Rogers Yums!

I was going to make simple chocolate chip cookies, then decided to add some dried apricots.  Cutting the apricots into small bits with a knife was tedious, so I experimented with other techniques.  Along the way, I started adding other ingredients.  After weeks of experimentation, I settled on this recipe as my favorite version. I found the dried apricots, dates, and mango at Costco.  They don't always have them in stock, so get them when they're available.  They're very good quality and also make excellent snacks by themselves! It may seem odd to use butter with butter flavored shortening, but this really gives it the best combination of flavor and texture, in my opinion. While the cookies are good warm, I prefer them cold.  After they're cooled enough to hold their shape, I bag them and stick them in the freezer.  They stay fresh for a long time that way. Feel free to make substitutions.  For example, you can use pecans instead of almonds, dried...

Costco stopped carrying Nestle Toll House chocolate chips a while ago. They now offer two different versions of Kirkland chocolate chips, with confusingly similar names. One is called Kirkland Signature Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, and the other is Kirkland Signature semi-sweet Chocolate Chips. The white bag has Semi-Sweet capitalized, while the red and off-white bag keeps that part of the name lower case. When you see them in the store, you'll likely notice that the white bag (capital S) version costs slightly more. Are they charging more for bigger letters? If you look at the ingredients, the price difference makes sense. The cheaper one has more filler ingredients. The flavor, texture, and baking performance are pretty much identical to Nestle Toll House chips. This isn't surprising since the two brands have very similar ingredient lists, and the new Kirkland chips were introduced about the same time that Costco stopped selling the Nestle version. For comparison...

I was playing with the Our Best Bites Mint Brownie recipe, and I came up with a version that tastes remarkably similar to chocolate orange sticks. One change I made was to the chocolate. Instead of using baking chocolate and chocolate chips, I used a dark Belgian chocolate bar from Trader Joe's. This required reducing the sugar in the brownie batter a bit, and increasing it in the glaze. Then, of course, I made an orange frosting instead of using mint. I don't bother lining the pan with foil or parchment paper.  That would be useful it you wanted to remove the brownies from the pan before cutting them, but I find that cutting and serving from the pan works just fine. Brownies 6 ounces Trade Joe's Pound Plus 72% dark chocolate 1 cup butter 4 large eggs 1 3/4 cups sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1 1/4 cups flour Frosting 2 cups powdered sugar 4 tablespoons butter, softened 1 teaspoon orange extract 1/3 - 1/2 cup orange marmalade orange food coloring Choc...

Here's my new favorite brownie recipe.  This started out as Adam Ragusea's recipe from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhnzdRD-hX8 .  He has two versions: thin and chewy, and thick and cakey.  I went with the cakey version.  The texture was perfect, but it needed a bit more salt and chocolate.  So, I switched the kosher salt to an equal measure of table salt, and I added some regular cocoa to supplement the Dutch cocoa.  The result is fantastic! Adam likes to use a parchment paper sling to make the brownies easy to remove from the pan before cutting.  I prefer to skip the parchment paper and simply cut the brownies in the pan. 1 stick (1/2 cup, 113g) butter (I use salted butter) 1/2 cup (50g) Dutch process cocoa powder 1/4 cup (25 g) regular cocoa powder 1 14 oz (396g) can sweetened condensed milk 1 cup (120g) powdered sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla (I like to use 1 1/2 teaspoons imitation vanilla + 1/2 teaspoon Mexican vanilla) 2 teaspoons molasses 1...