Michael Makes

Bread: Keto Zucchini Bread

The guy I get lettuce from at Farmer’s Market had his first batch of zucchini for the season, and you know what that means? Zucchini bread time! For this entry, we’re going to make a zucchini bread that is not only tasty, but…keto-friendly!

For the record, I have made this previously in a post, but I wanted to go into more detail with some more pictures.

Alright, let’s start with the most annoying part of the recipe: grating the zucchini.

My rotary cheese grater wouldn’t have been very useful for this recipe.

Because this requires one and a half cups of grated zucchini, I ended up using two of them to get the necessary amount, and that is after squeezing all the water out of it.

Zucchini doesn’t look as good in this form…

It took two zucchini to make this happen.

Once the zucchini is ready, put it aside. In a medium bowl (I used a large bowl, and it was a bit much), mix the 2 cups of almond flour, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 cup sweetener, and 1 teaspoon baking soda together.

Once the dry ingredients are whisked together, then you’ll go ahead and add the grated zucchini to the mix.

Once the zucchini is in place, you’ll need to beat a couple of eggs and pour them into the bowl.

I think I need to use a bowl that is a little less like a mirror and something more solid. That polished surface is a little distracting.

The last ingredient you will add is some melted butter. Take half of a stick of butter, melt it in the microwave for about 30 seconds, and pour it in.

Sweet, all the ingredients are in. Now for the fun part…

Once everything is together, mix it all up with a spatula of sorts.

Once it’s mixed up, get your 9″ x 5″ loaf pan and coat it with cooking spray.

Take my word for it, it is lined with cooking oil.

Once you have your loaf pan ready, pour the mix into it and level it as best as you can.

With your oven at 350F, place the pan in the oven for 1 hour.

After an hour, it should be ready.

After you have let it cool off, make sure you gently remove it from the pan. You might have greased it well, but it might not unstick easily.

This recipe is pretty simple, but it requires quite a bit of effort to grate the zucchini. As for ingredients, Costco seems to be amazing when it comes to a ketogenic diet, as I was able to find my almond flour and monkfruit sweetener there. It’s also very tasty and makes for a great breakfast with some butter in the morning. This can be made on impulse, but you will need to put in some extra effort to make it happen.

Ingredients:

2 Cups almond flour (click here to see my favorite on Amazon)
1/2 teaspoon Kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Cup Granular Sweetener (Click here to see my favorite on Amazon)
1 teaspoon Baking soda
2 Large Eggs, Beaten
1/4 Cup Melted butter
1 1/2 Cups Grated Zucchini with peel

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease an 9×5 loaf pan with butter or cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, cinnamon, swerve, and baking soda.
Wrap the grated zucchini in a kitchen towel and squeeze out as much liquid as you can. Discard liquid and add zucchini to the dry ingredients followed by the eggs and melted butter. Stir batter until combined. See notes for instructions on adding walnuts, chocolate chips, or blueberries.
Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake in the 350F oven for 60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool before serving. Slice into 12 slices. See notes for freezing, making muffins, and for a savory bread.

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Cookies: Little Debbie’s Oatmeal Cream Pies

It’s been a while since I’ve done a cookie, but these ones were so good that I needed to try them out. This is another one of those cookie recipes you can make on impulse if you have all the ingredients.

Alright, let’s get started with the fun stuff.

You will need two and a half sticks of butter for this recipe, so make sure they’re at room temperature already.

Make sure you mix your white and brown sugar before adding it to the butter. Mixing the sugars ahead of time ensures good cookie consistency.

Once the sugars are mixed up, dump that bowl into the stand mixer and mix them up!

Once the sugar and butter are mixed together, add the egg, vanilla extract, and molasses.

Closer shot of the three ingredients added.

Mix it all up.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and your quick oats..

Whenever I need to add dry ingredients to the stand mixer, I always take the mixture and put them on a sheet of parchment paper and slowly pour it into the stand mixer as it is mixing. I don’t have video of this because I don’t have a tripod for this kind of thing. Plus, I don’t have a YouTube channel to show how all this is done, since I’m a one-man crew.

After mixing for a while, you can stop the mixer and gaze at the magnificence that is the raw cookie dough…

Scoop it out using your trusty 1.5Tbsp scooper from Oxo, unlike their crappier 1Tbsp scooper. Make sure your cookie sheets are lined with some parchement paper for easier cleaner up. To make your life easier, I’d recommend using two cookie sheets to get the baking done quicker.

Make sure your oven is at 375F. I baked the cookies for 12 minutes despite the recipe calling for 10 minutes. The aluminum cookie sheets require a little longer since they don’t absorb heat as much as their steel counterparts.

While cookies are baking, it’s time to get the filling ready.

For the filling, beat the butter with your hand mixer.

Yeah, this whole recipe requires 4 sticks of butter

Next, add the powdered sugar.

To thicken it up, we need to add some heavy cream.

Once the filling is complete, it’s time to make the sandwich cookies!

I don’t think I’ve ever used those BB-8 measuring cups in the back…

I had a lot of filling left over, and had to do my best to not eat it with a spoon.

In the end, this is the result:

These cookies are a lot of work, but they’re so good and worth the effort. As long as you have the 4 sticks of butter at room temperature, this won’t take too long to make.

Do I recommend these? Absolutely! This is definitely something worth your time, and they’re so good. The recipe calls for each cookie size to be 3Tbsp, but using the 1.5Tbsp size makes the cookies just right. Plus, at 1.5Tbsp, it’s still chewy.

Ingredients:

COOKIES

1 1/4 cups unsalted butter softened at room temperature (2.5 sticks)
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon dark molasses
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 cups uncooked quick-cooking oats NOT whole-rolled oats

CREME FILLING

3/4 cup unsalted butter softened at room temperature (1.5 sticks)
3 cups Powdered sugar
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
pinch of salt, as needed

Instructions:

Instructions

For the cookies: With a stand or handheld mixer, cream the butter and sugars together at medium speed until light and creamy. Add egg, vanilla, and molasses, scraping down the sides as needed. Set aside.
In a medium-sized bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and cloves. Whisk it all around. Add the quick oats and combine.
With the mixer running on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to wet ingredients. The dough will be quite thick and you may have to mix it all by hand after a few seconds in the mixer.
Preheat oven to 375F degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper or nonstick baking mat. Drop dough with a large cookie scoop, or make sure each ball of dough is 3 tablespoons in measurement. Cookies will spread in the oven, so drop each ball of dough 3 inches apart.
Bake for 10 minutes, until cookies are lightly golden around the edges. Allow cookies to cool on cookie sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
For the filling: With a stand or handheld mixer, beat butter for about 1 minute until creamy. Add the powdered sugar and mix on medium speed for 1-2 minutes. Pour in heavy cream and vanilla extract. Mix on high for 3-4 minutes until fluffy. Taste and add a pinch or two of salt, as needed. If filling is way too thick, add a couple more teaspoons of heavy cream.
Spread 1 1/2 tablespoons of cream filling on the bottom side of half of cookies; top with remaining cookies, right side up.

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Bread: Pretzel Buns

My phase of making bread/biscuits continues, and today we’re going to talk about something fun and tasty: pretzel buns!

This isn’t as time consuming as the Copycat Olive Garden Breadsticks, but some work still needs to be done. It’s actually pretty simple to make, and I’ll give some tips on how to make it easier for yourself if you decide to make this recipe.

It first starts off with getting a large mixing bowl (you’ll see why later). Once you have your bow, you need to warm up 1/2 a cup of water. While the water is heating, measure out your white sugar and active dry yeast. To make it easy, use two packets of the active dry yeast that comes in the 3-pack.

To save yourself the frustration, use two of these packets for 4 1/2 teaspoons.

You’ll put the warm water in the bowl and add the sugar and yeast together. Let them do their thing in the bowl for 5 minutes.

After the five minutes are up, add in the milk, shortening, eggs, vegetable oil, flour, more sugar, and salt.

Then you need to get your hand mixer and start it up while adding the rest of the flour (1/2 cup at a time). This will get a little messy, because the dough will bunch up in your mixer.

Once you’ve had enough of your hand mixer, you’ll need a surface that is lightly floured, and you’ll need to knead the dough for about 5 minutes.

I had to wash my hands to get this picture.

Once you have kneaded the dough enough, spray another bowl with cooking oil and place the dough in there. Cover it with plastic wrap and put the bowl in a warm environment for an hour.

After an hour, the dough should look like this:

The recipe tells you to pull out dough balls the size of baseballs, which will make them large (I guess hence the name “buns” instead of “biscuits”).

You’ll need to make the dough lengthen like a breadstick, and then you roll it like a cinnamon roll.

This picture makes me slightly uncomfortable.

Do this so you end up with 12 buns.

Make sure your oven is preheated to 350 degress for these. If you’re like me and put the oven on at the last minute, preheat the oven while you do the next step.

Get 4 cups of water and heat it up. Put that in a bowl and mix it with 1/2 cup of baking soda. With the water-baking soda mix, dip the buns into that water before placing on the cookie sheet. Put 6 on a cookie sheet at a time, and use aluminum ones so you don’t burn the bottoms too quickly. Once on the cookie sheet, spread melted butter on each bun and top with a little bit of sea salt.

Bake each set of 6 for about 22 minutes in the oven.

Overall, I would say that this is a keeper. I’d recommend this recipe for anyone, but just make sure that you have an extra hour set aside for the dough to rise. These are delicious and very fluffy. One of my coworkers saw me eating one, and was extremely jealous. Now they want me to make them some, although if I were to do this again, I would make them smaller and more along the lines of a pretzel biscuit.

Ingredients:

4 ½ teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon white sugar
½ cup warm water
2 cups warm milk
6 tablespoons vegetable shortening
2 eggs
6 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
¼ cup white sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
½ cup baking soda
4 cups water
¼ cup melted butter
sea salt

Directions:

Sprinkle the yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar over 1/2 cup of warm water in a small bowl. The water should be no more than 100 degrees F (40 degrees C). Let stand for 5 minutes until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam.
Add milk, shortening, eggs, oil, 3 cups flour, 1/4 cup sugar, and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt. Blend with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Mix in remaining 3 cups of flour by hand, 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a floured surface, and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. The dough will be sticky.
Lightly oil a large bowl, then place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil. Cover with a light cloth and let rise in a warm place (80 to 95 degrees F (27 to 35 degrees C)) until doubled in volume, about 1 hour. Uncover the dough and punch it down.
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Pull off baseball size portions of dough and roll into “snakes” about 6 inches long. Roll each “snake” into a spiral to give the tops some texture. Set each formed bun aside.
Mix the baking soda and 4 cups hot water in a bowl. The baking soda does not need to dissolve completely. Dip each bun in the baking soda solution before placing on a baking sheet. Brush each bun with melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in the preheated oven until brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on a wire rack or brown paper bag.

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Bread: Olive Garden Breadsticks!

After too long of a hiatus, I’ve decided to do some baking again. I decided to start doing breads that go with dinners, and this weekend I decided on Olive Garden breadsticks.

After several weeks, and contemplating what to do this year, I decided on biscuits, and the first one I wanted to share was the recipe for Olive Garden breadsticks, and they turned out amazing.

The recipe is pretty simple actually. You first start things off by combining warmed water, instant yeast, granulated sugar, and melted unsalted butter. You can combine all these in a stand mixer with your bread dough hook attachment.

First time using the dough hook on my stand mixer!

After the first bit of ingredients are mixing, you need to slowly pour in the bread flour little by little. I use a piece of parchment paper to slowly add the bread flour in little by little. After a while, the dough starts to stretch out little by little.

After being in a stand mixer, make sure you have a greased bowl for the dough to rise.

Put the dough in the greased bowl and cover it in plastic wrap. Then put it in a warm environment. I had to improvise, so I used my laundry closet. Luckily, my dryer hose has a hard time staying attached, so it warms the closet. You need to let this sit for an hour and a half.

After that, you need to measure 2oz portions of dough, and stretching it out to a length of about 7 inches. Then you need to cover them up and let them sit for another hour. I had to cut it short to 45 minutes, and it seemed to work.

I got 13 instead of 12 that the recipe calls for. Yay baker’s dozen!

I used aluminum cookie sheets because they won’t burn the bottom of the breadsticks.

After the time, the oven was heated up to 400F and they were baked for exactly 12 minutes, and they came out perfect. Then I brushed some melted butter on top and sprinkled a kosher salt/garlic powder mix on top.

This is a good recipe to make if you decide to make these ahead of time. I recommend this recipe because it was so good, and it was a hit with my family for dinner. The recipe is a keeper!

Ingredients:

For the dough:

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
16 ounces (about 3 1/3 to 3 1/2 cups) bread flour

For the topping:

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine the water, yeast, sugar, and butter. Add in the salt. Attach the dough hook to the mixer and begin to gradually add the flour on low speed. Increase speed to medium and knead the dough for about 7 minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic.
Remove the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rest in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
Divide the dough into 12 (2 ounce) portions. Roll each piece of dough into a 7-inch log. Place the dough logs on nonstick baking mat or parchment-lined baking sheets, cover, and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Bake for about 12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and immediately brush with melted butter. Combine the salt and garlic powder and sprinkle evenly over breadsticks. Serve warm.

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Year in Review

Well, we made it the whole year. Fifty-two weeks of cookies was accomplished, and it was quite the challenge.

Honestly, the most challenging part was coming up with a recipe every week, since sometimes I had to find one. Luckily, I had a good idea for some of the posts and had recipes already. Some of them came from ideas based on other types of desserts, such as cakes, pies, and ice creams.

The stats for the year were pretty interesting. I wanted to see what were the most liked posts of the year, and so here is the summary.

The Top 5 cookie recipes for 2021 are…

#5 Laura Bush’s Cowboy Cookies

I guess brand recognition wins this spot. Despite the cookies having some shredded coconut in them, you can barely taste the coconut in them.

#4 Tie between Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze and White Chocolate Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

So these are two cookies that couldn’t be more opposite if they tried. The Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze was a recipe that my mom had that she gave me to try. They turned out really good, and the lemon flavor isn’t too much.

The White Chocolate Pumpkin Snickerdoodles is a hell of a combination for a cookie. It combines three things that probably shouldn’t work together but do.

#3 New York Cheesecake Cookies

This was an unexpected cookie that came out much better than I thought it would. The dough is a graham cracker-based dough with some cream cheese mixed with lemon on top. It was a surprise for sure, and I guess a lot of people liked the idea of cheesecake in your hand.

#2 Funfetti Cookies

I guess I should have expected this to do pretty well, as you can’t go wrong with Funfetti. The only thing odd about them was the almond extract flavoring to it. Overall, it looks fun, it tastes good, and it’s pretty easy to make.

#1 The Healthiest Breakfast Cookies

Alright, so I did not expect this one to be the most liked of all my cookies. This was a recipe recommended to me by a friend who is a registered dietician. Who knew that the healthy cookies would do so well when it comes to likes? I guess people like posts about healthy foods instead of unhealthy ones, which is the only reasoning I can think of. Then again, the Keto recipes I posted, along with the meal prep posts, did much better overall. I didn’t put any of those here because this was about the cookies.

Well, that was a hell of a year of baking. As for next year, I’m going to continue baking, but it won’t be limited to just cookies. I will branch out to whatever I feel like, and I will still post things here and there, although I can’t guarantee consistency.

Here’s to baking in 2022!

Week 52: Berger Cookies

Well, we did it: 52 weeks of cookies. Fifty-two weeks of cookie recipes I haven’t made.

We’re closing out 52 weeks of cookies with something fun called a Berger Cookie. It’s pretty simple to make, and requires no prep work as long as you have all the ingredients.

For starters, you need to place a sheet of parchment paper onto a couple of cookie sheets. I cut them to exact size to make sure there’s the right amount of heat for each cookie.

This picture wasn’t really necessary, but I felt like putting it in.

Once the cookie sheets are ready, get your stand mixer and put in the butter, sugar, baking powder, and vanilla extract. This recipe seems a little backwards considering you normally combine the sugar and butter, eggs, and then all the dry ingredients, but this recipe says otherwise.

I don’t like how the vanilla looks in the sugar…

Then you get to combine all the good stuff!

Then you throw in the egg.

Then you combine them and you should get a little more doughy of a mixture.

This is where it gets weird. You need to alternate adding flour and milk. The recipe calls for you to add 1/2 cup of flour at a time and then add some milk. I alternated by doing flour, milk, flour, milk, flour. Then it comes out like this:

The dough honestly tastes like cake dough.

Unfortunately, the cookies require the use of the terrible 1Tbsp scoop that we’ve all come to know and hate. This time though, I have a plan…

Unfortunately, that means I needed to apply cooking spray for each scoop. Luckily the dough actually came out of the scoop (for the most part) every time. The issue is that the scraper that goes along the inside only goes halfway, unlike the 1.5Tbsp one that goes all the way.

That took way more effort than you think…

Then you have to flatten them by taking a measuring cup and spraying the bottom of it with cooking oil.

Yeah, I had to do this a few times just for a dozen cookies.

Once that’s done, you get a dozen flattened cookies!

Somehow I ended up with 27 cookies instead of the 24 the recipe calls for.

Because I’m running aluminum cookie sheets, they were in the oven for 12 minutes at 400°F.

While the cookies are baking, it’s time to start making the chocolate frosting by first combining one cup of bittersweet chocolate chips and one cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Once the bowl is ready, you microwave 3/4 cup of heavy cream until it is boiling. Then you pour it into the bowl with the chocolate chips. Then add some light corn syrup. Lastly, add 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar.

Once the frosting is made, you dip the cookies from the baking side down. I recommend putting the dipped cookies onto wax paper.

Once they’re dried off, they’ll look like this:

From the side, they will look like this:

Overall, this is a simple, but tedious, recipe to make. The frosting is very fudgy, and despite forgetting to add the vanilla frosting to the cookies, they tasted great.

Well, this is it…52 weeks of cookies, and we end with these amazing fudgy cookies.

Now for the real question: what to do in 2022? Should I continue to do something new every week? Should I bake something different like brownies, muffins, cupcakes, cakes (please not cakes), or something else? I’m open to ideas and I think I’m up for a new challenge.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Baking powder
1/2 cup Sugar
1 Large egg
1 1/2 cups Bob’s Red Mill Organic Unbleached All Purpose White Flour
1/3 cup Milk

ICING

1 cup Bittersweet chocolate chips
1 cup Semisweet Chocolate chips
1 tablespoon Light corn syrup
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
3/4 cup Heavy cream
1 1/2 cups Powdered sugar

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set to the side.
In the bowl of your mixer beat together butter, vanilla extract, baking powder, and sugar.
Add the egg and beat until the mixture just starts to come together.
Slowly add the flour a ½ cup at a time alternating it with the milk.
Scoop about a tablespoon of cookie dough and drop it on the baking sheet. Repeat this step spacing the dough about 2 inches apart.
Lightly grease the bottom of a measuring cup and press it gently down on the dough balls, flattening them slightly so they are about 1 1/2 inches across. You will need to grease the measuring cup several times during the process so the dough doesn’t stick to it. I just used a little non-stick spray.
Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes. This cookies are cake-like so you don’t want the bottoms getting fully brown. They are done when the bottom is a mottled brown.
Once cookies are done remove them from the oven and place them on a cooling rack.
Make the frosting by placing the two types of chocolate chips in a bowl.
In a separate, microwave safe bowl, add the heavy cream and microwave it for 30 seconds at a time until it begins to boil.
Pour the boiling milk over the chocolate chips and let it sit.
Add the light corn syrup to the chocolate and stir until it is smooth.
Stir in the powdered sugar and let them mixture sit for 5 minutes to cool slightly.
Take each cookie and turn it over, dipping the flat bottom in the chocolate icing.
Let the chocolate mixture continue to cool and then using a knife scoop up more chocolate and spread it over each cookie. If you can see swirls in the icing after you spread it over the cookie then it is the right consistency. In the end the chocolate should be about the same thickness as the cookie.
Let the chocolate set and then store in an airtight container until ready to serve.
Enjoy!

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Week 51: Cinnamon Roll Cookies

I know I’m doing this pretty late, but it’s been a crazy week, and it was a crazy weekend.

I’ve wanted to make this recipe for a while, but I guess I had been putting it off because it didn’t seem like it fit the theme of the season. I decided to do it anyways, and it was a pain in the butt to make. At least the end result was good. I’m always afraid that one of these recipes is going to take a lot of time and turn out to taste horribly.

The first step is pretty simple; you just need to melt half of a stick of butter and mix it with the brown sugar and cinnamon. The recipe calls for dark brown sugar, but you can get away with using either one.

In your stand mixer, throw in 3/4 of a cup (one and a half sticks) of butter with 3/4 of a cup of white sugar.

Costco is finally selling unsalted butter in stick form, so this is the last time you’ll see a picture of a brick of butter being cut.

Once those are mixed, you throw in the egg, vanilla, heavy cream, baking powder, and salt.

Once it’s mixed, it should look like this:

Next, you’ll slowly pour in flour while it is mixing. I use a sheet of parchment paper to slowly pour the flour in.

In any other context, this would be a questionable picture.

Once the flour is poured in, you will have your dough ready in a bit.

So this is where the difficulty comes in. This is where you need to roll the dough, and I had a lot of issues doing so.

Honestly, I would recommend probably refrigerating the dough for about half an hour before rolling it because this was infuriating to roll. It was so sticky and it kept getting stuck on my roller, hence the massive amount of flour on the dough.

Once you’ve decided you’ve had enough of rolling, you slowly apply the cinnamon sugar mix and spread it all throughout.

Then you cut it into 10 slices.

They taste better than they look, trust me.

Then you roll the dough like Fruit by the Foot, and then roll it into a ball. Then you place it on a floured cookie sheet and freeze them for 20 minutes.

I baked the cookies for 18 minutes on aluminum cookie sheets with a sheet of parchment paper on them, and they came out perfect…and huge.

You can tell which cookies were made correctly…

After the cookies have cooled off, you get to make the icing and top the cookies off.

In the end, you get these amazing cookies!

In the end, the cookies were very tasty and got positive feedback.

If I were to change anything in this recipe, I would highly suggest refrigerating the dough for a while like you would with any sugar cookie dough. It will make it a lot easier to flatten the dough, which was the hardest part of this recipe.

Ingredients:

Filling

1/4 cup (half of a stick) butter, melted
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Cookie Dough

3/4 cup (one and a half sticks) butter, room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1–2 tablespoons milk

Instructions:

For the filling, in a medium bowl combine the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment combine the butter and the granulated sugar, mixing on medium speed for 2 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, cream, baking powder, and salt. Mix for 1 minute, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary. Turn the mixer to low and add in the flour, mixing until just combined.
On a lightly floured piece of wax or parchment paper, press the dough out into a 15×10 rectangle. This doesn’t have to be exact or neat.
Spread the filling mixture on top of the dough, leaving about an inch at the edges. Roll the dough up tightly from the long edge.
Cut the dough into 10 equal slices. Roll each slice into a ball and place on a lightly floured plate or baking sheet. Place into the freezer for 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
Place 5 of the dough balls onto the prepared pan, leaving space for them to spread. Place the remaining dough in the refrigerator while the first batch bakes.
Bake for 15-17 minutes, until the edges are lightly golden.
Allow the cookies to cool on the pan for 5 minutes, and then transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.
For the icing, in a medium bowl combine the powdered sugar, butter and 1 tablespoon milk. Whisk until no lumps remain. Add more milk if a thinner icing is desired.
Dip the tops of the cooled cookies into the icing, or drizzle on top. Allow the icing to set.

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Week 50: Dipped Gingersnaps

We’re almost to the end, and this week is something that seemed appropriate for the holidays while still giving those fall feelings: Dipped Gingersnaps!

This recipe requires a little bit of prep as you need to make sure your eggs are at room temperature. Also, you need to make sure you have canola oil, molasses, and shortening. Hopefully you have molasses on hand because I had a heck of a time trying to find molasses in any of my local grocery stores.

At first, I wasn’t going to make this recipe since the yield was listed as 14-1/2 dozen. For those who don’t care about measuring things in dozens, that’s 174 cookies. I read the recipe further down, and that’s assuming a ball of dough that is 3/4″ in diameter, so I decided to use my favorite cookie scoop to make larger cookies instead. Needless to say, that idea paid off as I ended up making 45 cookies instead.

The recipe starts off easy enough: you throw in 2 cups of sugar and 1-1/2 cups of canola oil into the mixing bowl and stir it on low.

While the canola oil and sugar are being mixed up, you put all the dry ingredients into a bowl and whisk them together.

When the canola oil and sugar are well mixed, you throw in the 2 eggs and the 1/2 cup of molasses and run it on low for a couple of minutes.

Once all the wet ingredients are combined, then you throw in the dry ingredients and let it mix on low for a while as well.

It actually smelled pretty good considering the molasses.

Once all the ingredients were combined, I called upon my trusty 1.5Tbsp Oxo Cookie Scoop to get me the cookie sizes I wanted. Make sure your cookie sheet is lined with parchment paper.

I baked them for between 15-17 minutes, and they came out perfect.

The cookies were getting a little too close together…

Once the cookies have cooled off, you need to melt your white chocolate and shortening together. I used two smaller bowls to do this.

Yes that’s shortening, not marshmallow cream, although that gives me an idea…

What I did was run the mixture in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time, but only did that twice. After the second 30-second run, I ran it for 15 seconds, and it came out perfect.

I took the cookies and dipped them halfway to get the look that we want.

Make sure you line your cookie sheet with wax paper to let the white chocolate dry.

Once they’re dry, they look even better.

All and all, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, and the cookies taste so good. I recommend this for holiday parties and for cookie plates, or if you’re in the mood for something different. It does take some initial prep, but overall I think it’s worth it.

As I’m reading this, I forgot to roll the dough in sugar, but they still came out amazing.

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar
1-1/2 cups canola oil
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup molasses
4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking soda
3 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
Additional sugar
2 packages (10 to 12 ounces each) white baking chips
1/4 cup shortening

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil. Beat in eggs. Stir in molasses. Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well.
Shape into 3/4-in. balls and roll in sugar. Place 2 in. apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° until cookies spring back when touched lightly, 10-12 minutes. Remove to wire racks to cool.
In a microwave, melt chips and shortening; stir until smooth. Dip cookies halfway into the melted chips or drizzle with mixture; allow excess to drip off. Place on waxed paper; let stand until set.

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Week 49: Double Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

We’re in the final stretch! We made to December and have a few more recipes to try out before the end of the year!

For this week’s recipe, I decided to do something that my mom used to make for the Christmas cookie platter, and she gave me the recipe. Plus, it was finally time for a change from all the pumpkin-themed cookies.

This recipe is pretty simple. You first start off by combining all the dry ingredients in a bowl (flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt).

Then you get to mix the butter with the sugars, but make sure to combine your sugars first!

Once the sugars are nice and mixed together, you’ll throw it into the bowl with the butter and combine them.

Once you’ve combined the sugars and butter, you’ll throw in your egg and vanilla and mix it all up.

Then you’ll put in the dry ingredients that you combined earlier. I always use a pre-cut sheet of parchment paper and slowly pour it in while the mixer is going.

Once all the ingredients are combined, you toss in a cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips for that double chocolate fun.

Costco really encouraging healthy habits by saying that a giant bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips is great for snacking. I guess it depends on your mood.

Once all the ingredients are combined, you get the nice double chocolate dough.

Once it has been refrigerated for a minimum of 2 hours, it’s time to get our favorite cookie scoop out: the 1.5Tbsp Oxo cookie scoop!

Next, you’ll want to grab another bowl and mix some granulated sugar (white sugar) and some confectioner’s sugar (powdered sugar) together for rolling. You can honestly get away with using only half of the suggested amount.

Trust me, it’s more than a bowl of powdered sugar.

Make sure you line your aluminum cookie sheets with a single sheet of parchment paper. Then put your rolled balls of cookie dough onto the sheets. I recommend baking them for 14-15 minutes on an aluminum cookie sheet.

I got more than what the recipe called for!

The cookies won’t expand too much, but you could pull them out after 9 minutes and drop them on the counter to help make the cookies spread more. I think they’re fine the way they came out.

Now you get to enjoy them!

This is a recipe that does require some planning ahead, as you’ll need to make sure you have your unsalted butter and egg both at room temperature. Also, you need to be sure you have 2 hours to let them sit. I actually made the dough in the afternoon and baked the cookies in the evening since I read the recipe ahead of time. It’s a simple cookie that is made with regular baking ingredients, and I recommend them for the holidays.

Ingredients:

1 cup (125g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons (51g) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick; 115g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1/2 cup (100g) granulated (white) sugar
1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup (180g) mini or regular size semi-sweet chocolate chips

Rolling

3 Tablespoons (35g) granulated (powdered) sugar
1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar, for rolling

Instructions:

Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a large bowl using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar together on medium high speed until fluffy and creamed, about 2 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla on high speed. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
On low speed, slowly mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until combined, then beat in the chocolate chips. The cookie dough will be thick and sticky. Cover dough tightly with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days. Chilling is mandatory for this cookie dough. I always chill mine overnight.
Remove cookie dough from the refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes. You can preheat the oven during this time.
Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. (Always recommended for cookies.) Set aside.
Scoop and roll balls of dough, about 1.5 Tablespoons of dough each, into balls. Roll each ball very lightly in granulated sugar, then generously in the confectioners’ sugar. Place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets.
Bake the cookies for 11-12 minutes. If the cookies aren’t really spreading by minute 9, remove them from the oven and lightly bang the baking sheet on the counter 2-3x. This helps initiate that spread. Return to the oven for a couple more minutes. The cookies will be thick regardless, though– they deflate a little as they cool!
Cool cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.

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Week 48: Yellow Cake Batter Cookies

I wanted to do something simple this week since a lot of my previous cookies have required extra effort. This is one that can be made easily as long as you have room temperature butter (or if it’s softened ahead of time).

It starts off easy enough. You throw a stick of butter into the bowl to fluff it up with the paddle attachment. Then you throw in the four egg yolks and the one egg. You’ll probably need to scrape the bowl a bit to help it get all mixed up together.

After that, you add in the yellow cake mix little by little while the stand mixer is on the low-medium speed. To make it a little more fun, you throw in the quarter cup of sprinkles.

For this, make sure you add a sheet of parchment paper to the cookie sheet, because this will happen if you don’t…

So after lining the cookie sheet with a sheet of parchment paper, I used my favorite 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop to make about 18 cookies. You could probably make more with the smaller 1Tbsp cookie scoop, but I hate that thing with a passion.

These were run in the oven for 18 minutes and they came out perfect.

I’m actually thinking of making these for a Christmas cookie plate and dyeing them red and green.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
4 egg yolks
1 egg
1 (15 1/4-ounce) box yellow cake mix, like Betty Crocker
1/4 cup sprinkles

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325ºF. Line 2 cookie sheets with silicone mats or pieces of parchment paper.
In a large bowl using a hand or stand mixer, beat butter on medium-high until soft and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg yolks and egg, and beat until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Add cake mix in three increments over low speed. Fold in sprinkles.
Use an ice cream scooper to drop rounded spoonfuls of dough onto cookie sheets, leaving sufficient space between each cookie.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, turning sheets halfway through cook time, until edges start to turn golden brown. Remove from oven, and let sit on a hot baking sheet for 2 more minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

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