25 Days of Cookies: Marble Cookies

If Michelangelo had worked as a baker, he would have preferred these cookies above all. Why? They're marble. And I hope you are all aware of his talent with carving and marble sculptures.

Cookie #17...holy guacamole, Batman! 17 cookies already!?

Today's cookie was such a battle to get to make. I had a staff training session with one of the new databases we are subscribing to (and it's awesome! I will never use Wikipedia again) and then a staff lunch meeting. When I got home, it was one project after another. And a family photo for our Christmas card! And then trying to use one of the websites to create a family card. Supposedly, those sites are supposed to be for the sake of convenience. Neither of them worked and just made me swear at my laptop a lot and get testy with everyone.

Dad had the audacity to complain that I hadn't baked any cookies yet while I was trying to make our Christmas card. It was nearly 7:00 and the thought of baking was awful. Like looking up at the top of a ropes course ladder after you've been climbing all day and your muscles are trembling from exhaustion.

I made a commitment though. To make 25 different cookies for the 25 days until Christmas. Dear God! At 8:00pm, I got all the ingredients out to make this recipe which I adapted from Mrs. Fields and made some excellent alterations to. My favorite part was the low oven temp and long cooking time. Finally got a chance to watch the episode of Bones that I missed a couple weeks ago!

 Perhaps I finished off what was left of a bottle of tempranillo wine from Saturday night... No shame. I was really wound up and thankfully everyone else left to do some Christmas shopping so I could relax and do my thing in the kitchen.

Don't be tricked by these cookies! When they come out of the oven they are pillowy soft and will seem under done but they are not!! That's just how wonderful they are.

These cookies are incredibly soft and even a little fluffy on the inside. This is because there is Tofutti non-dairy sour cream in them! Yeah, I know sour cream is for the tops of your baked potatoes or a healthy dollop in your chili. BUT it's an excellent sweet treat baking ingredient! The original Mrs. Fields recipe calls for regular sour cream and I chose to use the Tofutti for its own unique properties. My mother used the Tofutti in a sour cream pound cake she made from Cooking Light  a few (ugh, or several, now that I think about it) years ago. When she made the recipe with regular sour cream, we didn't like it nearly as much. The Tofutti made that pound cake much softer and it stayed very moist. I also used a greater ratio of brown sugar to granulated sugar to keep the texture soft. If you can't find Tofutti,  you can use regular sour cream. The texture won't be quite the same but I'm sure they will still be good!

Marble Cookies

The Taming of the Roux  

adapted from Mrs. Fields Best Ever Cookie Book

Ingredients:

2 c. all purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

¾ c. packed light brown sugar

¼ c. granulated sugar

½ c. unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)

1 large egg

4 oz (½ c. Tofutti sour cream)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 300°.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl with a whisk. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until you made a grainy paste. Add egg and mix until incorporated. Add vanilla and Tofutti. Mix until combined.

Add dry ingredients and stir slowly until wet. Do not over mix!

Pour melted chocolate into the dough and gently fold with a wooden spoon. This part can be tricky. You want swirls so you must not mix with circular motions! Slowly drag your spoon from the bottom of the bowl to the top until your dough takes on a swirl of chocolate and vanilla. If you mix with circular motions, you'll just end up with chocolate (and delicious) cookies but that's not what you're aiming for. Think of the difference between a soft-serve swirl ice cream and a chocolate or a vanilla soft-serve.

Using about a rounded tablespoon’s amount, scoop dough into balls and drop onto a parchment lined sheet pan about 2 inches apart from each other.

Bake for 20-22 minutes.

 

Your tastebuds won't be sorry you baked these even though your waistline might be annoyed.