Foodie Friday--Magic Christmas Cookies

Sometimes the best surprises happen when one is forced to substitute.
Enjoy!

Magic Christmas Cookies

Soft and sandy texture

Different combinations added to the base cookie makes it magic.

 

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 egg

1 cup salad oil

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups quick oats

3 ½ cups flour

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add egg, mix well, then add salad oil and vanilla, mixing well. Add oats, flour, soda, and salt.  Stir to combine. Cut dough in half.

Mix into ½ batch of dough, either:

Zest from one orange

½ cup craisins

½ cup white chocolate chips

½ cup chopped walnuts 

OR:

1 tsp. ground chipotle pepper

1/2 cup bacon crumbles, (Kirkland bacon crumbles-1 cup fried until toasty) drain on paper towels.

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1/2 cup pine nuts, toasted 

OR: 

¾ cup toasted coconut, (1 cup unsweetened coconut, toasted in pan)

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

1/3 cup toasted almond slices 

OR:

Zest from one orange

½ cup white chocolate chips

½ cup craisins

½ cup NaturSource salad topper mix (sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, craisins)

OR: 

¾ cup Heath toffee bits with milk chocolate

½ cup chopped pecans

1 Tbls. ground cinnamon 

OR: 

½ cup fried bacon crumbles

Large pinch Hickory finishing salt

2/3 cup of mixed chocolate chips (Milk, mini, semi-sweet, butterscotch, white, sea salt caramel, etc) 

Using a cookie scoop (@ 2 Tbls), place balls on parchment lined cookie sheet, lightly flatten. Bake for 12 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2-4 minutes before removing to a cooling rack. 

Makes about 60 2-inch cookies.

 

Tips and Tricks:

·         Parchment paper is God’s gift to baking—no muss, no fuss, just toss it in the trash.

·         Some of the combinations were invented simply because I happened to have the ingredients on hand (bacon crumbles, salad topper seeds/craisin combination, oranges to zest).

·         To toast the bacon, coconut, almond slices, or pine nuts, just heat in skillet on the stovetop, tossing until they are as toasted as you want. Do not leave the room. It will seem like the ingredients are taking forever to toast, but as soon as you walk away they will burn. Don’t ask me how I know this…

·         When mixing in strong spice flavors (chipotle, hickory salt, and cinnamon) start with the amount suggested. Bake and taste a small sample cookie. The chipotle has a late burn, but it shouldn’t be an overpowering flavor, just unexpected. Same with the hickory salt. Don’t over do it.

·         I baked all the cookie combinations and took them to work. ALL cookies were demolished within 4 hours. Not a true taste testing, but many people liked the chipotle-bacon, hickory salt bacon and the coconut macaroon combinations the best. I’m a fan of the orange zest with seeds.

·         If you want to make smaller cookies, then go for it, but bake a few practice ones first to adjust your timing.

 

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday -- Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

A couple of weeks ago, I had a craving.

Gloomy weather does it to me as I have the urge to bake, and baking is detrimental to my weight loss efforts. So the key is to have the craving on a day when hubby had to go to work the next day and he can take the extras! Which he did.

Anyway, I was thinking how good Craisins were and that they would taste good with white chocolate chips. Lo and Behold! The good folks at Ocean Spray figured it out for me! This recipe was on the back of the mongo bag I had purchased from Sam's Club.

Excellent cookie! But man, it cost so much in WW points that I ate my one and only cookie really, really slowly.

Oatmeal Craisin White Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

2/3 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 ½ cup old-fashioned oats

1 ½ cup flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

2/3 cup Craisin Dried Cranberries

2/3 cup white chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together in medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.

Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in dried cranberries and white chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.

Makes 2 ½ dozen cookies.

 

Tips & Tricks:

·         I used a medium cookie scoop and it made only 22 cookies with a diameter of 2-2 ½ inches.

·         I did put this into the WW recipe builder and came up with a whopping 5 WW points per cookie. Yeah . . . I ate one, but sent the remaining cookies to work with the hubby the next day.

·         I’m lazy and prefer to use parchment paper on my cookie sheets. It’s quick. It’s easy. And there is no clean up. Just toss the paper in the trash when you’re finished cooking.

·         My oven tends to be on the hot side, so I baked the cookies between 9-10 minutes.  

Enjoy!

Foodie Friday -- Ardsheal House Shortbread

This recipe is for my friend, Mary McLarty. She wanted a traditional Scottish shortbread cookie, and I told her that I had a great recipe. I don't know if this is traditional, but it is simple and easy. You do need a food processor to blend the butter to keep it from getting warm and mushy.

This is one of my old, old, old recipes that I typed on 3 X 5 index cards, which went out in the mid-80's. And since it was typed on the card, I can only assume that the recipe is originally from Bon Appetit. I have changed the recipe just a little (a touch more sugar, butter, and I made the pastry flour 1 cup vs. the original 3/4 cup, AND I'm using a more standard 9 x 9 inch glass pan instead of the 8 x 10 metal pan the recipe calls for).

Please read my tips and tricks at the end of the recipe.

Ardsheal House Shortbread

1 cup pastry flour

¾ cup flour

¼ cup sweet rice flour

½ cup superfine sugar

¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) butter, chilled, cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Blend sugar in food processor to make it superfine, mix in flours, pulsing until blended. Add butter, pulse until crumbly. The shortbread will be very crumbly (like chunky flour) and will not stick together.  

Press into 9 x 9 inch glass pan. Even the edges with a square spatula, and press the top evenly.

Bake until shortbread just begins to color, 30-32 minutes. Immediately cut into 1 ¼ x 2 – inch bars. Cool completely before serving.  

Tips & Tricks:

• ·         I couldn’t find pastry flour at the store, but it’s easy to make. 2 Tbls cornstarch in 1 cup measure, add all-purpose flour to fill the cup and level off with a knife. OR ½ cup all-purpose flour and ½ cup cake flour = 1 cup pastry flour
• ·         Rice flour is becoming more common in the baking aisle. I used Bob’s Red Mill brown rice flour
• ·         To make the superfine sugar, just blend the sugar in the food processor until grains are smaller
• ·         I cut the butter into cubes. Keep the butter chilled until ready to blend
• ·         There is NO liquid in this recipe. The butter will melt when the shortbread bakes. The texture is ‘sandy’ feeling when you take a bite. 

Enjoy!

Later Peeps!

Foodie Friday -- Frosted Soft Sugar Cookies

I just cut this recipe off a new ten pound bag of C & H sugar. And since I had fresh grocery supplies, I decided to try this recipe out.

As you can tell by the pictures, I am a home cook, NOT a home cook who has the talent to Martha Stewart simple cookies into works of art. My food is for eating, not to admire.

Jus' sayin'

Frosted Soft Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/3 cups butter, softened
2 eggs
2 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In large bowl, combine sugar and butter and beat with electric mixer until creamy, about 5 minutes.

Add eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition. Add vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl. In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour, one cup at a time, and mix until all the flour mixture is incorporated.

Roll into 1-inch balls, and place on ungreased cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake for 10-15 minutes until the bottoms turn light brown. Let stand for 5 minutes before removing to cool on a wire rack.

Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter, softened
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla or almond extract
1 tsp. water
food coloring

In a large bowl with an electric mixer, beat butter until smooth. Add cream of tartar. Add powdered sugar once cup at a time, blending until fully incorporated. Add extract and water, mixing until combined. Whip frosting at high speed for 5 minute, until light and fluffy. Add food coloring.

Tips & Tricks :

• Make sure your butter is super soft. Microwave butter for 10 seconds to give it a little extra softness when beating. 
• DO take the time to beat the sugar and butter until fluffy. This helps to make the cookie less "grainy" with sugar.
• Since I wanted to honor Valentine's Day, I had to free-hand my hearts as my cookie cutter heart made the cookies to large. 
  

• I baked the cookies for about 11 minutes, which tanned the bottom of the cookie, but kept them soft. 
• The frosting was a little thicker than I would have liked. I probably should have added a touch more liquid. 
• I forgot to beat the frosting for the full 5 minutes--oops.
• Vanilla tends to tint the white icing, so if you don't want to color the icing, then you might want to use the almond extract. 

Later, Peeps!

Foodie Friday -- Honey Cakes

When my daughter started school this year, we knew the sixth graders would be working on a pumpkin project. We had experience with this particular project because she had to do one in the fifth grade at her last school . . . we learned from our mistakes.

This year the teacher chose the topic of children’s books and they could have partners. My kidlet and her friend OJ got their heads together and chose a book called Bear Wants More by Karma Wilson and illustrator Jane Chapman.

Bear's head

The girls decided to make the pumpkin into Bear’s head (cute, isn't it?), and they will be working on a background poster with the narrative and illustrations today (so no pic yet, sorry). So when they were over at our house to do Bear’s head, they were talking about his little friends and how Bear wanted some Honey Cakes.

 

Of course, having too much time on my hands, I decided to find a recipe for honey cookies . . . er cakes and make them. I found two recipes that I liked and sort of merged them.

I will tell you that this recipe makes a gooey dough and the cookies bake into a cakey cookie. The thing to remember is that this recipe isn’t very flavorful, other than the honey and a touch of ginger, because Bear likes them this way!

 

Honey Cakes

1 cup sugar

1 cup butter
1 cup honey (Orange Blossom honey, of course!)
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. ginger
4 cups flour

Turbinado sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt together sugar, butter and honey over medium heat. Let mixture cool. Sift baking soda, baking powder, salt, ginger and flour into large bowl. Beat eggs and add vanilla in small container, add some of honey mixture if still hot to temper the eggs. When eggs are tempered, add to honey mixture, mix well. Add honey mixture into flour mixture. Stir until flour is mixed in.

Using a medium cookie scoop, scoop cookies 2-inches apart on parchment lined cookie sheet. Sprinkle Turbinado sugar on top of each cookie. Bake for 12 minutes or until golden brown. These cookies are 3-inches in diameter.

 

Hints and suggestions:

·         I put the honey sugar mixture in the refrigerator to chill

·         Since my liquid measuring cup was already dirty from the honey, I used it to lightly beat the eggs

·         I use a large mesh strainer to sift the flour mixture

·         Tempering the eggs--Adding the eggs to a large quantity of hot tends to cook the eggs. We don’t want that. We want to bring the eggs up to the temperature of the hot liquids gradually by placing a little bit of the hot liquid into the eggs and quickly incorporating it (beating it). Do this process a few times and then add the add mixture into the hot liquid mixture.

·         Though I use Silpat sheets, I still like to use parchment paper to bake cookies. The bottoms don’t overcook that way.

·         Normally, with this cookie scoop I can make 8 cookies per cookie sheet, but I only made 6 cookies per sheet with this recipe since I didn’t want them running into each other. 

·         In this picture, I hadn’t tried the Turbinado sugar yet. The large sugar granules give the cookie a little bit of texture and crunch without adding too many other elements.

 

Enjoy, Peeps!

FOODIE FRIDAY-- Lemon Krackles (cookies)

I have been busy baking over the last three days. I made a pumpkin cheesecake that I cooked as a custard and spooned in little plastic shot glasses over a gingersnap crust, and then placed a layer of sweetened sour cream on top. It still had too much of a bite, but when I nuked it in the microwave, my plastic cups started to collapse. I'll work on it in a week or so. I know enough about what I want to do to make it work.

Thursday, I wanted to make lemon cookies (new recipe) that I could glaze and draw a witch on a broom--it didn't work out. The cookies were lemon crackle cookies. Hmm. The cookies are for a Halloween party Friday night.

What to do?

I nixed the original idea, for now.

And decided to call the lemon cookies, Goblin Brains. Goblins aren't known for their intelligence and they are cowards, which explains the yellow brain . . . right? So then my thoughts morphed to Brownie Snot, Faerie Poop, Elf Guts and Banshee Heart. On Thursday, I made all the dough and started baking. Goblin (lemon), Faerie (pink and purple mint) and Brownie (chocolate, of course!) cookies are done. Today, I'll make Elf (snickerdoodle cinnamon) and Banshee (ginger spice).

Here's the recipe for Goblin Brains, okay, you can just call them Lemon Krackles.

Lemon Krackles

1 pkg. lemon cake mix

2 cups Cool Whip
1 large egg, beaten
½ cup powdered sugar, to roll cookie dough

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine dry cake mix, Cool Whip, and beaten egg in large bowl. Stir until it’s well mixed. It will be very sticky.
Drop by teaspoonful’s (I use a small cookie scoop) into bowl of powdered sugar and roll to coat the cookie dough. Place the coated cookie drops on greased cookie sheet, 12 cookies per sheet.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees F., for 10 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheets for 2 minutes, before moving to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

Yield: 4-5 dozen. Store in airtight container.

Enjoy your Goblin Brains . . . er, Lemon Krackles!

Later, Peeps!

FOODIE FRIDAY--Blueberry Oat Bars

I love this recipe. It came in a PSO (electric) bill. I don’t make it very often since the family isn’t into oats. But now that I’ve pulled it out again, I just might make it--I do have a bunch of frozen blueberries, yanno.

Blueberry Oat Bars

1 ¾ cups Quaker Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 ½ cups flour
¾ cup firmly packed brown sugar
½ cup nuts, chopped
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
¾ cup butter, melted
2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
½ cup sugar
3 Tbls. water
2 Tbls. cornstarch
2 tsp. lemon juice

Heat oven to 350° F. Grease 11 x 7-inch glass baking dish. Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, nuts, baking soda and salt. Add butter, mixing until crumbly--reserve ¾ cup mixture. Press remaining mixture onto bottom of prepared dish. Bake 10 minutes. Meanwhile, combine blueberries, sugar and 2 Tbls water. Bring to a boil; simmer 2 minutes, uncovered, stirring occasionally. Combine remaining 1 Tbls. water, cornstarch and lemon juice; mix well. Gradually stir into blueberry mixture; cook and stir about 30 seconds or until thickened. Spread over partially baked base to within ¼-inch of edge; sprinkle with reserved oat mixture. Bake 18-20 minutes or until topping is golden brown. Cool on wire rack; cut into bars Store tightly covered.

Enjoy!
Later, Peeps!

Foodie Friday--Banana Bars

I needed a recipe that used overripe bananas, but I didn’t want to make a banana nut bread, so one of my writer friends sent me this:

Bonnie's Frosted Banana Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened

1-1/2 cups sugar

1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup)

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, sour cream and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in bananas. Spread into a greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (do not overbake). Cool. 

FROSTING:

1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3-3/4 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar

For frosting, in a bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until fluffy. Gradually beat in enough confectioners' sugar to achieve desired consistency. Frost bars. Store in the refrigerator. Yield: 3-4 doz.

FOODIE FRIDAY--Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’ll confess that I have this recipe memorized. It’s another cookie recipe and the one I’ll go to first when I feel the need to bake . . . or to simply eat raw cookie dough (and now you know my dirty little secret!) 

Can you guess what it is?

Yep, Nestles® Toll House® Chocolate Chip Cookies. And I do things a little out of order because I think it works better MY way.

Nestles® Toll House® Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar, packed
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 ¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups (12-oz.) Nestle semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 cup chopped nuts (pecan, walnuts or even butterscotch, milk or white chocolate morsels, etc.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place parchment paper on baking sheet.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add baking soda, salt and flour (one cup at a time), beat until incorporated. Stir in morsels and other goodies.

Drop by large cookie scoop onto prepared cookie sheet. Lightly press cookies down.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove and place on wire rack to cool completely.

I couldn’t tell you how many cookies it really makes, but my way only makes about 24 cookies—they’re really big.

I also tend to undercook them, so they stay gooey in the middle.

 Enjoy!

FOODIE FRIDAY-Peanut Butter Cookies

I don’t know about y’all, but I LOVE peanut butter cookies. I don’t do anything special to them, but I simply use the recipe right off the jar. Maybe that’s the secret. I use JIF® creamy peanut butter. Yes, I had to find one of those registered trademark symbols. Sometimes I get a little steamed at the hoops we bloggers must jump through. *this is aimed at you, Martha Stewart!*

Anyhoo, the print is too darn tiny for these old peepers, plus I promised my kidlet that I would put a copy of this recipe in our computer file. It says the recipe makes 3 dozen cookies, but I use a big cookie scooper, so it doesn’t make quite that many at my house. Here’s the recipe.

JIF® Peanut Butter Cookies

¾ cup JIF creamy peanut butter
½ cup Crisco all-vegetable shortening (buy the sticks, it’s easier and they don’t go rancid as quickly)
1 ¼ cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 Tbls. milk
1 Tbls. vanilla
1 egg
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. baking soda

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Place sheets of foil on countertop for cooling cookies.

Combine peanut butter, shortening, brown sugar, milk and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed of electric mixer until well blended. Add egg. Beat just until blended.

Combine flour, salt and baking soda. Add to creamed mixture at low speed. Mix until just

blended. Drop by heaping Tbls. (or med. cookie dough scooper 1-7/8 diameter) 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten slightly with floured fork tines in a criss-cross pattern. 

Bake at 375 degrees F for 7-8 minutes or until set and just beginning to brown. Cool 2 minutes on baking sheet. Remove cookies to foil to cool.
 

Hints:
· Undercook the cookies
· If you use 2% milk, spike it with a little half and half to make it richer

.Do NOT substitute butter for the shortening. That would be bad, very bad.

Soft Ginger Spice Cookies

It’s easy to buy a box of gingersnap cookies to crush and use as a crust for cheesecake (yes, I have a wonderful Pumpkin cheesecake recipe that uses them) or if you need something to give your jaw a workout. But does anyone really buy them to eat??  Probably not.  They’re too hard.

If you enjoy the spicy goodness of gingersnaps, but not the work of eating the store bought ones, then this recipe is for you! And yes, I must give credit to Bon Appetit for this recipe with a slight modification as I omitted the crystalized ginger.

 If you want to add it: ¾ cup chopped crystalized ginger added into flour mixed after step one.

Soft Ginger Spice Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 ½ tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground cloves
¾ tsp. salt
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
½ cup vegetable shortening, room temperature
¼ cup (½ stick) butter, room temperature
1 large egg
¼ cup mild-flavored molasses

Sugar

Combine first 6 ingredients in medium bowl; whisk to blend. Using electric mixer, beat brown sugar, shortening and butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add egg and molasses and beat until blended. Add flour mixture and mix just until blended. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly butter 2 baking sheets (I use parchment paper). Spoon sugar in thick layer onto small plate. Using wet hands, form dough into 1 ¼- inch balls; roll in sugar to coat completely. Place balls on prepared sheets, spacing 2 inches apart.

Bake cookies until cracked on top but still soft to touch, @ 10-12 minutes. Cool on sheets 1 minute. Carefully transfer to racks and cool.

Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Enjoy!

FOODIE FRIDAY--Coconut Macaroons

I'm over today (irritating cus-in-law pointed this out. Thanks, Marty!) at Murder She Writes today, courtesy of Karin Tabke. Please come over and keep me company!--well, maybe eventually. I believe she might have had some issues opening up my document.

I'll be the first to admit--I don't like coconut--but I'm such a wonderful wife and mother that I'll make these coconut macaroons. And yes, I changed the recipe to work for me. Enjoy!

Sorry, if you don't have American measurements, you'll have to do your own conversions.

Coconut Macaroons

1 14-oz. pkg sweetened flaked coconut (Baker’s)

1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk (Eagle Brand)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large egg whites

¼ tsp. salt

½ cup mini chocolate morsels (Nestles)

½ cup chopped nuts (pecans)

Preheat oven to 310 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Combine flaked coconut, chocolate morsels, nuts, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla in large bowl. Using electric mixer beat egg whites and salt in another bowl to medium-firm peaks. Fold 1/3 of egg whites into coconut mixture to lighten, then fold in remaining egg whites. Using a medium-sized cookie scoop (slightly less than ¼ cup), drop coconut mixture on prepared baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart, press down slightly. Bake until golden, about 20-25 minutes (might need to rotate mid-baking). Cool macaroons on parchment paper.  Slide metal spatula under macaroons to remove.  Store in single layer in airtight container.

Lost Leprechaun Loot is still available for FREE! 
Go to my main smashwords page, click on Lost Leprechaun Loot.  Yes, you will have to 'sign up'.  They simply use this buying info to 'suggest' other books you might like. Click the buy button on your preferred download (choose PDF as a default).  When you hit enter, it will ask for the coupon code.  Enter, XV73M. Save to your documents.  And you're finished!  Enjoy the story!

Later, Peeps!