Cookies

Week 1: Vegan Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Happy New Year! For 2023, I have made a modestly triumphant return with a new challenge for the year: 52 weeks of vegan and/or gluten-free recipes. When I did my 52 weeks of cookies in 2021, the most popular cookie was The Healthiest Breakfast Cookie, and I wondered if you can make tasty desserts that were either vegan and/or gluten free, so that’s my challenge for the year.

My goal for this year is to try out recipes that are vegan and/or gluten-free. There are a lot of vegan recipes out there, but you’re not sure which ones are worth trying. This is where I come in: to try things out so you don’t have to.

That always seems to the problem with vegan or gluten-free cookies: they remind you that you’re missing something, and my goal is to make it feel like you can still enjoy good stuff while cutting out gluten, dairy, and/or eggs.

For this first recipe, I decided to go with something simple: peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, but in vegan form!

First, let’s prepare all of our ingredients.

First, we’re going to combine the peanut butter and maple syrup.

Once the peanut butter and maple syrup was well mixed, put that bowl aside.

Grab another bowl to mix all the dry ingredients together (oats, cinnamon, baking soda, and sea salt). Put that aside.

Now, back to the peanut butter and maple syrup. Before we put in the dry ingredients, mix in the chocolate chips. I use the Enjoy Life chocolate chips since they’re vegan.

Go with these if you want vegan chocolate chips in your peanut butter cookie.

Make sure you combine the chocolate chips with the peanut butter/maple syrup mix because if you put the chocolate chips in later, they won’t bind well.

This step is crucial to making this cookie stay together.

Now go ahead and pour in the dry ingredients you mixed in earlier.

This dough mixes together better if you put the chocolate chips in before the dry ingredients.

Alright, so now our dough is made, let’s go ahead and preheat the oven to 350℉ and line a couple of aluminum cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using your trusty 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop, place 10 cookies on the cookie sheet and flatten them with a spoon or fork.

They taste better than they look. Trust me.

You’ll want to flatten them because they will retain whatever shape they go into the oven with.

Place each cookie sheet in the oven for about 14 minutes.

Let the cookies cool for about 10 minutes before eating.

This could almost be a breakfast cookie honestly.

Overall, this is a very good, yet simple, cookie to make that doesn’t require too much effort. Despite it being vegan, it doesn’t feel like you’re sacrificing anything when it comes to these cookies.

Ingredients:

1 cup organic peanut butter
⅓ cup organic pure maple syrup
1 ½ cups rolled oats
¼ tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp sea salt
2/3 cup vegan chocolate chips

Instructions:

Mix peanut butter and maple syrup in a large bowl. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix the rolled oats, baking soda, ground cinnamon, and sea salt. Set aside.
In the large bowl with the mixed peanut butter and maple syrup, add the chocolate chips. Mix well.
Pour the dry ingredients into the large bowl and mix thoroughly.
Preheat the oven to 350℉.
Line two aluminum cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Using your 1.5Tbsp scoop, place 10 cookies on a cookie sheet at a time, and flatten with a spoon or fork.
Bake for 14 minutes.
Let the cookies cool for 10 minutes before you enjoy them!

Source

Cookies: Rainbow S’moreo Cookies

Original recipe: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/rainbow-s-moreo-cookies/

I was in the mood to try something different, and I wanted something related to summer. I came across this recipe, and thought I would give it a try.

I tried making this once before, but I forgot the crucial step of flattening the cookies before baking them. I left them in balls, and wondered why they didn’t flatten, and then I realized my mistake. Plus, I didn’t photograph anything that I did, so I had to make it a second time, and correctly.

Let’s start off with the usual first step: combine butter and sugar.

After mixing them up for about a minute, drop in your egg and vanilla.

After those are mixed up, add your cocoa powder and mix.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder, and salt.

The usual fun of whisking the dry ingredients together.

Slowly pour in the dry ingredients into the stand mixer as it is running.

Next, you should refrigerate the dough for a while, about 30 minutes. This is actually necessary as you will need the dough to be scoopable, and be able to flatten it. If the dough hasn’t been refrigerated, this becomes very tedious.

At this point, you will want to preheat the oven to 350F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Using your 1tbsp scoop that actually works, make some 1″ balls with it.

Our trusty and reliable 1tbsp cookie scoop!

Next, using some small glass, dip the bottom in sugar and squish the balls of dough.

As it turns out, these cookies don’t flatten on their own…

They’re not perfectly pretty, but they’re going to be tasty!

Bake these in the oven for 10 minutes if you’re using an aluminum cookie sheet.

Let them cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to your cooling rack.

Using marshmallow cream, spread it on the bottoms of half of the cookies.

Honestly, you could just stop here and make your own oreo cookies from here…

Make your cookie sandwiches with them. Using a bowl of sprinkles, roll the cookie sandwiches in it.

There’s just one problem with using marshmallow cream…

It expands and gets really messy very quickly…

I think the cookies in this recipe are meant to be enjoyed right away, like an actually s’more.

Overall, this is a good recipe that requires some extra ingredients to make it happen. You’ll need some graham cracker crumbs as something extra to make this happen. Also, the marshmallow cream is extremely messy.

If I was to make this again, I probably would use a frosting for the filling, or make my own because the marshmallow cream is tasty, but extremely messy. Plus, it seems to continue to expand like crazy.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup baking cocoa
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 jar (7 ounces) marshmallow creme
Rainbow sprinkles

Directions:

In your stand mixer, mix together the softened butter and sugar for about 2 minutes.
Add egg and vanilla and mix for another two minutes.
Add cocoa and mix for yet another 2 minutes.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the graham cracker crumbs, flour, baking powder, and kosher salt.
On a piece of parchment paper, slowly pour the dry ingredients into the stand mixer as it is mixing.
After thorough mixing, refrigerate for a minimum of half an hour.
Preheat the oven to 350F
Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Using your trusty 1tbsp cookie scoop, scoop 24 1″ balls and place them on the cookie sheets.
Using a glass dipped in sugar, flatten all your cookies.
Bake each cookie sheet for 10 minutes.
Let each sheet of cookies cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a cookie sheet.
Spread some marshmallow cream on the bottom half of 12 of the cookies. Make your sandwiches with them.
On a small plate, dump some sprinkles, and roll each cookie into them.
Enjoy them before the marshmallow cream expands and makes messes in your kitchen.

Source

Cookies: Monster Cookies

Original Source: https://cookieandkate.com/monster-cookies-recipe/

So it has been a while unfortunately. I caught COVID-19, and I don’t recommend it honestly. It put me out for a while, and I’m now getting back into the swing of things.

I was in the mood to make some cookies again, and I wanted something related to summer, so I found this recipe for Monster Cookies. I’m not sure why they’re called Monster Cookies honestly; maybe it’s because it’s a monstrosity of ingredients, or maybe it’s just because they’re huge. Either way, let’s get right to it!

So this is a pretty easy recipe that doesn’t require any planning of ingredients. As long as you have all the ingredients, you can make these on the fly.

For this recipe, we’re going to make the standard batch and use the ingredients to make it taste good.

First things first: prepare a minimum of two aluminum cookie sheets, and line them with parchment paper. Also, preheat the oven to 350F.

Let’s start off the recipe with our peanut butter. You can use either creamy or crunchy peanut butter for this recipe. I’m going to use creamy since I keep it on hand in case of emergency. You never know when someone is going to want some Buckeye Brownie Cookies.

Next, add in the brown sugar, because we want these cookies to actually taste good.

Trust me, there’s peanut butter under there.

Next, melt your 5 tablespoons of butter. It doesn’t need to be at room temperature beforehand, so you can cut 5/8ths of a stick of butter and just melt it in the microwave.

Mix this on low in your stand mixer for about a minute.

After your minute, throw in your eggs, vanilla, and baking soda.

Mix that on medium-low for about a minute or two.

Alright, so now we start to add some of your dry ingredients. This is where you would add in the oatmeal. I just used regular old-fashioned oats.

Next you, add your, ahem…candy-coated chocoate pieces into the mix, along with your pieces of bittersweet chocolate. Not sure why the recipe calls for bittersweet chocolate, but you can probably get away with using regular semisweet morsels.

They look like M&M’s, but they’re not M&M’s due to copyright infringement law!

Mix it all up in your stand mixer for a couple of minutes.

The dough binds together very well, and it doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl as much as you would think.

When it’s done, get your 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop the dough.

You could spray this with cooking spray if you feed like it. I didn’t really need to.

Scoop your 1/4 cup portions onto the parchment-paper lined aluminum cookie sheets. I put 6 of them on a cookie sheet since they will expand quite a bit.

They’re called Monster Cookies, not Perfect Cookies, lol

With the aluminum cookie sheets, bake these for 14 minutes in your oven. You’ll see some browning on the tops.

Let them cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Overall, these cookies are really easy to make, and can be made on impulse, as long as you have all the ingredients on hand. No flour is needed, and if you use gluten-free oats, you can essentially make a gluten-free cookie if you so desire. They’re very tasty and don’t take up a lot of your time.

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups creamy peanut butter
2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ½ cups old-fashioned oats
¾ cup bittersweet (or semisweet) chocolate chips
¾ cup candy-coated chocolates (like M&M’s) or additional chocolate chips

Instructions:

Prepare two aluminum cookie sheets and line them with parchment paper.
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In a stand mixer, combine peanut butter, brown sugar, and melted butter. Mix on medium-low for about a minute.
Add eggs, baking soda, and vanilla, and mix on medium-low again for about a minute.
Add oatmeal, candy-coated chocolate, and bittersweet chocolate to the box and mix on medium-low for about 2 minutes.
Using your 1/4 cup measuring cup, scoop dough onto cookie sheet. Place six of them on a cookie sheet at a time.
Bake in the oven for 14 minutes.
Let cookies sit on cookie sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to cooling rack.

Source

Cookies: Butter Cookies

Funny enough, last year when I was doing my cookie challenge, I never once did a butter cookie, and someone suggested I try making on, so here’s my attempt at a butter cookie.

To start things off, we need two sticks of butter, and 140 grams of sugar.

One cup of butter? Nah, two sticks of butter!
Perfect!

Add the sugar to the butter, along with a 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Run them in your stand mixer.

Once you’ve got the butter and sugar mixed up, add in the two egg yolks and 1/2 tablespoon of vanilla.

Also, on an unrelated note, I emptied out a container from Kirkland vanilla.

This is the second time I’ve done this in two years since I’ve started baking.

Next, you’ll need to measure out your flour. Luckily, we can measure out an exact amount of 283 grams. It’s always confusing when recipes tell you to “spoon and level 2 cups”. The weight makes it easier so there’s no discrepency.

Add it to your stand mixer as it is running, and make sure you have the cover on otherwise you’ll get flour all over the place. After the flour is mixed in, add 2 teaspoons of milk. If you feel it needs to be a bit softer, you can add a couple more.

I kinda want to eat it all before it is used for baking.

Once the dough is ready, get your two cookie sheets and line them with some parchment paper. While that is being prepared, set the oven to 350F.

Now, for the part that I failed miserably at: putting it in a bag and piping it out.

I didn’t have the large enough tip for it to make the wonderful aesthetic of the cookies. When I extruded it out, it was about the thickness of a straw, and I didn’t feel like putting forth that kind of effort, so instead I took my trusty 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop and did it the old-fashioned way. Also, maybe don’t use a ziploc bag…

Can’t go wrong with trusty 1.5Tbsp cookie scoop!

The oven was ready to go, and each sheet was baked for 16 minutes. With aluminum cookie sheets, and their inability to retain heat compared to their steel counterparts, I usually put the cookies in at the maximum, or add a couple of minutes.

Once the cookies have cooled off, it’s time to dip them in some chocolate. Luckily my past self is much smarter than my current self, and I had some melting chocolate ready to dip the cookies in.

It’s probably easier to just use a bag of morsels.
These melt easier.
Smooth as…butter…
Ready for action!

Melt the chocolate, and dip each cookie halfway.

A few of the cookies broke when I dipped them in because they weren’t baked enough. They were pretty flimsy and so I had to get the spoon to pull them out safely.

In the end, here’s the result:

In the end, this is a pretty easy recipe to make. The only thing you might need is a kitchen scale to ensure that your measurements are accurate. If you’re going to melt chocolate for these cookies, I’d just use a bag of morsels from the grocery store instead of some sort of specialty thing like these melting chocolates. If you always have milk on hand, along with a bag of morsels, you should be able to make these fairly quickly. There’s no need to refrigerate the dough, so these can be made on impulse in very little time.

If you don’t have any piping mechanism, a cookie scoop works just fine, and they still come out amazing, despite my utter failure of my piping setup.

Ingredients:

1 cup (226g, two sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (140g) granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 tsp (1/2 tbsp) vanilla extract
2 cups (283g) all-purpose flour (scoop and level to measure)
2 – 4 tsp milk
Chocolate or candy melts, optional

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together butter, sugar and salt until combined.
Mix in egg yolks and vanilla.
Add flour and mix until crumbly then add in 2 tsp milk, if needed add in another 1 – 2 tsp milk for a more pipe-able consistency – add as little as possible for less spreading though.
Transfer to a 16-inch piping bag fitted with a very large open star tip (or just using your cookie scoop).
Pipe dough into rounds onto two ungreased baking sheets
Bake one sheet at a time in preheated oven until golden brown on bottom, about 12 – 16 minutes.
Let cool on baking sheet 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Notes:

If you’d like to dip in chocolate or white chocolate, melt 10 oz chopped chocolate, chocolate melts, or white chocolate melts in a microwave safe bowl on 50% power in 20 second intervals until melted and smooth.
Dip half of cookies into chocolate let excess run off (while also brushing some off bottom across bowl) then transfer to a sheet of parchment paper. Immediately add sprinkles if using then let set.

Source

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:

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.

Source

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!

Source

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.

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.

Source

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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