Fall – Michael Makes

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 43: White Chocolate Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

We’re back on the theme of fall-related cookies, with a recipe once again containing pumpkin.

This is another one of those recipes that you need to plan out ahead of time, and not because you need to make sure that your butter is at room temperature. If anything, this can be made on impulse, assuming you prepare ahead of time to have the dough sit for half an hour in the refrigerator.

The only random ingredients you need for this recipe are pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie spice.

The recipe starts off pretty easily. You melt the butter and combine it with the brown and white sugar. Then you throw in the pumpkin and vanilla. Once that is prepped, then the dry ingredients go together, and then you combine both bowls.

After the ingredients are combined, you need to refrigerate the dough for a minimum of 30 minutes.

After the dough is refrigerated, then you can scoop it, roll it in a bowl of combined sugar and cinnamon, and place it on the cookie sheet. You’ll need to flatten the cookies a little bit. This recipe calls for the use of our trusty 1.5Tbsp Oxo Cookie Scoop to make the nice even 1.5Tbsp rolls.

For this recipe, the cookies were baked on aluminum cookie sheets with a sheet of parchment paper for 14 minutes, and they came out perfect.

This is a good recipe to make on impulse, although don’t expect a large yield. The recipe will only make about 18 cookies, so this is something you make for yourself or someone close to you. This isn’t one of those “I need to make a bunch of cookies for a cookie exchange” recipes.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (115g) unsalted butter
1/4 cup (50g) packed light or dark brown sugar
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar, divided
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
6 Tablespoons (86g) pumpkin puree*
1 and 1/2 cups (188g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, divided
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
1/2 cup (90g) white chocolate chips or chunks

Instructions:

Melt the butter in the microwave. In a medium bowl, whisk the melted butter, brown sugar, and 1/2 cup granulated sugar together until no brown sugar lumps remain. Whisk in the vanilla and pumpkin until smooth. Set aside.
In a large bowl, toss together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together with a large spoon or rubber spatula. The dough will be very soft. Fold in white chocolate chips. They may not stick to the dough because of the melted butter, but do your best to have them evenly dispersed in the dough. Cover the dough and chill for 30 minutes or up to 3 days. Chilling the dough is imperative for this recipe.
Take the dough out of the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
Roll the dough into balls, about 1.5 Tablespoons of dough each. Mix together the remaining 1/2 cup of granulated sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon. Roll each of the dough balls generously in the cinnamon-sugar mixture and arrange on 2 baking sheets. Slightly flatten the dough balls because the cookies will only slightly spread in the oven. The photo above shows what the cookie dough balls should look like before baking.
Bake for 11-12 minutes or until the edges appear set. The cookies will look very soft in the center. Remove from the oven. If you find that your cookies didn’t spread much at all, flatten them out with the back of a spoon when you take them out of the oven. If desired, press a few white chocolate chips into the tops of the warm cookies. This is only for looks!
Cool cookies on the baking sheets for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. The longer the cookies cool, the even better they taste! The flavor gets stronger and the texture becomes chewier. I usually let them sit, uncovered, for several hours before serving. Chewiness and pumpkin flavor are even stronger on day 2.
Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.

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Week 41: Pumpkin Chip Cookies

So since we’re still in fall, and we’re going along with the fall-themed cookies, I decided on a variation of the pumpkin cookie, and this time it’s a pumpkin chip cookie!

So this is one of those recipes where I actually read the recipe ahead of time, but I didn’t bother to read how many cookies this recipe actually makes. Yeah, this recipe makes 10 dozen cookies. Read that again: 10 dozen cookies. I should have noticed considering how much of each ingredient was needed for the recipe.

This recipe called for 1.5 cups of butter, which is 3 sticks of butter.

Or 3/4 of a brick of butter from Costco.

This also required a total of 3 cups of sugar (2 cups of packed brown sugar and 1 cup of white sugar).

That’s a lot of sugar! Also, why does it almost match my counter?

Luckily I had a large enough bowl for all the flour, and I made sure to use the correct measuring cup, unlike the first time last week.

Once the butter is mixed with the sugars, then you do the normal thing where you add an egg (at room temperature in this case) and vanilla, but before adding the dry ingredients, you need to empty a can of pumpkin into the mix. After the dry ingredients, you need to add 2 cups of quick oats and 2 cups of semi-sweet morsels.

As I was adding all the ingredients, I didn’t realize how many cookies I was going to make until I stopped it.

Whoever came up with this recipe was definitely pushing the limits of stand mixers.

So for this recipe, to cut down on the number of cookies made, I used my trusty 1.5Tbsp scoop and played around with the bake times. The good news is that they don’t expand that much, despite the amount of butter in them, so you can bake a dozen at a time with the larger scoop.

If you’re going to use the 1.5Tbsp scoop with parchment paper on an aluminum cookie sheet, you’ll need to bake the batch for 18-20 minutes to get it to brown a bit on the edges. That would be my recommendation if you decide to pursue this recipe and spend an entire afternoon making them.

The good news is that instead of 10 dozen cookies, I ended up with…6 dozen cookies. This is good to know in case there’s some sort of fall bake sale, or a cookie exchange at your work where you need to bring something tasty and fall-themed.

They came out excellent, and now I have too many cookies that I’m not sure what to do with. On the other hand, I might have some happy coworkers.

I wonder how they would taste if they were reheated a bit…

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup sugar
1 large egg, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups quick-cooking oats
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°.
Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy.
Beat in egg and vanilla.
Beat in pumpkin.
In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; gradually beat into creamed mixture.
Stir in oats and chocolate chips.
Drop by tablespoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake until lightly browned, 10-12 minutes (this will vary depending on baking sheet material, use of parchment paper, etc.). Remove from pans to wire racks to cool.

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Week 40: Frosted Apple Cider Cookies

We’re officially in the autumnal season, and this week is something else related to fall: apples! This week’s recipe is a cookie that also feels like a fall day.

I spent a good amount of time yesterday finding fall-themed cookie recipes, so I’ll have some more tasty treats in the weeks to come. I tried to keep the recipes related to the season, and this one came up first. It’s funny how fall and the holidays have their own themed cookies, but summer doesn’t seem to have much in the realm. They’re just…cookies.

The good news is that this is a recipe that can be made on impulse (as long as you have butter at room temperature at all times). You’ll need to get some extra ingredients for these cookies though. The unusual ingredients you might not keep on hand include:

Cloves
Applesauce
Vegetable shortening

Well, I usually have vegetable shortening on hand at all times, but most people might not since it isn’t used in a lot of baking.

Unfortunately, I made a rookie mistake when I was measuring my flour and sugar. I accidentally used the 1.5 cup measuring cup instead of the 1 cup measuring cup. I wasn’t paying attention to the measuring cup I was using, probably because I was distracted while doing so. I was wondering why the bowl with flour was looking pretty full, and it turns out I had put in 6 cups of flour instead of the recipe calling for 4 of them. Could I have saved the recipe by adding 50% more of everything? Probably, but then I would have had around 60 cookies instead of the 40 that I got, and I would have been baking for even longer.

Also, don’t ask why I have a 1.5 cup measuring cup. I think it came with a set of measuring cups from Costco.

I baked these on my aluminum cookie sheets at 18 minutes per batch for good measure on a sheet of parchment paper. Make sure you keep the cookies well separated because they might ending up mingling a bit together.

The cookies came out super chewy, which I’m guessing is because of the applesauce thrown into the mix.

The frosting is pretty easy to make, although you don’t need to make it right away after the cookies are baked. The recipe tells you to have it come to a boil, but I think just a little bit of bubbling is fine. This one, I had to dust off my hand mixer and use it for the frosting.

They taste better than they look, and they already look pretty good.

Ingredients:

4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 cup unsalted butter – softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 cups applesauce
1 cup chopped pecans – optional

Apple Cider Frosting:

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
4 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 packets spiced apple cider instant drink mix
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

Instructions:

Begin by preheating your oven to 375 degrees F.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and cloves. Set aside.
In a large bowl, using a mixer, cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar for about 5 minutes or until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs and applesauce, mixing to combine.
Add in the dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated.
With a medium scoop, drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges of the cookie just start to brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
While the cookies cool, prepare the frosting. In a pot over medium heat, combine the brown sugar and milk. While constantly stirring bring the mixture to a boil; then remove from the heat. Stir in the butter, spiced apple cider drink mix, and salt.
Add the confectioners’ sugar and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. The frosting will firm as it cools, so work quickly to frost your cookies. If the frosting seems too thin, add a bit more confectioners’ sugar.
Use about 1 tablespoon of frosting for each cookie. Top with chopped pecans (if desired) before the frosting sets. Pack and store in an airtight container.

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Week 39: Old-Fashioned Soft Pumpkin Cookies

So the first day of fall was this week, and what’s more fall than pumpkin-flavored desserts?

This is a pretty simple recipe, and the ingredients aren’t anything too crazy. You can find everything pretty easily. The only oddball ingredient is probably nutmeg, as it might not be something people have on hand. Also, pumpkin is something people might not always have their pantry. Luckily, you can easily find pumpkin in a can in your baking aisle.

These cookies can also be made on impulse, as long as you always have softened butter ready to go at a moment’s notice (like I do).

The recipe follows the usual steps: mix the dry ingredients and put them aside, mix butter and sugar, then eggs with vanilla and pumpkin, and then throw in the combined dry ingredients.

I feel like I made a mistake using the small 1Tbsp scooper as the cookies were pretty small. Plus, I think the dough was mixed too much as it was very airy and was difficult to make into nice scoops.

I baked these on my aluminum cookie sheets for 20 minutes each. They’re better when they’re soft like a pumpkin pie.

I recommend this cookie for the fall season, since it feels like you ought to be in a warm blanket watching the leaves fall. Well, depends on where you are. In a normal place that doesn’t burn to the ground every year, you get leaves falling. Here in California, not so much…

The frosting is pretty tasty, despite how messy it is.

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened
1 cup LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon butter, softened

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350° F. Grease baking sheets.
Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in medium bowl. Beat sugar and 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter in large mixer bowl until well blended. Beat in pumpkin, egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract until smooth. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets.
Bake for 15 to 18 minutes or until edges are firm. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Combine sifted powdered sugar, milk, 1 tablespoon butter and remaining 1 teaspoon vanilla extract in small bowl until smooth. Drizzle over cookies.

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