Brownie Speculoos Swirl Cookies

Lately, I've been spending time with my little girl and my husband. Having a baby is an amazing experience but it is also hard. I can't seem to balance out having time for myself and doing everything I need for her, I'm slowly learning how to do it, but of course, it's taking time. I find happiness in baking in my kitchen, baking or cooking up a dish off the top of my head or trying out a new recipe - I haven't gotten to do that much lately, mostly I've been throwing things in the crockpot and leaving. My husband knows I've been having the itch, took the baby and demanded that I find something to bake while he took care of her. I simply have to say best. man. ever.

I have so many things I could make for dessert, S'mores Baked Donuts, Speculoos Apple Tarts, Apple Dumplings, Scones, etc the list goes on. All of which will grace the blog in the coming week but I opened my cabinets and I had chocolate, just sitting there and calling my name. I love boxed brownies, don't get me wrong, but nothing is better than making something from the heart, homemade and from scratch. I pulled out the chocolate and an idea popped into my head - if I was going to make a speculoos apple tart with the actual cookies, why not include speculoos in my brownies since I had the cookie butter?

My love affair with speculoos was started long before we moved to Germany, though Germany has made it far worse. The rising craze for the stuff here is outstanding and fun to say the least because it makes for coming up with new ways to use it, that much for exciting.

I went to town in my kitchen as my husband hovered over me, asking what I was doing. Why I was doing that. Dipping his fingers all over my kitchen, being simply impatient to the final product. I love that he is supportive and wants to learn how to make things. Once they were done, I was over the moon. They came out moist, rich and exploding with flavor.

If I had to do anything different though, I would have swirled the crunchy speculoos cookie butter into the batter instead of swirling it. It would have had far more of an intense flavor and impact on the final product OR I would have food processed speculoos cookies and made a crunchy bottom for the brownie cookies. Either way, there is always a next time to experiment.

Notes: If you want even more chocolate melt down the 7 oz, and add another 5 oz of chopped chocolate into the batter for a chocolate lover's heaven.

Ingredients:

Brownie Cookie (adapted from Bakers Royale)

• 7 oz of chocolate, chopped (5 oz unsweetened, 2 oz semi-sweet)
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350º degrees (150º C), line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside | Recipe makes about 14 one inch cookies. - most likely could have made more if I didn't make them so thick. 

Speculoos Cookie Butter

• Crunchy or Creamy - Can be found at your local store or easily made, also known as Biscoff.
• Bowl for melting

Place the 7 oz of chocolate into a pot over low heat and stir until melted. If you have bad lucky with melting chocolate and it burning, take a bigger pot, fill it with water and put the smaller pot into that one. It will keep the chocolate from burning even if you can't watch it while keeping it warm and smooth. I used different chocolates because I personally didn't want anything too terribly sweet, you can use whatever ratio of chocolate you'd like. Once melted, set aside.

In a large bowl, add eggs, sugar and vanilla mix with a stand or hand mixer for 15 minutes - until pale and creamy. (it will be a lighter yellow and creamy looking in texture, this part is important) Add flour, baking powder, and the melted chocolate (this would be where you'd add the extra 5 oz of chopped chocolate to the batter if you want something for the ultimate chocolate lover) - let sit for about 5 minutes. 

Spoon 1 tablepsoon of mixture onto wax paper for larger cookies, spread out a bit if possible. If you'd like brownie texture more than cookie, do 1 1/2 tablespoons and don't spread out as much. If you'd like more of a cookie texture, add 1/2 of mixture but spread out a bit more for a cookie feel. I personally wanted the brownie feel still so I made them thicker, which left them moist and delicious on the inside. 

Now, swirl cookie butter into batter and bake 8-10 minutes, depending on your oven so keep an eye on these babies. 

I loved this recipe and I will be making many changes to it, especially flavors wise. I hope you all enjoy. What's your favorite way to have brownies?

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Lemon Lavender Cookies.

This is how I spent my first day of Fall/Autumn, and I couldn't have been happier. I've made Lemon Lavender cookies before, but I made a small batch to make sure I liked the taste and completely forgot to blog it. You can easily find dried lavender. I thought, "Using a flower in food?! No way." and I was terrible wrong. It's delicious, its light and it adds a hint of flavor that is so hard to describe, but the buttery taste combined with a slight hint of sweetness, just brings it all together.

You'll be surprised that lemon is sweet in this and not bitter and super tangy.
Here is all the things you'll need:

2 Teaspoons Lavender
2 Whole Lemons
A Zester
2 1/4 Cup All Purpose Flour
1 Cup Butter (Two Sticks)
1/4 Teaspoon Salt
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Teaspoons Lemon Juice (optional)

I suggest having a food processor to make the dough, or you'll have to do it by hand and it will be tedious, yet worth it. I had to do it by hand, and I was just fine. Took a bit longer, but a little work out doesn't hurt. Haha, combine all of the ingredients and once done, place into plastic wrap and chill for at least 4-5 hours. I chilled mine for a whole 2 days. It let the dough soak up the flavor of everything much better in my opinion, but it needs to be used within 2 days. Heat the oven to 375 degrees and cook for 10-15 mins, depending on the size of the cookies. I cut mine into Fall leaves, and pumpkin mini shapes and mine only took 10 mins. They will not be golden on top, but will be toward the bottom, do not overcook them so they can still have a softer center. Cookie times vary of course, depending on size.

By the way, a zester is just a small grater. Not one you'd grate cheese with. When you zest the lemon, you are only getting the yellow part of the outside, if you grate the white you'll have very bitter cookies. You wouldn't want that.

This is honestly, the perfect light, Fall cookie that'd go great with all your teas and coffees you'll be devoring this time of year! You can use this same recipe with rosemary as well, even dried fruit if you want instead of lemons. I hope you all enjoy!

*Taken with iPhone. Working on getting photoshop back again so I can use my Nikon again. Maybe next month.