Chocolate Turtle Cookies

These have got to be my new favourite cookie. I think they will be for a long time. I mean, how can you outdo the combination of rich chocolate, toasty pecans and smooth buttery caramel.  How?

I found this recipe at Pixelated Crumb.  It is an America's Test Kitchen Recipe and really worth making.  I was on Pixelated Crumb recently to recreate those fabulous Garlic Oven Fries this past weekend and I came across their top recipes of 2012.  This one is #1 so, duh, had to try it...

The dough is sticky so it needs to be kept cool for best results.

Here is it after chilling for an hour in the fridge. That chocolate looks so rich.

In some of the reviews I read that it was important to keep the dough chilled before cooking so after initially forming the cooking balls I put the tray in the fridge to keep that butter solid and help the cookie hold its shape

After rolling them in the eggwhite and pecans I formed the caramel cup.

After baking they puff in the cup a bit and need to be pressed again. Do this right away and if the cookie cracks it is really easy to squeeze it back together when they are very warm from the oven

Now they are ready for the caramel jewels.

They are so good and despite the caramel filled cup they are not overly sweet.

Try them, let me know how yours turn out.

Cake Disaster

To celebrate Valentines Day with the BF, I made a diabetic friendly cake. Twice. It was awful.  Both times.  As a twitter follower of +Epicurious I was eager to submit my experience in response to a call for such dilemmas to @AskKemp.

I was really excited when she responded.  After a few back and forth tweets about the details of the recipe, including a tweet of a picture of the recipe, she replied that she was working on determining the problem and to my total delight - Fixing it!  AND that she wanted to include it in her next column post.

What an honour! She wanted to know if I would be patient! and wait.  Of course I would.  Not only was I excited that she would have a solution, I was beginning to believe that the recipe was flawed and its awfulness was not my doing.  Phew!

@smalldeluxe Did you see today's Ask Kemp post? I made a cake for you! epi.us/YeDQKr
— Kemp Minifie (@AskKemp) May 1, 2013

I was thrilled when I read this tweet.  As soon as I got home I checked out her post.

She made the original recipe, included a picture and posted the new and improved recipe in her post.  The original recipe turned out exactly like mine. But the new and improved recipe....  Wow! What a gorgeous looking cake.  I don't think I can post a copy of the photo but encourage you to go and take a look at the post.  The details about why the recipe didn't work are pretty impressive.

The new and improved recipe is now available under the member recipes on Epicurious.

I hope to try it out very soon!!  I will post my results. If you try this recipe please let me know how it works out for you!

Oh...  and Thank you so much, Kemp!!!

Lori