Christmas Cookies

It just isn't Christmas without cookies, is it?  Ok, I know I know, Christmas has nothing to do with cookies but I like cookies, a lot.  And Christmas is such a great excuse to explore as many new recipes (and old favorites) as possible.  You can share them with visitors, give them as gifts, eat them yourself....

Last week this guy made his way back onto my kitchen counter, just waiting for his belly to be filled with cookie yumminess.

I'm not usually one for "whimsical" decor....but this snowman is just plain cute and I have to make some concessions for my two 2 year-olds.  And those boys know where the cookies come from.  They can't say "cookie"  yet but they can point at the pot-bellied snowman just fine. :)

So here is a round up of my current favorite cookies, and some links to some I want to try but haven't yet.  I hope you enjoy them.  Feel free to leave me a link to your favorite cookie recipe in the comments, I'm always hunting for more great cookies!

Ginger Cookies - my all-time favorite, these stay soft and chewy for days...if they somehow manage to stick around for days....

Cherry-Almond Crinkles - I adapted the recipe from BHG leaving out the candy center which I though was a bit much.  I just scooped the dough onto sheets and flattened them slightly before baking them for 10 minutes.  They are so good!  I love the almond flavor with the sweet cherries and they are very pretty too.  Perfect for gifts.

Lemon Crinkles - soft and lemony but not too sweet, delicious and very easy to make.

Cocoa  Thumbprints - (they are pictured above with Frosty the cookie jar) these are light and airy and so pretty with festive sprinkles or candies on top

Classic Sugar Cookies - these have a touch of almond in them as well which I think really makes them so flavorful.  I can't wait to decorate some with my boys this year!  PS. there is also a link to a great Royal Icing tutorial in that post.

New recipes I want to try:

Gingerbread Men - another one I think will be fun to do with the kiddos.  The recipe I linked has a ton of good reviews on AllRecipes.com and I am looking forward to trying it out.

Peanut butter Reindeer - Click the link and tell me, how cute are these?  And they look so easy to do too.

So that's it!  Happy Baking... and eating...

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Move over Toll House, there's a new cookie in town.

Mr Pears requested that I make Thomas Keller's chocolate chip cookies over the weekend.  I took pictures while doing so but told him that this recipe was not going into the blog if the cookies weren't better than Toll House. Toll House chocolate chip cookies are kind of awesome, you know? The gold standard of chocolate chip cookies.

But wouldn't you know it?  Here I am writing a blog post about a chocolate chip cookie that is even better than that classic favorite cookie.  Because Keller's are ridiculously delicious.

Notable differences in the cookies are the use of dark brown (or molasses) sugar, the absence of vanilla extract, and the type of chocolate.  Toll House obviously uses their semi-sweet baking chips.  Mr Keller's recipe uses chopped chocolate bars; half 55% Cocoa, half 70-72% Cocoa.  Which is basically semi-sweet and "dark" chocolate respectively.  

Sounds gourmet right?  Well, yeah, and these cookies look it too.  The chocolate chunks make the cookie look a bit more special and the taste is out of this world even though the chocolate bars honestly don't cost any more than the chips.  Because Toll House is pricey.  I bought a bar of Lindt and one of Ghiradelli from Target for around the same price as a bag of chips.

These cookies are soft and chewy in the middle and buttery and crunchy around the edges which is exactly how I like my chocolate chip cookies.  But here's a tip from the Master (as my husband lovingly refers to Thomas Keller), if you want softer cookies don't under-bake them, mist them with water before baking.  What?  Genius.

Chocolate Chip Cookies; by Thomas Keller, found in ad hoc at home
2 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
5 oz. 55% chocolate **see note,
5 oz. 70-72% chocolate **see note, cut into chip-sized pieces
1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter cut into cubes
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs

**Note- I purchased a bar of Lindt and a bar of Ghiradelli as I mentioned above.  The bars were only 3.5 ounces each but my cookies still had plenty of chocolate in them.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpats.  Sift the flour and baking soda into a medium bowl and stir in the salt.  Set them aside.

Into the mixer (fitted with the paddle blade) put half of the cubed Cold! butter and beat until smooth.  Add the sugars and the rest of the butter and beat again until smooth and fluffy.

creamed butter and sugar could be the yummiest stuff on the planet

Add the first egg, beat until it is incorporated, then add the other and beat again.  Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed.

Mix in the dry ingredients.  I usually add them in thirds and mix slowly until combined.  Lastly mix in the chopped chocolate.

Mr. Keller recommends making these large 3 inch cookies, and I loved them that way.  Use about 2 tablespoons of dough for each cookie.  8 cookies to a tray.  This makes about 30 cookies.

Bake for about 12 minutes.  They are done when the tops are no longer shiny.  Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool on the tray for about 2 minutes before you move them to wire racks to finish cooling.

This dough freezes very well.  As with most cookies I make, I baked half and then froze the rest.  To freeze, just wrap the dough in plastic wrap and then put it in a freezer bag with the name and baking instructions written on it.

To bake, just thaw the dough in the refrigerator for a few hours. These were so good that I baked the other half only two days later...  :)  They came out just as great.  Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing

Dessert decorating seems to be all the rage right now.  Beautiful fondant covered cakes for birthday parties and baby showers, perfectly iced cupcakes, frosted cookies....

I am still very much more concerned with how a baked item tastes, rather than how it looks but now that I am beginning to get the taste part down, I have been dipping my toe in the icing water of the decorating pool.

I decided to try a new decorating style? tool? medium? out for Valentine's Day.  Mr Pears had been wanting me to make some sugar cookies (though why he didn't think of this request during the Christmas holidays I have no idea).  Anyway, I figured heart shaped sugar cookies with pretty Royal Icing would be a nice way to show my love this week.

I lucked onto an amazing blog with an awesome royal icing tutorial (and a pretty great sugar cookie recipe!) and went to town.

First I read this.

Then I mixed up half a batch of the sugar cookies using the recipe found on the blog.   I love how the added lemon and almond extracts give these cookies such a nice subtle flavor.  Delicious.  Because I generally do this kind of stuff during nap time I put the dough in the refrigerate to chill until the next day.

The next day (nap-time again!) I rolled out half the dough out (and froze the rest) and used my heart shape cookie cutter to bake sweet little heart-shaped cookies.

Later that evening after the kids were asleep I made my royal icing.  Only after it was almost complete did I open my cabinet to discover I had used all my red food coloring on a red velvet cake.  Oops.  So I made blue hearts.... I am the only female in this house so I tried to convince myself it was no big deal.  But I was pretty ticked.

My first batch came out ok.  Lots of room for improvement, though.  I didn't take any pictures of  my blue hearts because I knew I was going to make some pink ones with the second half of the dough...blue hearts. ugh.

My second batch, pink (even though they look pretty red in these pictures)!  These came out somewhat better but I am definitely still learning.  I loved using the condiment bottles to squeeze out the icing onto the cookie.  It was easy and mess free and the bottles rinsed out quickly in hot water. You can buy them in the craft/kitchen supply store.

Royal icing is so nice because it is smooth and pretty and it dries hard so you can let the iced cookies dry overnight and then put them right into the cookie jar without fear of messing up all your hard work.

Click on this link for all the details and try your hand at making some pretty cookies.  Enjoy!

Cocoa Thumbprints

Have you had enough Christmas cookies yet?  I haven't.  But I think I'm close.  Between ginger cookies, these cocoa thumbprints, homemade truffles and those eclairs I made last weekend (another post for another day); my blood sugar level is probably a little high.

Here's the latest addition to our snowman cookie jar, I hope they end up in a cookie jar near you soon! They are delicious.  Light and fluffy and pretty too.

Cocoa Thumbprints, adapted from Food Network Magazine, December 2011 issue....or here.
(about 3 dozen cookies)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar, plus 1/2 cup for rolling
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
toppings... ( I used sprinkles and icing but you could use hershey's kisses or candies, jam or dried fruit, etc.)

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar (only 3/4 cup), cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Stir in the melted butter and eggs until the whole thing is well combined.  (This could be the easiest cookie dough ever, right?)  Now just refrigerate it for about 30 minutes, covered.

Line your baking sheets with parchment paper (or a silicone baking mat like the one's Mr Pears got me for Christmas!) and preheat the oven to 325 F.  Put your two types of sugar on two separate plates.  Roll about a tablespoon of dough into a ball in your hands and then roll the ball first in the granulated sugar, then in the confectioners' sugar.  Put the dough on the tray and flatten it slightly, then make an indentation in the middle with your thumb. You can fill your cookies with your toppings now, or if you are using something like the icing I used, you can wait until the cookies come out of the oven.

Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes then let them cool on the sheet for another 3.  Remove to wire racks to finish cooling.  Once cooled I used some Betty Crocker (gasp!) pre-made cookie decorating icing to fill in the indentation then put on some red and green sprinkles before the icing set.  Very festive!  Merry Christmas and happy cookie eating.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells....

Ok...so since you may have noticed my lack of posting around the country's largest food-related holiday you might have guessed that we didn't host T-Day dinner at our place this year.  Instead we packed up our baby pears and headed over to a friend's house to enjoy the day with three other families.  We had a lot of fun....but sadly, did absolutely no cooking.

So we are moving on!  Just like all the department stores, we are playing Christmas music!  It may not be December yet but the first Christmas Classic DVD (Rudolf) has been viewed by the kidlets (fail) and the first Christmas cookies have come out of the oven (success!).  Christmas is such a great reason to eat a ton of cookies...don't you think?  And maybe also to watch kid movies that your children are way too young to even begin to enjoy.

Though my favorite cookies aren't really Christmas cookies, I will be sure to continue baking (and sharing!) with these to start:

Crinkly Butterscotch Pecan Cookies.  I found this recipe simply because Mr. Pears wanted cookies (I blame him) and we had butterscotch baking chips and pecans in the pantry.  A little Google search and I stumbled upon this blog and recipe.  Looked like all was in order, good comments....worth a shot.  I'm so glad I gave them a chance because they really are delicious.  If you love Butter Pecan Ice Cream, you'll love these.  Hope you love them, and Happy almost Christmas!

Crinkly Butterscotch Pecan Cookies, adapted from Cookie Madness
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of butter, cold and cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
1/2 cup of shortening (like Crisco)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 3/4 cups butterscotch chips
2/3 cup pecans, toasted and chopped (to toast them just put them in a non-stick pan on high heat and shake them around every minute or two for a few minutes)

Stir together the flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl.  In your mixer, cream the butter and shortening together.  Once they are smooth and combined add the sugars.  Beat for about two more minutes.  Lower the speed on the mixer and mix in the vanilla and egg.  Now slowly mix in the flour combo.  Once everything is mixed together fold in the pecan and chips with a rubber spatula.

Use a mini-ice cream scoop to drop tablespoons of dough onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets and bake these for 12-15 minutes at 350 F.  Mine took just 12 minutes but the original author said hers took 15....so check on them!  When they start to get brown on the edges they are done.

Once out of the oven you can use your spatula to kind of push the cookies in a bit...it makes them crinkly!  Let them cool for a few minutes before you move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Ginger Cookies

These are my absolute favorite cookies.  They are soft and chewy (even for days after you bake them!) and warm and...fall-tasting...you know what I mean.  I hate to compare them to Ginger Snaps, because that is sort of what they are, only soft...but they are just so much better.

These really are the perfect fall cookie!  Every year I can't wait until October to start making them. We are on  finished batch #2 over here already!  I really hope you try them, and that you love them as much as I do.  There is just nothing better than a really awesome homemade cookie. (By the way this recipe currently has a 5 star rating and 2900! reviews on allrecipes.com....they are obviously amazing, you can't argue with 2900 people!)

Ginger Cookies, adapted from Amy1028 on All Recipes 
2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup molasses

Preheat the oven to 350 F.  Stir together the flour, baking soda and spices in a small bowl and set it aside.  In your mixer, cream together the butter and sugar.  Mix in the egg, then the water and the molasses.  Slowly mix in the flour on the lowest setting.  Once the dough is incorporated I use a small ice cream scoop to scoop the dough out and on to baking sheets.  If you want to roll the dough into balls by hand, it will feel sticky...no need for extra flour. :)

Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes then allow them to cool on the sheet for five minutes before removing them to a wire rack to cool completely.   Makes 2 dozen, or so, larger cookies.