Le plaisir jaune ! Father's Day Cookies for Dad
I was so busy the past week that I wanted to make something quick to celebrate Father's Day. Instead of making bread, I decided to make cookies. This is just my second time to bake cookies; I am slowly exploring quick breads in my oven. It was quick but not that easy because of a few components which was inspired by the cookie principle of Monsieur Albouze. I made 3 giant single serving cookies, though roughly the same but with a variation for each. To French speakers out there, sorry if I made a mistake with the name; it just came to my mind while thinking of a name for this cookie, je suis désolé !
Mangoes are our favorite fruit and it's mango season now so I thought of flavors that would go well with mangoes and make it into cookie form.
It starts with a rich, lightly salty, chewy cookie dough loaded with dried Philippine mangoes, roasted cashews and white chocolate disks. 
It was then stuffed with salted caramel in the middle then baked for 10 minutes at 180C. After 10 minutes, it was topped with more dried mangoes, white chocolate, homemade mango jam from slightly sour mangoes, and homemade caramelized cashews then baked again. After a further 10 minutes still at 180C, what you get is this fabulous cookie with intense but balanced flavors.
Here are the variations:
1. Exactly as the description above, stuffed with homemade soft and chewy salted caramel.
2. Yema, a Filipino candy made from reduced condensed milk replaces the salted caramel as filling.
3. Filled with Yema, topped with a slice of fresh mango in addition to the mango jam then finished with a sprinkling of dark chocolate. Our favorite!
It was so fragrant from all the add-ins in addition the butter and sugar. The nutty aroma can even be smelt outside the house while they were baking and when they were cooling. The chewy dried mango, crunchy nuts, gooey chocolate, sticky caramel, chunky jam, and soft and smooth mangoes make for a party of textures in the mouth; and the balance of flavors from the caramel, salt, tang from the fresh mango, sweetness form the dried mangoes and chocolate and the nuttiness from the cashews. So enjoyable to eat!
Look closely and you will see the caramel evenly distributed in the cookie.
Sorry if this was out of focus, I was in a hurry to eat it.
I had some beverages to pair with it but I found a glass of cold milk is the best! It really complements all of the flavors well. One more thing, how I wish I have filled all of them with my salted caramel, it really tastes way better with the mangoes than with the store bought candy (which I tried to see if making homemade is critical or just a waste of effort; if you can have an equal or better outcome using something store bought without effort, clearly the effort is worth it) and how I wish that it was the third variation that I have filled with the good stuff!
Happy Father's Day!
Comments
Those are some of the most spectacular cookies that I have seen! And the flavors sound absolutely scrumptious!
Paul
Thank you Paul!
Caramelized cashews sound awfully addictive too. I prefer dried mangoes to the fresh ones because of their chewiness. You can probably tell I'm after all chewy food by now. That's why I love your sausages, bian and bagels :) Chewy food are more satisfying so I can get filled up with less food. This usually helps to maintain a healthy weight... Well, that is until you start to consider desserts. A light sponge cake can't be more calorific than a dense cheesecake or fudgy brownie.
Hope your dad loved the cookies. The dark chocolate should have contributed some pleasant bitterness to these sweet & salty cookies. If I were you, I might filled them with some tangy/citrusy jam or maybe lemon curd!
I had to hide the cashews both caramelized and roasted ones; they're so addictive, I needed to make sure they will make their way into the cookies. They are crispy on the edges and chewy and moist in the center, you will love them.
I really thought of adding lime to these but also thought it might have been an overkill so I did not proceed, now you got me thinking what the flavor would have been had I continued with it. My dad is requesting another batch (and you know dads are hard to impress!) so it means it was really delicious and he loved them.