Week 52: Berger Cookies

Well, we did it: 52 weeks of cookies. Fifty-two weeks of cookie recipes I haven’t made.

We’re closing out 52 weeks of cookies with something fun called a Berger Cookie. It’s pretty simple to make, and requires no prep work as long as you have all the ingredients.

For starters, you need to place a sheet of parchment paper onto a couple of cookie sheets. I cut them to exact size to make sure there’s the right amount of heat for each cookie.

Once the cookie sheets are ready, get your stand mixer and put in the butter, sugar, baking powder, and vanilla extract. This recipe seems a little backwards considering you normally combine the sugar and butter, eggs, and then all the dry ingredients, but this recipe says otherwise.

Then you get to combine all the good stuff!

Then you throw in the egg.

Then you combine them and you should get a little more doughy of a mixture.

This is where it gets weird. You need to alternate adding flour and milk. The recipe calls for you to add 1/2 cup of flour at a time and then add some milk. I alternated by doing flour, milk, flour, milk, flour. Then it comes out like this:

Unfortunately, the cookies require the use of the terrible 1Tbsp scoop that we’ve all come to know and hate. This time though, I have a plan…

Unfortunately, that means I needed to apply cooking spray for each scoop. Luckily the dough actually came out of the scoop (for the most part) every time. The issue is that the scraper that goes along the inside only goes halfway, unlike the 1.5Tbsp one that goes all the way.

Then you have to flatten them by taking a measuring cup and spraying the bottom of it with cooking oil.

Once that’s done, you get a dozen flattened cookies!

Because I’m running aluminum cookie sheets, they were in the oven for 12 minutes at 400°F.

While the cookies are baking, it’s time to start making the chocolate frosting by first combining one cup of bittersweet chocolate chips and one cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Once the bowl is ready, you microwave 3/4 cup of heavy cream until it is boiling. Then you pour it into the bowl with the chocolate chips. Then add some light corn syrup. Lastly, add 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.

Once the frosting is made, you dip the cookies from the baking side down. I recommend putting the dipped cookies onto wax paper.

Once they’re dried off, they’ll look like this:

From the side, they will look like this:

Overall, this is a simple, but tedious, recipe to make. The frosting is very fudgy, and despite forgetting to add the vanilla frosting to the cookies, they tasted great.

Well, this is it…52 weeks of cookies, and we end with these amazing fudgy cookies.

Now for the real question: what to do in 2022? Should I continue to do something new every week? Should I bake something different like brownies, muffins, cupcakes, cakes (please not cakes), or something else? I’m open to ideas and I think I’m up for a new challenge.

Ingredients:

COOKIE

• 1/3 cup Butter
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon Baking powder
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1 Large egg
• 1 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Organic Unbleached All Purpose White Flour
• 1/3 cup Milk

ICING

• 1 cup Bittersweet chocolate chips
• 1 cup Semisweet Chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon Light corn syrup
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup Heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups Powdered sugar

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set to the side.
3. In the bowl of your mixer beat together butter, vanilla extract, baking powder, and sugar.
4. Add the egg and beat until the mixture just starts to come together.
5. Slowly add the flour a ½ cup at a time alternating it with the milk.
6. Scoop about a tablespoon of cookie dough and drop it on the baking sheet. Repeat this step spacing the dough about 2 inches apart.
7. Lightly grease the bottom of a measuring cup and press it gently down on the dough balls, flattening them slightly so they are about 1 1/2 inches across. You will need to grease the measuring cup several times during the process so the dough doesn’t stick to it. I just used a little non-stick spray.
8. Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes. This cookies are cake-like so you don’t want the bottoms getting fully brown. They are done when the bottom is a mottled brown.
9. Once cookies are done remove them from the oven and place them on a cooling rack.
10. Make the frosting by placing the two types of chocolate chips in a bowl.
11. In a separate, microwave safe bowl, add the heavy cream and microwave it for 30 seconds at a time until it begins to boil.
12. Pour the boiling milk over the chocolate chips and let it sit.
13. Add the light corn syrup to the chocolate and stir until it is smooth.
14. Stir in the powdered sugar and let them mixture sit for 5 minutes to cool slightly.
15. Take each cookie and turn it over, dipping the flat bottom in the chocolate icing.
16. Let the chocolate mixture continue to cool and then using a knife scoop up more chocolate and spread it over each cookie. If you can see swirls in the icing after you spread it over the cookie then it is the right consistency. In the end the chocolate should be about the same thickness as the cookie.
17. Let the chocolate set and then store in an airtight container until ready to serve.
18. Enjoy!

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