Baking with The Buzz: February

Coffee. Cake. Cookies.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back to Baking with The Buzz. 

February has already been a whirlwind, so please excuse my later than normal recipe-share. This month I made coffee cake cookies.

I will say I think I missed the mark on these cookies in the aesthetics department, which is a shame because I had such high hopes for them. I’ll save you the imagery from my brain, but just know that looks can be deceiving and they still tasted delicious.

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Ingredients: 

Streusel: 

• ½ cup all-purpose flour

• ⅓ cup packed brown sugar

• 2 tsp cinnamon

• Pinch of salt

• 5 tbsp softened butter

Cookie dough:

• 1 ¼ cup all-purpose flour

• ¾ cup cake flour (see below for substitution)

• 1 tsp cornstarch

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• ½ tsp baking soda

• ½ tsp baking powder

• ½ tsp salt

• 8 tbsp cold butter cut in cubes

• ½ cup packed brown sugar

• ¼ cup sugar

• 1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk

Icing:

• 2 tbsp melted butter

• 3 tbsp heavy cream

• 1 cup powdered sugar

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• Pinch of salt

Instructions: 

• Combine all dry streusel ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Once combined, work in the butter. Refrigerate once small clumps form.

• Preheat the oven to 400. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

• Combine all dry cookie dough ingredients in a large bowl.

• In a separate bowl, combine butter and sugars and use a mixer until smooth. Once combined, add egg and vanilla and combine.

• Slowly add dry ingredients to wet mixture until incorporated.

• Roll cookie dough into approximately 8 large balls and place on baking sheets.

• Make an indent in each cookie using thumb or the bottom of a baking tool and then add around 1 tbsp of the streusel mixture to each cookie.

• Bake cookies 9-11 minutes until the edges become golden brown.

• Whisk together the icing ingredients and drizzle icing over cookies once completely cooled.

• Enjoy!

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Not to be a critic (proceeds to critique), but this recipe could be improved in my opinion. It took an insane amount of work just to make seven cookies, which should’ve been eight, according to the recipe. The effort it took made me feel like I had been promoted to an elite employee. Maybe I need to take a break from cookies. 

To add to my trials and tribulations, I dropped about half a bowl of flour on the floor when baking and had to start that step over. I could see that contributing to my negative feelings about this recipe. 

All that said, here are a few notes regarding the instructions and what I learned from baking these cookies. 

For starters, I used all-purpose flour and cornstarch instead of cake flour (hack I found on Google) because the store was out. The cookies’ texture was still good so I’m assuming this didn’t alter the final product by too much. 

Secondly, I added flour to the streusel mixture to make it less wet. 

Lastly, I found that flattening the cookie after rolling the dough in a ball helped aesthetically. From there you will use a tool or your thumb to indent the cookie. I tried it with one cookie and it was by far the best looking (and the one pictured of course). 

It was not my intention to be so angry with this recipe, but here we are. Thank you for staying with me through these recipes and learning with me. 

I look forward to creating something even yummier next month. See you then.