Biscoff Cloud Cookies

Biscoff Cloud Cookies - made dough April 28, 2015 from The Biscoff Cookie & Spread Cookbook by Katrina Bahl

Meet my new favorite cookie. I’m not even kidding. I’m sure something else will supplant it at some future point but for now, it’s the Cookie Butter Cloud Cookie. You know how I’ve felt like I was in a baking slump? Nothing on pinterest looked interesting to me and I’d even started deleting pins from my baking pinboards because, let’s face it, I’d had  them pinned for so long without making them that it was unlikely I’d ever make them. I got tired of the pins mocking me so I deleted them. Let’s hear it for conflict avoidance.

I tried turning to my existing baking books because somewhere in 200+ books, there should be “a few” recipes I’d want to make, right? But, like my pinned recipes, some of my baking books I’d flipped through so often and tagged what I wanted to make (that’s how we “pinned” things the old-fashioned way) that nothing looked exciting or compelling for me to make. Which is a bad sign of the baking slump I was in.

So like any good baker with recipe ADD, I did the logical thing. If 200 baking books don’t yield a recipe you want to try and the endless recipes on the interest don’t captivate the baking muse, you talk yourself into buying another baking book. I know, I know, I’m not supposed to because I have “enough”. In my defense, I instituted all the normal shopping rules: wait 24 hours, keep asking myself “do I really need it?” (Of course not. Doesn’t matter.) Then buy it anyway because sometimes being an adult gets old and $14 isn’t going to break my budget.

The book was smaller than I expected and in paperback; apparently $14 doesn’t buy as much as it used to. No matter. On my first pass, I tagged half a dozen recipes I wanted to make right off the bat. That’s how it usually goes when I get a new cookbook. I’m all fired up to bake every single recipe in it, bake a few then it joins the ranks on my bookshelves until I think to pick it up again and try to rekindle that initial spark.

No matter, it’s new, it’s fascinating and this is the first recipe I made from it. And it’s a winner. Doesn’t spread much, the edges get crisp, the cookie butter flavor says “hello, here I am” and the texture is amazing. If you like chewy cookies and abhor cakey cookies, this is the cookie for you. Of course, as always, do not overbake. 8 minutes like the recipe says or, if your oven doesn’t blast as hot as it should, 10 minutes tops. Let it set or it’ll be too gooey and the edges won’t be crisp if you eat it too soon. If you want to foray all the way to the end of the decadence spectrum, add a dollop of cookie butter on top while it’s just barely lukewarm then let your teeth sink into blissful goodness. Ah, cookie butter.

½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/3 cup creamy Biscoff spread

¾ cup brown sugar, packed

½ cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornstarch

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter, Biscoff spread, brown sugar and granulated sugar at medium speed until combined.
2. Add egg and vanilla and beat on low speed until combined.
3. Whisk dry ingredients together and add in two batches to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix only until just combined.
4. Form into golf-ball-sized dough balls and chill or freeze until firm, several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and space cookies evenly, 2 inches apart.
6. Bake for 8 minutes, remove from oven and let cool for several minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Let cool completely.