Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies

December 2012 was really a busy one for me - busiest Christmas season ever. My love for baking became a cash cow for the season and I've made quite an overwhelming amount of boxes of orders of mini cheesecakes, red velvet mini cakes and cupcakes, carrot cupcakes, and the undisclosed chocolate cake I only made for dear family and friends. It was so overwhelming that every free space in our home became part of our quasi bakery - I got boxes towered for the final products in my room and ribbons that came with each box which I had to pre-cut, baking trays with cupcake liners and greased springform pans waiting for the raw stuff on our dining tables, recipes on the fridge held by magnets and the amount to be done for the day for the scheduled deliveries. Orders came in crazy that I had to turn down a couple of conflicting requests simply because the volume was just too much for what can be accommodated in a day. My body clock had gone haywire, only getting sleep as much as 3 hours at lunch time and waking up as I still had to be in the office for half day doing number-crunching work. Yes, I was that crazy but I never regretted getting myself into that challenge and beating up our very much loved KitchenAid.

I'm not part of the crowd who goes gaga over red velvet cupcakes, but don't get me wrong because I like making them. My affinity to anything red velvet is not similar to my preference of a perfect moist and decadent chocolate cake over complicated cakes, and not even close to me choosing a vanilla ice-cream over a chocolate one anytime. However, it fascinates me seeing people react positively to it when red velvet just has a mild chocolate flavor in an alluring deep red color topped with rich cream cheese frosting. As a home-baker, my red velvet mini cakes and cupcakes need to meet my requirement - it should be moist and you will still get to appreciate the hint of chocolate.

But I'm not making red velvet cupcakes here today. As long as it's still something that I sell, my signature recipe remains private, but I can probably share later on a recipe I liked for novice bakers to try. For now, following last week's gooey Rocky Road Toffee Chocolate Chip Cookies, I finally gave in to my curiosity and followed my instinct putting together my red velvet cake recipe with my go-to chocolate chip recipe to come up with red velvet cookies.

Red Velvet White Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
2 tablespoons salted butter, softened
2 teaspoons vegetable oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg white
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 teaspoons red food colouring
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

This recipe yields about 2 dozens of cookies more or less.

1. Preheat oven at 150C. Prepare all your ingredients so that everything is within reach. The butter should be softened at room temperature (melted butter is entirely different). The brown sugar should be packed enough to form the shape of your measuring cup once you put it in the mixing bowl. The all-purpose flour should be measured using the fluff-scoop-sweep method (in short, don't pack your flour in the cup similar to your brown sugar - just fluff your flour in its container, scoop flour to your measuring cup, then with the clean handle of your spatula, sweep of the excess which will level your flour to the desired measure from your cup).

2. In your mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter, oil and sugar. You can do this by hand (yes, no need for an electric mixer for this recipe!).

3. Once combined, add in the vanilla and egg white, then mix thoroughly. You will start getting a gooey mixture here.

4. In a separate small bowl, combine your cocoa powder and red food coloring. Stir until it becomes a smooth paste. Then add this to your gooey batter. Mix well.

 

5. In a small bowl, mix together the flour and pinch of salt. Using a sieve, sift them altogether into your mixing bowl with the red gooey batter.

6. Stir until the dry ingredients are combined. Be careful not to over mix it.

7. In another small bowl, add the baking soda to the apple cider vinegar. Don't be surprised but this will fizz up! Pour this concoction into your batter and mix until just incorporated.

8. Fold in the white chocolate chips and make sure it is evenly distributed.

 

9. On a baking sheet with a nonstick mat, drop teaspoonfuls of the batter, leaving about 2 inches of space in between each cookie.

10. Bake the cookies until the edges are set and the middles are still soft, which is about 10 minutes. It's okay for the middle to be soft as if they are a bit raw because the cookie will continue to bake while it's still hot even outside the oven. Don't over bake as otherwise, your cookies will turn out crunchy and not chewy the way we wanted it to be.

11. Remove from the oven and leave them on the sheet for 5 minutes before taking them out and letting them cool completely on a wire rack.

So, yeah, red velvet can be in the cookie world! Let me know what you think.