Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Not be be repetitive or anything, but I have another one for you from Good to the Grain. I can't help it, I love this book. This was actually the first recipe that I marked to make when I received the book - I mean, they're chocolate chip cookies! Plus, they are the first recipe in the book - but I went with slightly more unusual recipes when I started to bake from it. Then I found myself with a little unexpected time on my hands...

I have a 3 1/2 year old and a 1 1/2 year old, so needless to say, I've suffered my fair share of sleep deprivation. It isn't a terribly common occurrence, but every few weeks my younger son decides that sleep just isn't for him and around 2 in the morning he wants to get up and play for a couple of hours. Well, Friday night was one of those nights. After trying all of my tricks to get him back to sleep, I gave up and decided to bake. This recipe immediately came to mind - I had all of the ingredients and it was simple enough that I didn't think I'd be able to screw it up in my half-asleep state. Thankfully, I was right.

I'm a rather harsh critic when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, so I wasn't sure what to expect from these; they use 100% whole wheat flour, which is fairly unusual for most baked goods.

I served these at a class I gave at my store on Saturday afternoon on cloth diapering and baby wearing, and people were crazy for them. Everyone asked for the recipe, and one woman told me they were the best cookies she had ever eaten! They were a hit!

The first thing that surprised me about these cookies, was the fragrance of the dough; it smelled almost like it contained brown butter and had a stronger aroma than any dough I've ever made. They baked up beautifully, and I couldn't wait to take my first bite. Verdict? They are delicious.

The cookies are soft and chewy, generously studded with bittersweet chocolate chunks, and the whole wheat flour adds a sweet, earthy, nutty flavor that is amazingly complementary to the chocolate. I have to say, these chocolate chip cookies are second only to the ones I made a couple months ago that are a hybrid between the Cooks Illustrated and New York Times versions. That is high praise coming from me.

Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Good to the Grain

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

8 ounces (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter cut into several pieces

1 cup palm sugar (or dark brown sugar)

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate cut into 1/4" - 1/2" pieces

Preheat oven to 350. Line baking sheet with parchment. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium sized bowl, set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat sugars and butter on low speed until just blended, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until just combined after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Add dry ingredients, and mix on low speed until flour is barely combined. Stir in chocolate chunks. Form dough into balls about 1.5 ounces each, place on baking sheet 2 inches apart. Bake for 16-20 minutes, until the cookies have spread and cracked, the tops are dry and have browned a bit. Cool on baking sheet.

Cashew Chocolate Chip Crisps

I was lucky enough to receive Claudia Fleming's The Last Course for Christmas. It is an incredibly beautiful book that is only available now through the North Fork Table & Inn website. It is pricey, but worth it. I've spent hours perusing the inventive recipes and sumptuous photographs. Everything looks amazing, each recipe meticulous, unexpected, familiar, inviting. I want to make it all.

To christen my book, I started with these cookies. It is well-documented that I love chocolate chip cookies. These are one of the most interesting chocolate chip cookie recipes I've come across, and I just had to give them a try.

They're called crisps, and Claudia describes them as being brittle, but mine weren't... I made my cookies larger than she specifies - heaping tablespoon of dough instead of a heaping teaspoon - which probably accounts for the difference. The texture was fairly standard as far as chocolate chip cookies go, though thinner than I usually prefer. That being said, I loved these cookies. To me they are a cross between a Florentine and a chocolate chip cookie - this is how they are forgiven for being on the thin side; since they aren't a traditional ccc, they don't undergo the typical ccc scrutiny. Though they don't fall short on any other fronts.

These cookies are chewy, crispy on the outside, contain milk and bittersweet chocolate, they're studded with toasted cashews and are finished with orange zest. They are magnificent.

Cashew Chocolate Chip Crisps

adapted from The Last Course by Claudia Fleming

2 1/2 cups toasted cashews

2 1/2 cups white wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups palm sugar

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

zest from 1 orange, finely grated

2 large eggs

1 3/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon water

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate chunks

8 ounces milk chocolate chunks

Preheat oven to 325. Line a baking sheet with parchment. In a food processor, grind 1/2 cup of toasted cashews and 1 tablespoon flour to a fine meal. In a medium sized bowl, combine remaining flour, salt and the ground cashew/flour mixture. Coarsely chop the rest of the nuts. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add vanilla and zest, beat until well combined. Add eggs one at a time, beating for a minute after each addition. In a small bowl, dissolve baking soda in water and add it to bowl of the stand mixer. Beat until combined. Add flour mixture in two batches, mixing until just combined. Stir in chopped chocolate and cashews. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto baking sheet. Bake for about 18 minutes, until golden brown all over. Cool on baking sheet.

The Chocolate Chip Cookies

It's about time, isn't it?! I can't believe I haven't posted in so long. And here I am with another chocolate chip cookie... I hope you're not tired of them. There have been many factors to my absence, not the least of which is the fact that I've baked several things that I wasn't really crazy about, and I have a hard time posting sub-par treats. These cookies, however are anything but sub-par.

These are the cookies that I surmised about in my last post. These are the Perfect Cookie and New York Times cookie hybrid. These are the cookies. The cookies.

They are drawn more from the NYT recipe than the CI one, the only real contribution from CI being the brown butter. What a contribution it is, though! I will never make another chocolate chip cookie without brown butter. It does add an extra step, but it is well worth it. I find it fascinating that the actual brown butter flavor doesn't really come through here. I tasted several to make sure. What it does is deepens the flavor of the cookie, tempers the sweetness and imparts a slight nuttiness. It is a smooth and subtle addition, one that highlights the tastes already present and seamlessly ties all of the elements together.

These fulfill all of my requirements for a perfect chocolate chip cookie: they are dense and chewy on the inside, with a crispy and sturdy outer shell; the flavor of the cookie itself is rich and complex and mysterious due to the brown butter; the balance of cookie to chocolate is right on and the sprinkle of salt on top is the perfect finish.

I have no criticisms of this cookie. None. They were given enthusiastic thumbs up by everyone who tasted them, were the winner of a blind taste test with this cookie, and my mom deemed them the best chocolate chip cookies she's ever had. That's the real ccc test, people. If my mom approves, it is a true winner.

The Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from The New York Times and Cook's Illustrated

8 1/2 ounces unbleached white flour

1/2 + 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

10 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter, browned

5 ounces light brown sugar

4 ounces granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

10 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chip-sized pieces

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine sugars. Pour hot brown butter over sugars, and without stirring, place in refrigerator to cool the butter to room temperature. Attach bowl to mixer and on medium speed, beat until light in color and fluffy. If butter isn't becoming pale, it isn't cool enough. Pop it back in the fridge for a few more minutes and try again. When butter mixture is desired consistency, add egg and beat for 30 seconds. Stir in vanilla. Add dry ingredients, and mix until just incorporated. Stir in chocolate. Form dough into a log and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours (if you can stand to. If not, I understand). When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 and line a baking sheet with parchment. Form dough into balls a little over an inch in diameter, or 1.5 ounces. Place balls at least 2" apart on baking sheet, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Bake for about 15 minutes, or until slightly puffy, dry on top and tinged with golden. Let cool completely on baking sheet.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies?

I know I just posted chocolate chip cookies a couple days ago, but here are some more for you. These come from Cook's Illustrated, and were brought to my attention by Nancy. As soon as I heard about them I had to make them. Why? They contain brown butter.

I have made my love known many times for all things brown butter, though for some inexplicable reason, I have never made chocolate chip cookies with it. Oh I've considered doing it several times, but I just never did. I am kicking myself now for not doing it sooner. I will have to make up for lost time.

Maybe the reason I waited so long was because I knew that I would love brown butter chocolate chip cookies so much that I would want to make nothing else and eat nothing else until the end of time. That's pretty much what has happened. If one could subsist on cookies alone, I would be tempted.

I'm giddy just thinking about them.

Now, are they perfect as the name of the recipe suggests? Weeeeelll, almost. The flavor is, without a doubt, the flavor of perfection. The brown butter is much more subtle than I thought it would be, but then it is battling 2 teaspoons of vanilla as well as dark brown sugar for flavor domination. That said, it is unmistakably there. It adds a richness and a nuttiness that only comes from the magic that is brown butter. I would drink the stuff if I didn't think I would instantaneously and simultaneously gain 35 pounds and have a heart attack. There is just the right amount of chocolate in these to ensure that every bite is perfectly balanced between chocolate and cookie, an elusive ratio. The edges are perfectly crispy and the centers chewy, though as with Dorie's chocolate chip cookies, they are just a mite too thin for me.

I think the next thing to do is try the New York Times recipe with brown butter, as that is the only version I've ever made that has the texture and thickness that I prefer in a chocolate chip cookie. I'll let you know how it goes.

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Cook's Illustrated, May/June 2009

1 3/4 cups (8 3/4 ounces) unbleached white flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

10 tablespoons unsalted butter, browned

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) sugar

3/4 cup (5 1/4 ounces) packed dark brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

6 ounces coarsely chopped bittersweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 375. Line a baking sheet with parchment. In a large heat-proof bowl, combine 10 tablespoons browned butter and 4 tablespoons butter, stirring until un-browned butter is completely melted. Add sugars, salt and vanilla, whisking until fully combined. Add egg and egg yolk and whisk for about 30 seconds. Let mixture stand for 3 minutes, then whisk again for 30 seconds. Repeat this twice more. Mixture should be thick, smooth and shiny. Add flour and baking soda, and using a rubber spatula, stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chunks. Form into balls about 1 1/4 inch in diameter, or 1.25 ounces. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges have set, but the centers are still soft. Cool cookies completely on baking sheet.

TWD: Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

This week the TWD bakers made one of my all-time favorite treats; chocolate chip cookies!

Chocolate chip cookies played a large part in shaping my childhood. My mom and I baked them together regularly, they were her specialty. They're still the only thing she bakes. I probably make chocolate chip cookies more frequently than any other treat.

I enjoyed these cookies quite a lot. It is no surprise, as Dorie mentions that it is a tweaked version of the Tollhouse recipe, which is the recipe I grew up on. I thought the flavor was wonderful - rich and caramel-y; the texture was good - crispy around the edges and chewy in the center. The only problem I had with these cookies was that they are too thin. I like to have a little more to sink my teeth into. Proving once again that the New York Times recipe is the perfect chocolate chip cookie!

Thanks to Kait of Kait's Plate for hosting this week. You can find the recipe for these yummy cookies on her blog.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

In addition to croissants, the food (other than broccoli) that marked my childhood in the most significant way is chocolate chip cookies.

My mom and I are quite the chocolate chip cookie connoisseurs, and are very particular about what we consider to be the perfect cookie. We have varying opinions on what that is - she is a huge fan of Alton Brown's The Chewy (which I've made for her several times but never posted), while I love the New York Times chocolate chip cookie. She likes things in her cookies; coconut and nuts to be precise. I am more of a purist. Every time I make a batch of chocolate chip cookies, my mom tells me they need coconut, so when I saw this recipe in The Sweet Spot, I knew I had to make them for her.

After making this fantastic Condensed Milk Pound Cake, I purchased the book it came from. It is full of wonderful and unusual recipes that you'll be seeing more of in the coming weeks. So far, this book has been a great investment.

These cookies are delicious. The coconut is toasted before being added to the dough, bringing out a nuttiness that is really welcome. I was afraid the coconut would be an overpowering flavor, but it wasn't - I think the toasting helps with that as well - it is subtle though unmistakably there, and it lends a chewiness to the cookie. The cookie is soft, but not cakey. The outside is slightly crispy, though it doesn't have quite the textural contrast between the interior and exterior that the New York Times cookie has - the one thing that I think could be improved upon.

My mom loved these, and would like me to make them again at my earliest convenience. Which I'm sure she wishes was yesterday. I loved them too. This is cookie we agree on, making it a definite winner.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from The Sweet Spot: Asian Inspired Desserts by Pichet Ong & Genevieve Ko

1 1/3 cups (4 oz/113 gr) shredded unsweetened coconut, toasted to golden brown and cooled completely

2 cups (11 oz/310 gr) unbleached flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup (8 oz/226 gr) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup + 1 tablespoon (6 oz/169 gr) tightly packed dark brown sugar

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons (6 oz/169 gr) granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups (11 7/8 ounces/336 grams) bittersweet chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate

Sift together flour and baking powder, set aside.

Put butter, both sugars, salt and cooled toasted coconut in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix on medium until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, mixing for 30 seconds after each addition. Stir in vanilla. Turn mixer down to low and add half of flour mixture and mix until just combined. Add remaining flour, mixing until just combined. Stir in chocolate. If you have time cover dough and chill for at least 2 hours before baking.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325. Line baking sheet with parchment. Form dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter and place about 2 inches part on baking sheet. Bake 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown and turning crisp around the edges.

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

I recently read David Lebovitz's latest book The Sweet Life in Paris. In it, he makes an off-hand remark about using mesquite flour in his chocolate chip cookies. When I read that, I was immediately intrigued and wanted to make them. Though there are many recipes in the book, those cookies are not one of them. I could have done a quick online search and gotten the recipe, but I forgot about them... Until a couple weeks ago, when Nancy emailed me a link to the very cookies! I was so excited to try them out! Mesquite flour is not something I had ever tasted before, though I was eager to.

Once we both had our mesquite flour, we made the cookies together via Twitter along with Wendy. I hadn't gotten to do a bake-a-long for a long time, so it was especially fun!

Mesquite flour is a very fine powder that is tan in color, and to me it smells very similar to carob. It has a natural sweetness, so you can reduce the sugar in recipes you use it in. It also has a number of vitamins and minerals, and it is gluten free. I've heard of mesquite pancakes, breads, etc... Now that I have a big bag of it, I'm sure you'll see more mesquite recipes on here. But, the cookies. The cookies, the cookies, what to say about the cookies.

I didn't really like them.

I wanted to like them. I tried to like them. I just couldn't like them.

It's funny, because by most people's definition I'm a health nut when it comes to food. I'm a life-long vegetarian, I only eat organic food, a typical meal for me is steamed vegetables with quinoa, my favorite food is broccoli, my 3 year old has never had refined sugar, you get the idea. When it comes to desserts, however, that all basically goes out the window. If I'm going to eat something sweet, I want it to be incredible. I don't want to sacrifice the deliciousness of the dessert just to make it a little healthier. While I will substitute whole wheat flour for unbleached on occasion, and use palm sugar in place of cane, I only do that when I feel the outcome will be enhanced by these changes. What I'm getting at is that these were a bit too much of a health-food cookie to me. I'll take the NYT chocolate chip cookies over these any day.

My husband was crazy about them, however, so I'll let you make up your own mind.

Mesquite Chocolate Chip Cookies

adapted from Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson

2 1/2 cups unbleached white flour

1 cup mesquite flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups rolled oats

2 cups coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate

Preheat oven to 375. In a medium-sized bowl, combine flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter. Add the sugar and beat until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing until incorporated. Add the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, each time mixing until just incorporated. Stir in the oats and chocolate. If the dough is too stiff for your mixer at this point, use your hands to combine the ingredients thoroughly. Form dough into balls about 1 1/4" in diameter. Place them about 1 inch apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies have just begun to set, and the tops have browned a bit. Let cookies cool completely on baking sheet. This recipe makes A LOT of dough. You can freeze some, like I did, or you may want to scale the recipe.

Thomas Keller's Chocolate Chip Cookies

It is no secret that I love chocolate chip cookies. If you're not aware of this fact about me, read this. And this. I know I said that I had found the perfect chocolate chip cookie and didn't feel the need to try any new recipes, but here I went and tried a new recipe. After hearing rave reviews from Wendy via Twitter, I had to.

The recipe comes from Ad Hoc at Home, the new Thomas Keller book. The main things that stand out in it are the large quantity of brown sugar, and the absence of vanilla. It isn't nearly as fussy as the NYT recipe; no combination of flours, no 24 hour rest, though it does call for sifting the chocolate after you've chopped it to give a cleaner look to the baked cookie. This is a step that I was torn about, as it means losing a substantial amount of chocolate in your final product. In the end I just used my hands, keeping more chocolate than I would have with a mesh sieve. I actually happen to like the look of the chocolate shards, so if I made this recipe again, I probably wouldn't bother with the sifting.

These cookies turned out much thinner than I prefer, and I had to bake them for 16 minutes versus the 12 minutes in the recipe. Any less time, and the centers of the cookies were so gooey, I couldn't even lift them off the baking sheet.

I wasn't wowed by these cookies right off the bat - when they were warm out of the oven, they really didn't do anything for me at all. However, as the cookies cool, the flavors develop and there is a complexity to them. I had no trouble eating 5 in an afternoon. The texture is extremely chewy around the edges, which I enjoyed, though I really couldn't get past the thinness of the cookie. I don't like them terribly thick or cakey at all, but I do like them to have a little more substance than these had. Even an overnight stint in the fridge didn't improve the height of the cookies. They were also quite greasy when they came out of the oven. I set each cookie on a paper towel, and it left behind a solid circle of grease.

My favorite chocolate chip cookie is still the NYT version. Though these were quite delicious, they weren't perfection, so I'm not sure I'll be making them again... They caused an existential crisis in Wendy, though, so don't take my word for it try them for yourself!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

from Ad Hoc at Home by Thomas Keller

2 1/3 cups + 1 tablespoon flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

5 oz 55% chocolate, cut into chip-sized pieces (about 1 1/4 cups)

5 oz 70%-72% chocolate, cut into chip-sized pieces (about 1 1/4 cups)

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1 cup packed dark brown sugar, preferably molasses sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1. Position the oven racks in the lower and upper thirds of the oven and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with Silpats or parchment paper.

2. Sift the flour and baking soda into a medium bowl. Stir in the salt.

3. Put the chips in a fine-mesh basket strainer and shake to remove any chocolate "dust" (small fragments).

4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat half the butter on medium speed until fairly smooth. Add both sugars and the remaining butter, and beat until well combined, then beat for a few minutes, until the mixture is light and creamy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until the first one is incorporated before adding the next and scraping the bowl as necessary. Add the dry ingredients and mix on low speed to combine. Mix in the chocolate.

5. Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold the dough with a spatula to be sure that the chocolate is evenly incorporated. The dough or shaped cookies can be refrigerated, well wrapped, for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 weeks. Freeze shaped cookies on the baking sheets until firm, then transfer to freezer containers. (Defrost frozen cookies overnight in the refrigerator before baking.)

6. Using about 2 level tablespoons per cookie, shape the dough into balls. Arrange 8 cookies on each pan, leaving about 2 inches between them, because the dough will spread. Bake for 12 minutes, or until the tops are no longer shiny, switching the position and rotating the pans halfway through the baking.

7. Cool the cookies on the pans on cooling racks for about 2 minutes to firm up a bit, then transfer to the racks to cool completely. Repeat to bake the remaining cookies. (The cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.)

100th Post!!! New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies and a Giveaway!

It has been almost 6 months since I started this blog, I can hardly believe it! And here we are on my 100th post!

It has been an amazing 6 months. I have so enjoyed getting to know so many wonderful bloggers from all over, and being part of such an amazing and supportive community.

In honor of my first 6 months and first 100 posts, I have for you the New York Times Chocolate Chip Cookies. I know I posted about these a couple of months ago, but they were one of many treats in that post and they are so delicious they deserve a little more attention than they got there.

I am a cookie girl through and through. I love making them and I love eating them. One of the few things my mom baked growing up was chocolate chip cookies (she used a slightly modified Toll House recipe). The memory of eating ccc's is a distinct one from my childhood. They signify home. They are the thing I have baked more than any other by far, though I have always been on the search for the perfect cookie. I am happy to say the search is over. These are my ideal chocolate chip cookie. That is not to say that I won't try out another recipe. I can't imagine that there is a recipe out there that I could possibly love as much as I love this one let alone more, though I suppose there is always a chance...

The recipe can be found here.

In addition, I'm giving away an 8x8 stone baking dish! I do all of my baking (with the exception of cakes) in/on baking stones, and I love them. They are completely non-toxic, they bake incredibly evenly and they become more and more non-stick over time and they're made in the USA! I love stone bakeware and I can't say enough good things about it.

Two ways to enter the giveaway:

1. Leave a comment on this post

2. Follow me on Twitter and tweet about my giveaway with a link to this post!

It's that simple! Increase your odds and enter in both places, but only do each one once. The contest will go for one week, and end on Friday, September 25th at midnight. Winner will be chosen using random.org and will be announced on Saturday the 26th.

I hate to be exclusionary, but this is a heavy item so I have to limit this contest to US entrants only.

Good luck!

SMS: Chocolate Chip Cookies with Toasted Almonds

My mom didn't bake much while I was growing up. She was a single mom, working full time, and just didn't have the time - and perhaps the interest - to master many culinary feats. The one thing she did bake consistently - and incredibly - was chocolate chip cookies. So there is a high bar to meet any time I try a new recipe. 

I thought the texture of these was perfect - chewy and not at all cakey - but the flavor of the actual cookie left something to be desired. It was just too bland if there were no chips in the bite. (Or chunks in my case.) I baked them for a couple of minutes longer than recommended, but perhaps another couple would solve the blandness. I still have a lot of dough in the fridge, so I'll report back if my opinion changes.

The recipe calls for almonds. I'm not usually a fan of nuts in my chocolate chip cookies, but I decided to make the cookies as written. I didn't think the almonds detracted from the cookies, but I didn't think they necessarily added anything either. I probably wouldn't include them again.

Overall, I really enjoyed these cookies, even though they won't be my new favorite. 

A special thanks to Melissa Murphy, owner of Sweet Melissa Patisserie, and writer of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book for hosting this week. You can find the recipe on the SMS home page.