BROWN BUTTER AND TOFFEE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES from Bon Appétit

This comes from Bon Appétit. Watch the video here. I made half the recipe. I weighed the flour, I followed the directions. I used 3/4 c. Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips and omitted the chopped toffee candy bar and used half the vanilla. I got 22 1 T./1.5" dough balls. I baked the first batch of five cookies at the suggested temperature of 375 F for 7.5 minutes and my very cool dough (it had been out of the refrigerator for about 1 hour) didn't spread out as much as the ones in the photo on their website. You could still smell and slightly taste the browned butter. The next batch of 5, I let the dough balls sit out for 90 minutes (the temp of them was 53 degrees F at this point) and I baked them at a lower temperature of 350 for 7.5 minutes and they did spread out but still not flat like the ones in the photo on their site. 

These taste good but ordinary. I've had many that were better so I wouldn't make these again. That combined with having to let the dough warm up close to if not over 2 hours isn't worth it. You cannot taste the browned butter once these have been refrigerated more than an hour or so so browning the butter is a total waste of time, and letting it cool down for 10 minutes, unless you're going to bake the entire batch at once. 

I grade these a B.

 

APPLE CINNAMON BREAD (CAKE) from Mostly Homemade Mom

This excellent recipe comes from Mostly Homemade Mom. It's moist cake, not bread, so I don't understand why it's called bread. I used just one apple because I didn't have two and it was enough. I just mixed it in the batter and didn't layer it in between the batter and on top of the batter. The recipe called for no salt and I cannot understand why that is. I added 3/4 t. fine/table salt and it needed more. I also added 3 tablespoons toasted and ground pecans. I omitted nutmeg because I don't like it and used a little less cinnamon but shouldn't have. The 9"x5" loaf pan took 40 minutes.

I made a glaze for this while the cake was baking and drizzled it over the cooled cake. Recipe: 1 tablespoon melted butter/margarine/spread, 1 tablespoon milk, 1/4 t. pure vanilla extract, a drop of pure almond extract, 1 c. powdered sugar.

I give this 5+ stars.

Edit- I made half this recipe again but in an 8" round pan and it took just 18 minutes. I really only needed a 7" pan but didn't have one.

STRAWBERRY SORBET from Hamilton Beach®

This recipe comes from the booklet of my Hamilton Beach® ice cream maker. It's just strawberries, sugar, water. I added 1/8 t. fine salt. You puree fresh or frozen and thawed strawberries (I used frozen and thawed) with sugar water, chill, pour into your frozen ice cream maker bowl and let it churn until it looks like you think it should. It only took 18 minutes and made about 4-4.5 cups.

I grade this an A. It will only taste as good as the berries you use!  You can combine water and sugar in a 2 c. microwave-safe measuring cup and heat it that way. No need to dirty up a pan to simply heat water to dissolve sugar in.

Recipe is here. I used Food Lion (grocery store) brand frozen whole strawberries and 4 c. cost $3.72 pre tax, so this cost around $4 to make. Not sure what 1/2 c. sugar cost.

ONE-POT SUN-DRIED TOMATO PASTA from goodcook

This comes from goodcook, maker of bakeware and cutlery. It's very good. I made 2 oz. less but needed more than the full amount of liquids. I did cook mine fully, not to al dente, so it makes sense that I'd need more liquid. I cooked this covered though the recipe didn't say to. There wasn't enough liquids in this to cook uncovered as a lot of liquids would have evaporated, so I ended up using close to 1 c. extra milk. It took almost 30 minutes to cook. I added thawed and drained spinach at the end in place of fresh leaves.

When I went to make this I realized it's basically the same as the 12 Tomatoes Chicken Florentine recipe that I'd made in December.

I grade this an A. 

APPLE CUPCAKES from Cupcake Project

This recipe is from Cupcake Project and it's excellent. I recommend it highly. I made half and got 8 using 1/4 c. batter per cupcake. They baked in 17 minutes. I omitted all spices except cinnamon. The recipe doesn't call for salt so I added 3/8 t. but it needs more. I used one large apple, finely diced. I made my own thick glaze for this. 

Edit- I made half the recipe twice since the first time, using milk in place of the 1/4 c. sour cream and 1/2 t. fine salt and they turned out great! 

ONE-BOWL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES from Modern Honey

This recipe was a fail and comes from Modern Honey. The dough is dark and greasy looking after baking and they're pretty flat, even when baked straight from the refrigerator. I weighed out the flour so I don't know what could have gone wrong. I know my scale is accurate because I've made things since this that have turned out right. I even baked a batch of these at a higher temperature for a shorter time and they turned out almost the same. The cookies are hard, not crisp, on the outside and basically hollow on the inside. It's like I didn't use enough flour or something. The flavor is decent but I'm really disappointed.

I grade this a C because they didn't turn out. I made an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie from the same site and they turned out great, here.