I have a confession to make. I don’t challenge myself enough in the kitchen. I love experimenting, but with two young kids around, I just don’t want my kitchen adventures to fail. I don’t have a lot of time to waste! and while I love participating in the Kosher Connection link-up (a group of bloggers that share a recipe each month with the same theme), I often find myself skipping them. Sometimes I run out of time, but mostly, the theme is too hard! This month’s theme is smoked or smoky food. I was determined to share a smoked or smoky dessert!
I have never come across a smoked dessert before. The first thing that came to mind was smoked salt. I could make chocolate chip cookies with smoked sea salt. My problem was, I don’t have any smoked salt. I did a little research and discovered that it’s actually quite pricey, but I could make my own with some wood chips on the grill. Perfect, except I don’t have any wood chips handy either. It would be so much fun for me to experiment with smoking salt, but again, I don’t have time to run around searching for ingredients and other supplies. I needed a more accessible recipe, with easy to find ingredients. After lots of internet browsing I came across a comment somewhere that recommended adding liquid smoke to your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I knew I had to try it! Liquid smoke is easy to find; I have seen it countless times and was always tempted to buy it, but never knew what I would do with it. This was my chance!
I decided to use oil instead of margarine in this recipe because I know a lot of people prefer to bake with oil over margarine and I wanted to keep these cookies dairy free. I bought a hickory flavored liquid smoke and replaced some of the vanilla extract with it. It’s extremely concentrated, a little bit goes a long way! These cookies are a perfect dessert for a summer barbecue and that’s exciting because most desserts associated with barbecue are smores and fruit. It’s fun to mix it up and offer something new. The smokiness in these cookies really compliment the sweetness of the chocolate chips. I love the intensity and rich background flavor the liquid smoke offers. These are definitely not your average chocolate chip cookie!
- ¾ cup oil
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2¼ cup flour
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- ¾ tsp. vanilla extract
- ¾ tsp. liquid smoke
- 12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the oil with the sugar and brown sugar until combined.
- Add the eggs and mix to combine.
- Add in the flour, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and liquid smoke and mix to form cookie dough.
- Add in the chocolate chips and stir to combine. The dough will seem greasy, and the chips may be difficult to incorporate, but that is ok!
- Chill in the fridge for about half an hour just to firm up the cookie dough.
- Scoop the dough using a large cookie scoop or a tablespoon into the parchment lined cookie sheets.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes until the edges are slightly brown.
- Remove from oven and cool on wire racks.
Here are some more fun smoky recipes to try!
Awesome idea…I originally planned on doing something similar (mesquite chocolate cookies), but BBQ pizza won out. So glad that you tried being more adventurous in the kitchen. I really look forward to making these
I got lucky — this year at the Fancy Food Show I got a nice size sample of kosher smoked sea salt — so I will use your idea for that (I don’t have liquid smoke). Should be delicious.
What an interesting idea, I am not a big fan of smoked foods, but these cookies sound so interesting I will have to give them a try
The smoke flavor is really just a hint. My 4 year old son ate so many of these!
I can see how a bit of smokiness could go really well with chocolate chip cookies. A twist on an original – fantastic!
wow that is so creative, I can’t even imagine it.
Do you use flavored liquid smoke? I’ve seen non-flavored, hickory, mesquite, qpple, pecan.. I don’t know what to purchase!
I don’t think you can really go wrong, you are only looking for a subtle hint of smoke, but I used hickory in this recipe. I’m not sure why I grabbed that flavor, but it tastes great in my cookies and in pulled beef!