Tag: Baking

Week 15: New York Cheesecake Cookies

I randomly came across this recipe in a binder of dessert recipes that my mom had, and it seemed different enough to try. Plus, the idea of a cake-themed cookie has intrigued me as of late.

This is pretty easy to make, although it is one of those types of cookies you need to plan out ahead of time so you can soften the cream cheese…or you can microwave it on a plate outside of its wrapper?

Because I used aluminum baking sheets, baking them took a little longer, so you might need to increase the time to 17-18 minutes.

Also, these taste a lot better refrigerated!

I’m pretty sure the lemon zest wasn’t fully responsible for the frosting color…

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/4 cups finely crushed graham crackers (1 sleeve)
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg, separated
  • 3 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons lemon zest
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, stir together the graham cracker crumbs, flour and baking powder.
  3. In a separate medium bowl, beat together the butter with the brown sugar using an electric hand mixer. Add the egg white and beat until well combined.
  4. Add to the graham cracker crumbs and blend until just combined.
  5. In a separate medium bowl, beat together the softened cream cheese with the granulated sugar, egg yolk, lemon zest and vanilla until well combined. Set aside.
  6. Using a small ice cream scoop, scoop out the cookie dough and place on a nonstick or parchment lined baking sheet. (If you do not have an ice scoop, then measure out the dough into scoops of about 2 tablespoons.) Flatten slightly, pressing your thumb in the center of the ball to create a small bowl shape. Repeat with the remaining dough. Spoon the cream cheese into the indents in the cookies.
  7. Bake until the filling is barely set and the cookies are lightly golden, 12 minutes. Allow to cool 5 minutes on the baking sheets before removing them and cooling completely on a wire rack.

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Week 14: Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Frosting

Happy Easter!

Today’s cookie is something simple, but something I haven’t made yet: sugar cookies! Plus, it felt appropriate for Easter. I recommend a sifter for the flour mix for the cookies.

I also decided to make a homemade frosting on top of it as well, with an attempt to make it purple by combining red and blue food dye. Needless to say, it looks more like a gray, but I’m going to remain optimistic and say that it looks like a light purple, which is perfect for Easter. For better consistency with the frosting, I recommend sifting the powdered sugar before mixing.

Ingredients (Sugar Cookies):

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Directions (Sugar Cookies):

  1. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
  2. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color.
  3. Add egg and milk and beat to combine.
  4. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl.
  5. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.
  6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
  7. Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar.
  8. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill.
  9. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

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Ingredients (Frosting):

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, at room temperature
  • 3 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/4 cup whole milk, at room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions (Frosting):

  1. In a medium bowl, using an electric hand mixer, beat the butter until light and smooth.
  2. Beat in the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla until smooth and creamy.

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Week 13: Oatmeal Trail Mix Cookies

This week I opted for something a little simpler and a little more fun with the Oatmeal Trail Mix Cookie.

This recipe isn’t too difficult to make, although you can use whatever trail/nut mix you want with these cookies. For mine, I used something called a “Mountain Trail Mix” which consisted of:

  • Raisins
  • Peanuts
  • Candy coated chocolatey pieces
  • Almonds
  • Cashews
Trail Mix!

This is a fairly easy recipe to make, although I do recommend actually refrigerating these cookies ahead of time. I didn’t, but the cookies came out just fine.

Ingredients:

  • ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
  • ½ cup light brown sugar, make sure it’s fresh and soft
  • ¼ cup honey
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 ¼ cups Bob’s Red Mill Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
  • ¾ cup white whole wheat flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 ½ cups roughly chopped trail mix, divided (see note)

Instructions:

  1. With a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat butter, brown sugar and honey for 2-3 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla and beat to combine.
  2. In a separate bowl, whisk oats, flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until combined.
  3. Stir in 1 cup of trail mix by hand.
  4. Cover the dough and refrigerate for two hours or up to overnight (you can skip this step and bake immediately, but I prefer the final texture after chilling).
  5. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.
  6. Scoop the dough into two tablespoon balls and place a couple inches apart on the baking sheets.
  7. Use the remaining ½ cup trail mix to press some pieces onto the top of each dough ball (this makes the trail mix more visible and makes for a prettier cookie). Lightly press down on the dough balls to flatten just slightly.
  8. Bake for 9-11 minutes (see note), until the edges of the cookies are done and the very center is still slightly underdone. Do not over bake, as they will finish cooking on the baking sheet. Place the baking sheets on wire racks and allow the cookies to cool completely.

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Week 12: Buckeye Brownie Cookies

Today’s cookies are something tasty. They’re made with brownie mix, peanut butter, and topped with chocolate frosting.

This is probably one of the easier recipes to make, since the ingredients list is very small, and it doesn’t require a lot of effort.

If done right, the dough will be sticky enough that you can roll into balls with your hands, and be able to make the indent with your thumb to put in the ball of peanut butter.

The first step is to combine all the ingredients together and mix them in your stand mixer or with a hand mixer.

Brownie mix, one egg, melted butter, and room-temperature cream cheese

Once everything is combined, it should look like this:

Mixed!

Once that’s done, you roll the dough into neat little balls. If mixed well, the dough will form into little balls easily. The recipe says that this will make 24 cookies, and it’s not wrong.

Doughballs!

Using your thumb, make an indent in the middle of the cookie for the peanut butter balls.

Thumb squish!

Next up, mix the peanut butter and powdered sugar. This will easily form into balls to place in the cookies. At this time is when it would be best to preheat the oven to 350°F.

mmmm…peanut butter and chocolate…

Once the oven is at 350°F, place one cookie sheet at a time for 10-12 minutes. I did 12 minutes to be on the safe side.

Freshly baked cookies!

Once they’re cooled on the cookie sheet, move them to your cooling rack for more…cooling.

When the cookies have cooled enough, top them with some chocolate frosting!

I may have had a few cookies for taste testing…

The final result:

Dessert time!

Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 1 box (18-19 oz) Brownie mix
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • 1/2 cup cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 egg
  • 3/4 cup peanut butter
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • 3/4 cup chocolate frosting

Instructions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°
  2. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
  3. In a medium bowl, combine brownie mix, butter, cream cheese and egg. Stir until dough comes together, it will be very thick and sticky. I used my hands.
  4. Form rounded tablespoons sized portions of dough into balls, placing on baking sheet about 2 inches apart, making an indentation with your thumb in the center of each.
  5. In another bowl stir together peanut butter and powdered sugar. Form peanut butter into teaspoon sized balls and press into the indentations in the brownie cookies.
  6. Press peanut butter down slightly because the peanut butter won’t spread and you don’t want the cookies to be too tall.
  7. Bake for 10-12 minutes until edges are set.
  8. Transfer to wire rack to cool.
  9. When cooled top each cookie with about a tablespoon of chocolate frosting.

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Week 10: Funfetti Cookies!

This week, I was in the mood for something fun and colorful, and there’s no way to get more colorful than Funfetti.

These are pretty simple to make, but they’re not something you want to start very late in the day, as they require a minimum of 2 hours for the dough balls to be refrigerated. These are not cookies you impulsively make, unlike some other ones that don’t require any waiting.

For putting the wet ingredients together, be aware that there will be a strong smell of almond extract, which is completely normal.

Like for the other recipes, I recommend whisking all the dry ingredients together. For this recipe, whisk the flour, baking soda, corn starch, and salt together in a bowl.

Also, one thing to note is the amount of sprinkles required for this recipe. You’ll need to get one of those large plastic containers of sprinkles from the grocery store to make sure you get the necessary 3/4 cup needed if you’re only doing the single batch. Double everything if you want to do a double batch.

The recipe calls for putting dough balls on plates and covering them up. This is for easier cleanup afterwards.

Funfetti doughballs are tasty to eat, although they’re better when baked.

INGREDIENTS

  •  1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
  •  3/4 cup granulated sugar
  •  1 large egg
  •  1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  •  1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
  •  1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  •  2 teaspoons corn starch
  •  3/4 teaspoon baking soda
  •  pinch salt, optional and to taste
  •  3/4 cup rainbow sprinkles

Instructions:

  1. To the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, egg, extract, and beat on medium-high speed until well-creamed, light and fluffy, about 5 minutes (or use a hand mixer and beat for at least 7 minutes). Do not shortcut the creaming process; make sure dough is very light in color and fluff, stop to scrape down the sides of the mixer as necessary.
  2. Stop, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, optional salt, and mix until just combined, about 1 minute.
  3. Add the sprinkles and beat momentarily to incorporate, less than 1 minute, or fold in by hand.
  4. Using a medium 2-inch cookie scoop, form heaping two tablespoon mounds (I made 15). Place mounds on a large plate, flatten mounds slightly with your palm, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 5 days, before baking. Do not bake with warm dough because cookies will spread and bake thinner and flatter.
  5. Preheat oven to 350F, line two baking sheets with Silpats, spray with cooking spray, or parchment paper. Place mounds on baking sheets, spaced at least 2 inches apart (I bake 8 cookies per sheet). Bake for 8 minutes, or until edges have set and tops are just beginning to set, even if undercooked, pale, and glossy in the center. These cookies should not turn golden or brown at all and should stay white. Do not bake longer than 9 minutes for soft cookies because they firm up as they cool. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes before removing and transferring to a rack to finish cooling.
  6. Store cookies airtight at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Alternatively, unbaked cookie dough can be stored airtight in the refrigerator for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 4 months, so consider baking only as many cookies as desired and save the remaining dough to be baked in the future when desired.

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Week 9: White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

So despite how simple of a recipe this is, I’ve never actually made them. I chose this recipe since I knew I was not going to be in a 100% coherent state making them due to some other things going on, and I wanted to make something that required minimal effort.

As I mention in other recipes, it’s a good idea to mix the sugars together before you mix them with the softened butter in your bowl.

Whisking all the dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking soda) before mixing with other ingredients will make the dough more consistent as well.

Needless to say, this recipe came out perfect, and I’m very pleased with the results. It’s a simple recipe that anyone can do, even if they’re not in a fully coherent state, as shown in the picture.

Also, the base of this recipe would make for an amazing chocolate chip cookie. Just substitute the white chocolate chips with semi-sweet morsels and omit the macadamia nuts.

Some of the better looking cookies. Then again, this isn’t a beauty contest.

Ingredients:

  •  1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  •  3/4 cup granulated sugar
  •  1 cup packed light brown sugar
  •  2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  •  2 large eggs
  •  3 cups all-purpose flour
  •  3/4 teaspoon salt
  •  1 teaspoon baking soda
  •  12 ounces white chocolate chips
  •  1 cup macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a large bowl, beat together the butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar with a handheld mixer (or in the bowl of a stand mixer) until the mixture is well-combined.
  3. Add the vanilla and eggs and beat until the mixture is creamy and light in color, 2-3 minutes.
  4. Stir in the flour, salt and soda and mix until just combined; a few streaks of flour remaining are ok.
  5. Add the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts and mix until combined and no streaks of flour remain.
  6. Roll tablespoon (or slightly larger) size balls of dough and place on parchment lined baking sheets, 1 to 2 inches apart.
  7. Bake for 9-11 minutes.

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