove top sheets of wax paper (if they stick too much, chill dough briefly to firm up slightly) and divide chocolate filling between rectangles, spreading it in an even layer. Tightly roll up each rectangle jelly-roll fashion, beginning with a long side and using wax paper as an aid, to form a 12-inch log. Wrap rolls in wax paper and then foil. Chill rolls until firm, at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Working with 1 roll at a time (keep remaining roll chilled), cut rolls crosswise into 1/8-inch-thick slices and arrange slices 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake in batches in middle of oven until pale golden and set, 8 to 12 minutes. Transfer warm cookies to racks to cool.

{End.}

Can you believe that in the 2 years since I inherited my double boiler, that I never used it even ONCE until last Saturday? I will never go that long without using it again. In fact, I am thinking of just making the filling this weekend and dipping strawberries in it. Mmmm.
Anyway, I made the dough, I made the filling, and I stuck the dough in the freezer to be less sticky, only it didn't become less sticky enough for my purposes. What we ended up doing is just sticking one half of the dough on top of the filling, which was spread all over the other half of the dough, like a gigantic filled-in pancake, or a misshapen version of those huge party cookies you find at the mall, only without the decorative icing.
We had to bake it to almost twice as long, so that the middle would be cooked. To my surprise, it wasn't hard as a rock either. They were good.
We cut them into little bite-sized cookie pieces with a pizza cutter. I can't imagine how much better they would have been had they actually looked like little swirls.

But, one good thing about this is, I didn't use all the filling, so there was more melted chocolate/peanut butter mix for me to both eat with a spoon and to coat banana slices with. It would have been amazing on top of ice cream.

I highly recommend the filling. The cookie making was a different story.

Maybe just "peace between the U.S. and Canada" cookies

Note to self: Don't mess with World Peace.

I found a cookie recipe on the smitten kitchen. I made it. Supposedly, these cookies were supposed to cure humanity's giant animosity problem if everyone in the world had one per day. Deb was skeptical, and so was I, but for different reasons.
Whereas she thought she would not be prompted to feel peaceful, she would be more inclined to steal others' cookies, I thought they could actually be improved upon. Silly me.
I am not a big fan of sandy, grainy cookies, and these certainly were. Maybe it's because I have deficient taste buds, but I value the texture of something almost more than the taste. More often than not, when I say I don't like something, it's because I don't like the texture. Tapioca pudding? Pudding is supposed to be smooth. Chunky applesauce? Applesauce is not supposed to have chunks. Fruit on the bottom yogurt? I'd rather not have any fruit in my yogurt at all - just the fruit flavor. Fruitcake? Looks like bread, isn't bread, and has odd bits of crystallized fruit and nuts. Blech.
But, these cookies were very good, just a little too grainy for me. Also, I couldn't really get my mind around the fact that the recipe called for unsalted butter, and then a teaspoon of sea salt. The sea salt made it salty in certain places but not at all in others. Weird.
So I resolved to improve upon the Cookies of World Peace.
Big mistake. When world leaders are "pretty close" to a Middle-east peace accord, do they scrap the whole thing because Saudi Arabia won't give women the right to drive? I should hope not. Because while unequal rights is bad, irrational blowing up of each other is much worse, and a step to stop the blowings-up is a step in the right direction. People can work on the rights (soon) after.
In the same way, I should not mess with the world peace cookies just because they are too grainy and salty in weird places. They were still the best cookies I've ever made. Duh.
So, I changed them. I changed them yesterday morning because my boyfriend was having a bad day, and I thought, what better way to overcome a bad day than Better Than World Peace cookies?
We ended up going to a bar instead.
They weren't inedible, but I did deem the last 1/3 of the dough to be not worth the baking. I added 2 eggs and only used one stick of regular butter, and no salt.
They were oddly more like brownies than cookies. Small, round, oddly-shaped brownies. But my roommate liked them. So much so that she ate a good 8 of them between 3 and 6:30 p.m.
I don't know. They were okay. But they sure won't cure any world peace. They sure didn't create any peace between myself and my baking skills.

Here is the original recipe, with my notes:

World Peace/Korova Cookies (via Smitten Kitchen)
Paris Sweets, Dorie Greenspan

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature (1 stick regular butter)
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt (nope)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips
Plus 2 eggs

Makes about 36 cookies

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more.

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour, drape a kitchen towel over the stand mixer to protect yourself and your kitchen from flying flour and pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

GETTING READY TO BAKE: Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are only just warm, at which point you can serve them or let them reach room temperature.

{End.}

I didn't do the log thing with the second batch, it wasn't necessary. Honestly i found even the first time around that I don't have knives sharp enough to cut good cookie log pieces.

Anyway, let this be a lesson to all. Don't mess with the world peace.