Sunday, September 11, 2011

Flavors of fall

I love this time of year when Starbucks starts serving their Pumpkin Spice Latte;
Nothing like drinking some warm pumpkin awesomeness while being held captive to four concurrent football games. And it was the perfect weather for it - only 84 degrees as opposed to the 101 degrees on Friday.

Today's baking adventure revolved around the perfect flavors of Almond Roca with an easy cookie version. Basic cookie dough base of all the usual suspects - flour, eggs, butter, sugar, vanilla, but with the addition of a generous helping of toffee bits. After chilling in the fridge for about an hour and a half, you roll the dough into balls that are dipped in chopped almonds before baking.
After all the cookies have cooled, you melt some milk chocolate and drizzle it over each one.
I've got all the trays of cookies rotating into the fridge for a short time to harden up the chocolate so I can stack the cookies. The recipe claimed a yield of 36 cookies, but after 5 dozen I still had at least enough dough for another dozen and ended up just throwing the rest of the dough away. With all the layoffs at work we just don't have enough people to eat 6 dozen cookies and Lord knows we don't need the extras hanging out around home. Having sampled each step of the process (quality control!), my favorite was the raw dough. You could really taste the toffee bits, though the finished cookies are still very tasty. If you're willing to make the trek to my house you're welcome to help yourself to a dozen!