Cabernet Goat Cheese Chocolate Chip Cookie -National Cookie Week! - The Gay Gourmet!™

YAY! Day 6 of National Cookie Week is here! I'm exhausted but National Cookie Week is still going strong!

I wanted this next cookie to be very adult. I mean it is the weekend after all! Actually this cookie was inspired by a really fantastic meal I recently had at a little restaurant in Brooklyn, named Stone Park. I took Momma Gladys there for her birthday and they no.1 treated us like royalty & no.2 served one of the most delicious tasting menus I've had in a long time! It was seven courses of fabulousness that I'll have to dedicate a whole other blog to.

That being said I wanted to create something that would remind me of this evening. But how?!?! Well, I started thinking about good wine and how that can really make an evening..so there! A WINE COOKIE...well that can't just be it.. okay...I thought to myself.. Wine & chocolate! Two things that always pair well together and remind me of decadent evenings. But it just wasn't enough for me...I needed that wow factor! Goat Cheese! There is nothing more I love than a good cheese plate! There it was folks! The idea had made it and here I went with it! I give you my...

Cabernet, Goat Cheese Dark Chocolate Chip Cookie!







* 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 3/4 cup cocoa powder
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 tsp baking soda
* 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
* 3/4 cup granulated sugar
* 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
* 1 large egg
* 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
* 3/4 cup Cabernet Sauvignon or dry red wine
* 1 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
* .40 lbs of Nice soft Goat Cheese (Something like a Coach Farms would work well)

Preheat oven 375 F

1. In bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter and sugars and beat until fluffy.

2. Add egg, vanilla and wine and beat until well mixed. (It's going to be very wet! That's okay! Don't you get any ideas!)

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda.

4. Slowly add to wet mixture in sections and fold in until just combined.

5. Fold in chocolate. Place heaping tablespoons of dough about 1.5 inches apart on greased cookie pans.

6. Take small marble sized chunks of Goat Cheese and place in the center of the cookies

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

They are really fabulous! I also tried something different with these and used a mini muffin pan to bake these into the cutest cookie cups! It's a new trend happening in the city that is being led by people like Schmackary's & Cups. For some reason I feel these cookies work really well like that! The flavors are really great consolidated into this tiny cookie cup! Either way they are great & very different! (Click the pink links..check those guys out!)









I'm actually getting a little sad that National Cookie Week is coming to an end..but we won't discuss it till tomorrow!! Till then may all your cookie dreams come true!

Deliciously Living,

Michael Muñoz

The Gay Gourmet!™

NCW image by Gerard Conte ©2011

Photo by John Dolan Photography ©2011

Support those boys..click the links!

©2011 Michael Muñoz

V.D. & What You Need to Know! 1 - The Gay Gourmet!™

So you want to impress your wife, partner, boyfriend/girlfriend, dog or whomever on Valentine's Day? Well, you're in luck!! Last year when I had a beau of my own for a short while I made him what I call my Menu of Hearts! 5 Courses, all heart themed, for this miserable hallmark holiday we call Valentine's Day!

First a little Gourmet History Lesson...

Saint Valentine's Day, commonly shortened to Valentine's Day, is an annual commemoration held on February 14 celebrating love and affection between intimate companions. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 500 AD. It was deleted from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI, but its religious observance is still permitted. It is traditionally a day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines"). The day first became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.

Thank You Wikipedia

Now that that interesting little tid bit is out of the way for the next 5 days or so I'm gonna take you through a recipe a day so that way you can impress you loved ones and make them think you are a culinary genius!

So without further adieu let us begin...


Goat Cheese Heart Tarts with Blackberry Jam over Mixed Greens!

The List

*medium sized heart shaped cookie cutter - mine is almost the size of my palm
*About 4oz or so of Soft Goat Cheese - Coach Farms is one of my fav's
*puff pastry dough - found in your local freezer section
*blackberry jam
*mixed greens - a good handful.. about 2 cups.
*1 lemon
*olive oil
*salt & pepper

1. defrost pastry dough & preheat oven to temperature as directed on the box.

2. on a very lightly floured cutting board (making sure cheese is cold) take goat
cheese and loosely press it into the cookie cutter till cutter is about half full
or desired thickness (some people, like me, love good hunk of goat cheese)

3. Unroll 1 section of pastry dough and lay goat cheese heart on top.

4. cut dough in a heart shape around heart leaving about 1/2in of dough space so that you can lift and cover the outer section of the goat cheese heart. put excess dough to the side.

5. now you should have a goat cheese heart sitting on top of a larger pastry dough heart. Pull and cover outer section of the goat cheese heart with the dough.

6. Repeat steps 1 -5 to create a second one of these as I am assuming you are cooking for two...It is valentines day after all!

7. Stick both heart tarts in the oven on a cookie sheet and cook till puff pastry is puffy and golden! There should be a time estimation on the pastry dough box.

8. While hearts are baking... juice lemon and combine with 2 tbs of olive oil. Salt & pepper to taste.

9. Rinse mixed greens and dry either using a salad spinner or set on paper towels.

10. In an bowl toss the mixed greens & dressing.

11. Once Heart Tarts are done pull them out of the oven and let cool for about 5 mins. Once cool..take a tsp of blackberry jam and create a smaller jam heart inside exposed part of the heart tart!

Set on a plate along side a serving of salad and you have an impressive but super easy appetizer to impress your beau!

Yum Yum!

I even took a small heart shaped cookie cutter and baked a couple little puff pastry hearts for extra garnish! So Cute!



Deliciously Loving,

Michael Muñoz
The Gay Gourmet™

©2011 Michael Muñoz