My favourite season of the year is cookbook season. It falls somewhere between Fall and Winter and it is the time when many highly-anticipated cookbooks are released. I had barely finished flipping through Michelle’s new book when my copy of Pastry Love by Joanne Chang arrived in my mailbox. I own and love Joanne’s other cookbooks so I knew Pastry Love would be another great one to add to the collection. In case you are not familiar with Joanne, she is known more formally as the owner of Flour Bakery and James Beard Foundation Award winner for Outstanding Baker, and less formally as the queen of sticky buns. What makes this book so special is that it features recipes for many things she could not serve in the setting of a bakery, but still delicious recipes nonetheless.
When flipping through this book that is divided into chapters like ‘I Knead Bread,’ ‘Easy as Pie,’ ‘Time to Show Off,’ and ‘I Made This for You,’ I gravitated towards a recipe that is simpler but just as eye-catching as the rest. Jessi’s Caramel Popcorn Cookie recipe in the ‘Afternoon Pick-Me-Up’ chapter produces a cookie is equally crispy, chewy, sweet, salty, and everything you would ever want in a cookie. The amount of caramel popcorn you add to this cookie dough is a-l-a-r-m-i-n-g. It calls for six full cups of popcorn and I thought I misread the recipe and that my mixer would spew it all back out at me. When it was time to add the caramel corn, I had the mixer on the lowest setting possible (this is key!) and added the six cups, one cup at a time. My cookie dough with popcorn looked more like popcorn with a side of cookie dough but they turned out so perfectly. The edges are crispy, the centres are chewy, and the caramel popcorn studded throughout the cookie adds such great texture and flavour to the cookie. A generous amount of flakey sea salt tops this cookie, just as it should any cookie. I made the lemon sugar cookies with lemon glaze shortly after these popcorn cookies came out of the oven and I have the Japanese cotton cheesecake bookmarked as my next recipe to try.
Happy baking!
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
- 14 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- I teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 6 cups caramel popcorn, homemade or store-bought
- Flakey salt, to sprinkle
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and place racks in the centre and bottom third of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set them aside.
- In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the brown sugar and butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the egg and vanilla. Beat until combined.
- In a separate medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until just barely combined. Add the popcorn and mix on low until the popcorn is fully incorporated. (At this point the batter can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.)
- Drop large rounded spoonfuls of the batter onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving about I inch between them. Sprinkle the cookies evenly with the remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets and switching their positions midway through the baking time, until the edges are golden brown and the centres are set. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet on a wire rack.
- The cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Notes
Congratulations on the new book, Joanne!
![day two: sparkly matcha neapolitan shortbread cookies ✨
the instructions might seem confusing, but if you watch the video to see how the different flavour layers are stacked, it will make much more sense! these slice and bake cookies freeze extremely well so you can make the dough now and bake them off when you want to gift them. (makes 40-44)
vanilla dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
matcha dough:
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g (6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tsp culinary matcha powder
1/4 tsp salt
strawberry dough
85g (1/3 cup + 2 tsp) unsalted butter, room temp
45g 6 tbsp) powdered sugar
90g (3/4 cup) all-purpose flour
2 tbsp freeze-dried strawberry powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg white
coarse sanding sugar
for the vanilla dough, combine butter and powdered sugar in a bowl. mix until smooth. add vanilla. add flour and salt and mix until no dry streaks remain. do the same for the matcha and strawberry doughs in separate bowls
place one portion of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and roll into a 5 x 9-inch rectangle that is about 1/4-inch thick. slide rolled out dough onto a baking sheet and freeze for 10 min until firm. repeat this step with the other portions of dough
remove the top piece of parchment from each slab and stack the strawberry, vanilla, and matcha dough layers. cut the slab down the middle the long way to form two 2.5 x 9-inch rectangles. with one half, carefully swap the order of the layers (example: if the first half of the dough is stacked svm, swap the second half so it’s msv. this will ensure that same flavour squares don’t stack on each other). stack the halves. press the layers gently to adhere them. return the stacked dough to the freezer for another 10min
[recipe cont’d in comments]
#christmasbaking #christmascookies #holidaybaking #holidaycookies #cookiedecorating](https://constellationinspiration.com/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)
Pam Oladko says
These cookies are off the chain good. Will be a hit wherever I bring them.
Gloria Moncada says
Excellent cookie! One adjustment that I suggest is that the amount of popcorn called for in the recipe is far too much, I used half since there wasn’t enough dough to hold all that popcorn. The popcorn doesn’t stay crisp inside the cookie, but those on the outside stayed crisp. Next time I might put even less popcorn in the batter and just add more to the outside before baking so they will be crispy.
On my first batch, I decided to refrigerate my scooped dough for about 30 minutes before baking to help them hold together better since there was so much popcorn in the dough. I don’t think it ended up being necessary since the cookie doesn’t flatten out very much. The second batch I left at room temperature before baking – they still didn’t flatten much so after they came out of the oven I pressed them down a bit. I baked mine for 13 minutes since they were large.
Gloria Moncada says
Excellent cookie! One adjustment that I suggest is that the amount of popcorn called for in the recipe is far too much, I used half since there wasn’t enough dough to hold all that popcorn. The popcorn doesn’t stay crisp inside the cookie, but those on the outside stayed crisp. Next time I might put even less popcorn in the batter and just add more to the outside before baking so they will be crispy.
On my first batch, I decided to refrigerate my scooped dough for about 30 minutes before baking to help them hold together better since there was so much popcorn in the dough. I don’t think it ended up being necessary since the cookie doesn’t flatten out very much. The second batch I left at room temperature before baking – they still didn’t flatten much so after they came out of the oven I pressed them down a bit. I baked mine for 13 minutes since they were large.