Recipes of the week

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls

From Joy the Baker

My first taste of cookie dough was in Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream, and ever since then, I've been hooked. Most of the time they taste delicious, albeit artificial, (like Kit Kat Cookie Dough) and sometimes I can't get over the rawness of it. When I tried Baskin Robbins' chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream in Sydney, it had a really eggy taste to it that put me off. Still, I like the sound of cookie dough and any recipe with it always catches my eye.

Nutty White Chocolate Blondies

From Chow

In five words: big chunks of white chocolate.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

From Jamie Cooks It Up

What attracted me to this recipe was the use of mayonnaise to make these sweet muffins. I've heard of zucchini, chili and bacon used in chocolate recipes, but not mayonnaise. Apparently the mayonnaise gives the muffins a moist texture. The recipe even says you can substitute mayonnaise for salad dressing if you don't have a tub of mayo handy. 

Banana Caramel Cupcakes

From Bakers Royale

Continuing with bananas, these cupcakes look and sound absolutely delicious. There are a number of ingredients involved but these are readily available in your pantry (with the exception of heavy cream for the filling). This recipe seems similar to the banana cupcakes Natalie and I baked that were meant to be accompanied with a toffee icing. But this one is a lot harder to assemble, but I would presume to be a lot tastier. 

David Leibovitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies

From Serious Eats

Chocolate chip cookies so famous it needs an equally famous chef's name in front of it. But I don't know who David Leibovitz is (although his name sounds familiar). I may have heard of him from watching Top Chef or this recipe has been circling around the food blogosphere. I think it's the latter. Everyday a recipe for chocolate chip cookies would feature on FoodGawker or TasteSpotting, with posters claiming theirs is the chunkiest, richest, sweetest, chewiest chocolate chip cookie. On the same site, there is a taste test to see which are the best chocolate chips to use for chocolate chip cookies. To me, chocolate chip cookies are plain and boring, and are not something I would bake. But if it's David Leibovitz's Chocolate Chip Cookies, I just might.