Chocolate Crinkles

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Bridgett

Chocolate crinkles are one of my favorite recipes for the holidays. They are like little tiny brownies covered in snow. Yum! These are seriously good with a big glass of milk.

They are pretty for an assorted tray and also fill up a tin quite nicely as well. This recipe makes multiple dozens (mine made about 4 dozen) and they cool quickly. Another great thing about these is that they use oil and not butter. When you’re running low on butter, these are a great cookie to make.

The recipe calls for using parchment paper lined trays. If you don’t have parchment paper you can cook these on an ungreased cookie sheet. The parchment paper does make them very easy to remove though and I would recommend using it if you have it on hand.

Chocolate Crinkles

[print_link]

1 cup cocoa powder ( I love Saco but any nice cocoa will do)

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup oil

4 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

powdered sugar

This recipe really goes together just like a brownie recipe. It can all be done by hand if you don’t want to mess with dirtying up your mixer

Mix the cocoa, granulated sugar and oil until well mixed. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Stir in vanilla. Mix well.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture until the flour mix is well incorporated.

Wrap dough up in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours – can go in overnight.

Roll the dough into balls (about the size of a small walnut – maybe 1″) and roll in powdered sugar. Place on parchment lined trays, about 2″ apart.

Bake at 350degrees F for 10-12 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes and then allow to cool on a rack.

Sugar Cookie Recipe

Posted on December 21, 2009 by Bridgett

Here is a recipe combo that I have been making for years, my favorite sugar cookie recipe with a wonderful sugar cookie glaze. For all those years, I made these cookies but could not seem to find a nice glaze recipe – one that was easy, pretty and dried hard enough to allow the cookies to be stacked. And then a friend brought some sugar cookies to a Christmas Cookie Exchange and I knew I had found my glaze. My sugar cookie recipe is here and Jackie’s glaze is below – truly, a winning combination!

My Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe

[print_link]

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 cup milk

In a large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Add dry mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with the milk until it’s all incorporated. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out (about 1/8″). Cut into desired shapes and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350degrees F for about 10 minutes, or until edges are slightly browned. Cool on wire racks.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies

Sugar Cookie Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1 Tbsp. light corn syrup

2 Tbsp. water

food coloring

Put powdered sugar in a bowl and run a whisk through it to remove any lumps. Mix in corn syrup and water. Add desired amount of food coloring to reach the color you want. Stir this glaze often to keep the color distributed well. Sprinkle with decorations while glaze is still wet. Will dry to a hard finish after a bit.

You will need more than one “batch” of this for the sugar cookie recipe above. I make one batch of this for each color of glaze that I want. It usually takes about 3 batches of this glaze to cover my cookies.

Notes:

I use food coloring from a cake decorating supply store. It is much more concentrated and will produce the beautiful colors of icing that you see on magazine covers at Christmas time.

To ice the cookies, I dip the top of the cookie into the top of the glaze, pull it out and let the glaze run off a bit. Lay on a cooling rack to allow any additional glaze to run off.

Raspberry Ribbon Cookies

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Bridgett

If you’re looking for a cookie recipe that will look gorgeous on a tray and will WOW! your friends (for both beauty and taste), this is your cookie. I don’t believe I have ever taken these cookies to a party and brought any home. I particularly love these because they all bake up on one tray in the oven.

And if you don’t like raspberry preserves, I am sure these would also be wonderful with apricot preserves.

Some tips:

The dough does not spread out much on the tray. If you use a large cookie sheet you can get all eight of the rolls onto one sheet and be done with it.

I use a wooden spoon handle to make the indentation. Keep in mind that the indentation will rise a bit in baking. Don’t be shy.

This does not use much jam at all – maybe 4 oz. at the most.

Raspberry Ribbon Cookies

[print_link]

1 cup softened butter

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg, slightly beaten

Raspberry jam, jelly or preserves

Glaze:

3/4 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp. almond extract

3 to 4 Tbsp. milk

In a mixing bowl beat the butter on medium/high for 30 seconds. Add about 1/2 the flour, along with the sugar, vanilla, egg and salt. Mix until thoroughly combined. Beat in the remaining flour, mixing until dough forms a ball. Gather dough into a ball and knead slightly on counter (mine is sometimes crumbly at first – work it with your hands until it forms a nice ball of dough).

Divide the dough into eight equal portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll each piece into a 9″ rope, being careful to keep an even thickness throughout (so they’ll bake evenly). Place the ropes on an ungreased cookie sheet about 2″ apart.

With the side of your finger or the handle of a wooden spoon, press a long groove down the center of your ropes.

Bake at 375degrees F for 10 minutes. Remove tray from oven and spoon raspberry preserves/jam into the groove. Bake about 5 minutes more, or until the edges just start to brown.

Cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes. While they’re cooling, prepare glaze by stirring all ingredients in a bowl. You want the glaze to run off the spoon.

Using a large spatula, move the cookie logs onto a large cutting board (I use the back of a wooden one). Drizzle glaze over the HOT cookies. Cut logs into 1″ pieces. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack to cool.

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies | Virtual Cookie Exchange Recipe

Posted on December 15, 2009 by Bridgett

This is the recipe for my most favorite Christmas Cookie ever… and it’s also my submission for the Virtual Cookie Exchange that we are sponsoring along with the Susanne from the Hillbilly Housewife site.

And I must say that I am sorry not to have a picture of my favorite cookies. I made them on a busy day and snapped a few pictures. If I posted my terrible pics you would never make these cookies as the pictures make them look like chocolate blobs…which they are so very NOT like. They are delicious in every way and are a colorful addition to a Christmas Cookie tray.

So here is my submission for the Virtual Cookie Exchange…

Chocolate Thumbprints

[print_link]

Cookie Ingredients

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg

2 1/2 cups flour

Filling Ingredients

1/4 cup butter

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

1 to 2 Tbsp. milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2-3 drops red food coloring

1/2 cup crushed peppermint hard candies

For the cookies:

Melt the chocolate and cool. Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla, slat, melted chocolate and egg and mix. Add flour and mix well. Cover dough and chill at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 375degrees. Roll chilled dough into 1″ balls. Using your thumb, press an indentation into the top. Bake 8-10 minutes, or just until edges are set. Cool on a rack.

Note: If the indentation comes out during baking, push it back in while cookies are still warm.

For the filling:

Cream butter and sugar. Add the milk, vanilla and food coloring. Mix well. Fill the indentation of each cookie with 1/2 tsp. of filling and sprinkle with crushed peppermint candies.

Notes:

If you really want a true red in the icing, stop at the local cake decorator’s supply store and buy the food coloring there. It is much more concentrated.

The peppermint really makes this cookie. If you want to make these cookies without messing with the peppermints you could sprinkle on Christmas decorations and flavor your icing with a bit of peppermint extract.

Shortbread Cookies

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Bridgett

Is there anything better than shortbread cookies and a cup of hot tea? I think not.

I had a Christmas party to go to last night and wanted to take a treat for one of my fellow book group members. Each year we have a Christmas Party and exchange books. Unfortunately, this year one of our members (and friend) has a child in the hospital so we all bought books, DVD’s and audio books to help the family pass the time they spend at the hospital. I thought that shortbread and hot tea would sound like a sweet relief when you’re used to hospital fare. And it keeps for a really long time… so that’s what I decided to make.

You need a REALLY big bowl to make this dough in. And use real butter. This is not a recipe where you can substitute margarine. Keep in mind that you’re going to have four sticks of butter and five cups of dry ingredients in the bowl – THINK BIG!

I processed the half the ingredients at a time in my food processor and that worked out just great. I did knead the dough by hand afterwards. I actually enjoy kneading dough and this is so easy to work with.

Press the dough into an ungreased pan. The dimples and ridges that your fingers will leave will disappear as it bakes. Prick the raw dough with a fork several times and then bake.

Bake the shortbread until it begins to brown. Be sure to cut it into squares while it’s still warm.

Here’s a terrible picture of the cutest tin I found at Target. I lined it with waxed paper and filled it with the cookies. I folded the wax paper down and then placed a few tea bags on top and sealed it up. Yum! This would make an awesome teacher’s gift too!

Shortbread

makes about 40 cookies [print_link]

4 cups all purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 pound of butter, cold (can use salted or unsalted)

In a food processor, cut the butter into the dry ingredients. If you don’t have a food processor, let the butter soften slightly and cut it in with a tool you use for making pie crust. (I do this part in two batches to make the work easier).

Knead the dough for about 5 minutes or until it’s smooth.

Press the dough into a 15X10 jelly roll pan (ungreased). Prick the dough with a fork.

Bake at 325° for about 25-30 minutes, just until it starts to brown.

Be sure to cut into pieces while warm. Remove to a cooling racking.

Best Ever Peanut Butter Cookies

Posted on January 2, 2009 by Bridgett

Best Ever Peanut Butter Cookies

I know that the New Year Resolutions almost always include a desire to lose weight. And, believe me, that is on my list this year too. But the trainer at the gym says to eat protein after a workout. And peanut butter does have protein, right?

I love to buy the fundraising kind of cookbooks – you know, the ones that are made up from people who submit their favorite recipes to combine into a cookbook to be sold to raise funds. These cookbooks are my most used cookbooks hands down. Need to find my favorites – just flip through and look for the many pages that are stained and spotted well loved. Here is one that I originally tried only because it did not use butter, which I was out of at the time. My previous peanut butter cookie favorite WAS from the Joy of Cooking but was quickly replaced once these made it into my mouth!

These are rich and fudgy, full of a great peanut butter flavor.

Best Ever Peanut Butter Cookies

adapted from “Classy Cooking, a cookbook by the classy cooks of St. James Parish”

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 cup peanut butter

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 to 1 1/2 cups flour (I hardly ever need the full amt. so start with 1 cup at first)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees farenheit. Beat shortening until fluffy. Gradually add sugars and beat until creamy. Beat in everything else with the exception of the flour. Starting with just one cup, stir in the flour. You want a consistency that will allow you to roll them into balls (somewhere between being too sticky to handle and too dry). Roll the dough into balls. Place on a greased cookie sheet. Press criss-cross patterns into the tops with a fork, being careful to not flatten to cookie too much. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on a rack.

Spectacular Eats

where the ingredients are always changing

Category Archives: Cookies

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies | Virtual Cookie Exchange Recipe

Chocolate Thumbprints

Best Ever Peanut Butter Cookies