Three Kinds Of Cookies and a Peach Dessert

 

Last week I was part of Team Tea this week as a group of friends put on a tea party for 36. Part of what I volunteered to do was to bake some cookies, so I baked a bar cookie, a cookie press cookie, and a rolled-out cookie that I turned into a sandwich cookie. These are listed by difficulty, too. The easiest is the bar cookie, Butterscotch-Chocolate Chip Cookies, a delicious, somewhat dense cookie that you mix up in a pot. It uses melted butter, so there is no need to bring butter to room temperature before starting to make them. This means that you can have cookies much faster than you think! They also have a mild butterscotch flavor and lots of chocolate chips. I like mine with walnuts, but you can use your favorite nut...or skip nuts. In the photo below, the tan bar cookies are the Butterscotch-Chocolate Chip Cookies.

The next most difficult is the cookie press cookie, Spritz Cookies (the pink ones in the photo at the top and the pink ones and flower shaped ones with yellow centers in the photo above). Usually this is an easy cookie, but this might have been difficult for me because my cookie press is ancient and might not be working as well as it might. I had no trouble pressing the dough out of the cylinder, through the decorative plate, but some of the cookies didn't break off onto the baking sheet, so I had to cut them away from the press. When they worked, they made really pretty cookies! I tried them as the recipe was written, but then added some flour to the dough and that seemed to work better. Chilling the dough seemed to work even better. By then it felt like PlayDoh but I still had some trouble with making the cookies. The good news is that these are tender butter cookies, flavored with both vanilla and almond extracts, so it you stick with it you will have delicious cookies that also like decorative. You can color the dough, too, to make them even more decorative, and don't forget that if you used colored sugar or jimmies that they are even more colorful.

The final cookie was the rolled out one, Fancy Tea Cookies (the fluted ones in the photo at the top). I ended up rolling them out on waxed paper because they stuck when I rolled them out on a floured board. These are delicate cookies that become crisp on the edges. They are flavored with nutmeg and make good sandwich cookies, but are also fine as singles. Chill the dough, work with smallish quantities of dough at a time and flour your cookie cutters.

I made round and heart shaped sandwich cookies, so cut out two pieces of dough for each sandwich cookie. One of those pieces stayed whole and the other had a hole punched out before baking...I used a large icing piping tube...and after they were baked and cooled I used marmalade as a filling and sandwiched a cut out one over a whole one, bottoms together. For decoration I sifted powdered sugar over them. I skipped any buttercream (which is did use the first time I made these), but that tastes wonderful, too.

The Butterscotch cookies makes the most as far as quantity, but the other two are so delicious and pretty that as many as you get will be very appreciated by your family and friends. The Spritz count depends on what disc you use to press the cookies and for the Fancy Tea Cookies the count varies according to the size and shape of the cutter you use.

Since I ran out of time to make more than a dozen or so of the Fancy Tea Cookies, I had left over cookie dough. I decided a couple of days later to make a two person sized dessert for myself and Sweetie. I took about a 1/4 cup of the dough and made a base in a 6-inch diameter springform pan. I made sure to bring the cookie dough up the sides by at least a 1/2 inch, then baked the cookie at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes. The dough puffed up, but once I removed it from the oven, I flattened the center with a fork and only left the sides puffed up.

For the filling I beat one egg until most of the white had combined with the yolk, added a tablespoon of granulated sugar, a few drops of almond extract, 1/4 cup of soy creamer (or you could use half and half), and a good sized peach which I had peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/2-inch chunks. I mixed all of these together and poured them into the greased springform pan. The mixture came up to just below the top of the pan. I placed the pan on a small sheet pan and baked it for 25 minutes, checked it and continued to bake a bit more until the center was cooked but still a tiny bit jiggly. The filling was just beginning to brown around the edges.

After letting the dessert cool to room temperature, I ran a knife around the sides of the pan, then released the sides. Once cut in half and plated, I added a whoosh of whipped cream and served it. I really enjoyed the combination of cookie crust with it's strong nutmeg element and sweet, juicy peach custard filling. If I did it again, I would probably bake the crust longer so that it was crisper, but otherwise wouldn't change a thing

Amazing Chocolate Cookie

As the pandemic continues, so does my perusal of old Bon Appetit magazines. About a week ago I was looking at an issue from 2001 and I came across an ad from Baker's chocolate that had a wonderful looking recipe for intensely chocolate cookies, which they called Death by Chocolate. Even though I had to translate the recipe a bit for another brand of chocolate which I had on hand, I knew it would be an outstanding cookie...and it was.

This is a moist, deeply chocolate drop cookie with walnuts. It's oversized and has chunks of chocolate that are still melted if you eat the cookies while still a bit warm. I had made up the batter in advance and baked up a dozen of these babies yesterday with my sous chef Raine. I scooped out the dough (still pretty firm from being in the fridge) and he made them into dough balls by rolling them in his palms. The second batch were flattened a bit after being put on the foil-lined baking sheet (we baked six at a time in my counter-top convection oven) because the first, round, batch were too tall. Since it was a new recipe I wasn't sure if they would spread, but they really don't.

Do make these if you really, really love chocolate and cookies! You could probably leave out the nuts but I love nuts and think they really add a great element to these cookies. Oh, yes, these cookies are made in one bowl and mixed by hand. Kinda old school, but less to clean up.

Death By Chocolate Cookies
based on a Baker's Chocolate recipe

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate (I use Scharfenberger but use your favorite quality chocolate)
4 oz. semisweet chocolate chunks or chips - chunks are better
1/4 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon espresso powder
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-2 cups chopped walnuts (optional) - I used 1 cup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Chop the 8 oz of bittersweet chocolate. In a large microwavable bowl, melt the chocolate on HIGH for 1 minute. Stir with a heatproof spatula (I use a small silicone one), then microwave again for another minute. Stir until smooth and completely melted.

Add the butter and brown sugar and stir to combine. Add the eggs and vanilla and stir to combine.

In a medium bowl whisk or stir together the flour, espresso powder, baking powder, and salt. Add the mixture to the chocolate mixture and stir just until combined.

Stir in the chunks or chips of semisweet chocolate and the walnuts if using. Stir thoroughly to combine. (At this point I refrigerated the mixture in a closed container for 4 days.)

Drop by 1/4 cupfuls or make similar sized balls of chilled dough onto lightly greased foil lined cookie sheets. Leave about an inch between dough mounds.  Flatten a bit.

Bake in preheated oven for 12-13 minutes. Cookies will be puffed and feel set to the touch. Cool for 1 minute on the sheet, then move to a wire cooling rack to cool completely...or as long as you can stand...they smell really good! Makes about 1 1/2 dozen (18) cookies.

Remembering Phyllis with Lemon Cookies

Phyllis Welsh was a lady, a kind and thoughtful woman, a diehard Giant's fan, a bit of a mischief maker now and then, and my friend, as well as a P.E.O. sister. She is gone now, after a brief illness.

This coming Wednesday we will gather to remember her, along with her family, and along with friends from the Model T Club that she and her husband started, along with friends from her church and along with neighbors and many others. She loved to entertain and people were drawn to her love of people and of life.

For the gathering I'm bringing cookies. The star shape is one of the shapes of P.E.O. so the cookies are stars. P.E.O. is a 150 year old group that raises funds for scholarships for women. There are chapters all over the U.S. and Canada and Phyllis was probably the member who most embodied our goals and aspirations for ourselves. I will miss her a lot and I know there are many others who will, too.

You may want to try these delicious cookies. They are plain rolled cookies but the lemon adds a bright note to them, perfect for the return of daylight savings time. That's right, time to set our clocks forward when we go to bed tonight if you live in most of the U.S.

Meyer lemons are wonderful for this cookies, but regular lemons you find at the market are fine, too. In a pinch, you can use lemon extract.

This recipe is one that my mother got from an old friend of the family, Irene Johnston. The cookies are simple and not too sweet. With the addition of Meyer lemon zest and juice they have some zing. Irene’s recipe didn’t have the salt and had nutmeg instead of the vanilla extract. Adding the lemon was my idea. Bake just until the outer edges of the cookie begin to brown for the best cookies. For these stars that meant when the tips of the stars were just beginning to brown a little.

You can use any shape cutter you like and you can decorate them any way you like, but this lemon glaze is easy and adds another kick of lemon.

The dough is usually pretty easy to roll out. If the dough seems too crumbly, add a little bit (1-2 tablespoons) of milk. If it's too sticky to roll out, try chilling it first.

Meyer Lemon Sugar Cookies
by Irene Johnston

1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
Mix the above ingredients together until creamy.
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
zest from ½ a medium Meyer lemon (or use regular lemon…it’s delish, too)

Mix the flour, baking soda, salt and zest together. Combine with the butter mixture. If too dry, add mile, one tablespoon at a time until dough forms.

Roll the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut with cookie cutters. Place unbaked cookies on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees F. until lightly browned, about 6-7 minutes. (If dough sticks while rolling, refrigerate briefly). Remove from oven when done, cool on baking sheet a minute, then cool on cake rack until fully cooled.

After cookies have cooled, can be frosted and decorated as desired.

Meyer Lemon Glaze
Zest from ½ a lemon
1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
juice from Meyer lemon, heated for one minute in the microwave

Place zest and confectioners’ sugar in a bowl. Whisk in a little of the lemon juice. Add dribbles of the juice until a glaze is formed. If too thin, add a little more sugar; if too thick whisk in more lemon juice. Reserve left over juice for another use.

Using small offset spatula, ice tops of each cookie. Set on cake rack to dry.

Maple Works for Winter

Having experience five years of drought (and a major wildland fire just over a year ago that was so major partly due to that drought) in the not too distant past, it is understandable that everyone I meet in Sonoma County is thrilled that this winter seems to be a rainy one. December was a bit dry, but the New Year has seen a goodly amount of storms and this week we are supposed to have rain for seven days running. Since all except a tiny bit of our precipitation happens in the fall and winter, this is good news.

The flip side is that it feels damp and chilly. A great time to make soup and stew and braises of all sorts, plus a good time to bake. A few days ago I baked some Maple Blondies using a new recipe I found in the Holiday 2018 issue of Sift, the King Arthur Flour publication that has so many tempting recipes. This was part of an article on maple syrup and it included lots of recipes including a Maple Oat Bread that I'll probably be baking soon.

Maple syrup, the real kind, not the ersatz pancake syrup kind, is made from maple tree sap that is boiled down until it is a syrup. The sap starts flowing towards the end of winter, so I always think of maple as a winter flavor. This recipe has maple syrup in the blondies themselves and in the optional glaze (which I skipped), plus maple flavoring. I don't care for the way maple flavor tastes, so I substituted pure vanilla and that worked out well.

These are a firm, springy kind of blondie with a close crumb. The chopped walnuts add both flavor and crunch. The maple flavor develops over time. The blondie I ate the day I made them was OK, but the ones that were in an airtight tin which sat in a drawer for a few days were excellent and very much immersed in full maple flavor.

These are easy to make. For one less bowl to wash, sift the dry ingredients together onto a large piece of waxed paper. Gather up the sides of the waxed paper and you can slide the dry ingredients into the butter mixture when it is time and then re-use the paper to wrap some of the cooled blondies for lunch boxes if you like.

Just be sure to read the recipe carefully. I forgot to add the maple syrup at the right time, so I had to add it to the batter later, which may have changed the texture a bit.

Happy snacking!

Maple Nut Blondies

from Holiday 2018 Sift, a King Arthur Flour publication

Makes sixteen 2" squares

1 1/4 cups (5 1/4 oz) all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

6 tablespoons (3 oz) unsalted butter (I used non-dairy margarine)

3/4 cup (5 5/8 oz) packed brown sugar

1/3 cup (3 5/8 oz) maple syrup

2 large eggs

1/4 teaspoon maple flavor (I used same amount of vanilla extract)

3/4 cup (3 oz) chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease an 8" square pan.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder and set aside.

In a medium heatproof bowl in the microwave, or a 2-quart saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together. Remove from the heat and stir in the syrup.

Let cool to lukewarm, then stir in the eggs, one at a time. Add the vanilla (or maple if you are using maple flavoring).

Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture until evenly combined. Stir in the nuts.

Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes, until the top is shiny and the edges just begin to pull away from the pan. Remove from the oven and let cool before cutting.

Optional: Make a glaze by whisking together 1 cup (4 oz) confectioners' sugar, 2 tablespoons (1 3/8 oz) maple syrup and 1-2 tablespoons milk or cream (using enough liquid to get a pourable consistency) and drizzle over the cooled bars.

Thankful For

Any time that I get caught up in caring too much about things, physical things like clothes or furniture or even my garden, I try to remind myself that none of that, while enjoyable, is as important as the people in our lives, and the ones who used to be in our lives but have died. I'm thankful for all the memories I have of those who have been a big part of my life.  I've been pretty fortunate to have parents who lived into their 80s and 90s and I had a good relationship with each. I've had good friends who lived long lives, too, but are gone now, some of them only recently.

My sweet sister Beth left us just a year ago and is still intensely missed.

Max, our son, of course, died much too young and I miss him every day. When we miss that person who is gone, sometimes there is a food memory that keeps them close.

Janna, a niece by marriage and a wonderful woman also left us much too soon due to cancer. She was a terrific cook and baker and if she hadn't live in southern CA most of the time I knew her I think we might have been closer. She did give me her recipe for biscotti and I enjoy making them at this time of year. They make wonderful Christmas gifts!

My Mom was also a fantastic cook and baker. I cherish her crescent cookie recipe. She baked them almost every year and sent them around the country to her scattered children. In the photo at the top she is finishing the baked cookies with a shower of powdered sugar.

Both recipes rely on nuts, so these are not the recipes for family or friends with nut allergies, but for everyone else I suspect that they will be one of the most memorable treats they might receive for Christmas. The crescent cookies recipe can be found HERE. There are other Christmas cookies, too.

Janna's Almond Biscotti

1 cup whole almonds
1 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

Toast the almonds 10-15 minutes in a 350 degree F. oven. Let cool.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and eggs, adding eggs one at a time and beating well after each addition. Add almond extract with the last egg. Scrape sides and beater(s) as needed.

In another bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and whole, toasted, nuts. Add this dry mixture to the egg mixture on low speed. Let mixer combine them until dough forms.

On a greased 12" x 15" baking sheet, use well-floured hands to pat dough into 2 flat loaves, about 3/4" thick.

Bake in 350 degree F. oven about 20 minutes, until browned at edges and springy to the touch. Let the loaves cool on the sheet until cool, then cut on the diagonal into long 1/2" slices.

Arrange slices on the baking sheet close together with a cut side down. Return baking sheet to oven and bake at 350 degrees F. until cookies are brown, 15-18 minutes longer.

Transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely. Serve or store airtight. These can be frozen for 3-6 months, too.

The One With Christmas Cookies

As we continue through the food memories journey, it seemed right to think about Christmas, since it comes close on the heels of Thanksgiving.

It's still a bit early to make Christmas cookies, although pfeffernusse  (look below the Lane cake recipe) can be made this early to let the flavors blend. Still, making Christmas cookies with my Mom and decorating them with my siblings and leaving some for Santa on Christmas Eve (with a glass of milk) are all strong food memories. It's also a cherished memory from raising my own children. We started when they were young and my daughter and I still decorate cookie together each Christmas as time allows. I like to make rolled Gingerbread cut-outs.

The classic Christmas cookie was a vanilla flavored rolled out sugar cookie that we cut with an assortment of cutters...there were stars with wavy edges, a sweet bell, a Santa in profile with a bundle of toys on his back, gingerbread boys and girls,  snowmen and an angel. A round cutter could be used to make Christmas balls, which allowed for a lot of creativity in the decorations. In the early years I think that we used Royal icing and colored sugars and jimmies, and later the icing was tinted, too. In time I remember using some already made colored icing from the grocery store. I loved the gold and silver tinted tiny dragees because they added sparkle and shine...but were hard on teeth if bitten into. Not sure if they even make them anymore.

To decorate a lot of sugar cookies with a Christmas theme in a short time, you can cut the shapes out of rolled dough and put them on the cookie sheets, then sprinkle red and green colored sugars at appropriate spots, press the sugar lightly into the cookies, then bake. When baked the colors will have spread out a bit, but there will still be that festive red and green look...no extra time needed for decorations, although to gild the lily you can still add more icing, sugar, jimmies, sprinkles, small candies, etc.

My favorite, and the cookie that continued to be baked by Mom well past her 80s, was the pecan crescent cookie. She would ship them all over the country for each of her children to share with their families. They had lots of butter and margarine and ground or finely chopped pecans and were shaped like a crescent moon. Baked cookies were rolled while still warm in some confectioners sugar or the sugar was sifted on top through a small tea strainer. Here are photos I took of Mom's hands as she made a batch one year.

Another family favorite was rum balls. You could start making this one pretty soon, too, since these little nuggets taste better when they have had time to ripen. Crushed vanilla wafers and finely chopped nuts and cocoa are the main ingredients, but there is real rum, too. By the time you eat them the alcohol has evaporated, so you get a nice rum flavor. These are another time-consuming hand-formed treat. Each little ball gets rolled in granulated sugar and them put in an airtight container for a few weeks so the flavors meld.

We also baked spritz cookies, the kind that you squish out with a cookie press. My favorite shape was the heart, followed by the dog. I also love the flower shape. You can either tint the dough or decorate with sprinkles or icing after they are baked.

My daughter's favorite is Santa's Whiskers, a refrigerator cookie that has pecans and candied cherries, both red and green. The whiskers are shredded coconut, but we have skipped that part for quite a while, so I call them Shaven Santas. The lovely thing about them is that you can keep the dough log in the fridge and only bake a few at a time...perfect when unexpected guests show up at tea time.

Rolled Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
    With butter or margarine at room temperature,  beat in sugar and egg. Sift dry ingredients together and add to first mixture. Mix well. Roll dough to 1/8 inch thickness, cut with cookie cutters. Place on lightly buttered cookie sheets. Bake in a 4000 F. oven for 7- 8 minutes. If dough sticks while rolling, chill briefly. Cookies can be sprinkled with colored sugar before baking or, after cookies have cooled, can be frosted & decorated as desired. Makes 5 - 8 dozen cookies.

Crescent Cookies

1½ cups butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
1½-2 cups pecans, finely chopped
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Confectioners sugar
Cream the butter until light. Add the rest of the ingredients except confectioners sugar, and mix thoroughly. Chill the dough. Shape dough into 1” x 3” crescents on a buttered baking sheet. Bake for 20 -25 minutes in a 3000 F. oven. Cool cookies on a baking rack. Roll cookies in confectioners sugar. Store in an air-tight container. Makes 4 dozen. MOM’S NOTES:  Can sub ½ cup light butter or margarine.

Rum Balls

1 cup vanilla wafer crumbs
1½ cups pecans, finely chopped
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 tablespoons rum (may use bourbon)
Combine the first four ingredients. Add syrup and rum. Mix thoroughly with clean hands. Shape into small balls and roll balls in confectioners sugar or super fine sugar. Store in air-tight container. Mellow for a week - then open and enjoy! Makes about 3 dozen balls.

Spritz Cookies
For making with a cookie press
recipe from the Christmas Cookie Deck by Chronicle Books1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
dash of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Gradually add sugar and beat until light and fluffy.
Mix in egg and vanilla and almond extracts. Add flour and salt mixing until smooth.
Pack dough into a cookies press fitted with a star or ridged tip or any desired design. Press out dough onto greased baking sheet.
Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until edge are lightly browned. If a 1-inch wide ridged cutter is used, immediately cut strips crosswise on the diagonal to make 1 1/2 -inch-long cookies. Transfer to racks to cool. Makes about 6 dozen.

Shaven Santas

1 cup softened butter (2 sticks)
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3/4 cup mixed red and green candied cherries
1/2 cup pecans

Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add almond extract and beat until creamy.

Mix in the flour until well blended. Dough will be stiff.

Spread cherries and pecans around top of batter.

Stir in fruit and nuts. Mix well. Form dough into two logs on pieces of plastic wrap.
Wrap well and refrigerate up to one week or freeze up to one month.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Remove dough logs from fridge or freezer. If frozen let thaw a bit.

With a serrated knife, cut crosswise into 1/4 inch thick discs.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheets about 12 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool on rack.

Makes 4 or 5 dozen. Note: To make as Santa's Whiskers roll logs in coconut before wrapping to refrigerate or freeze. Proceed as written with rest of recipe. Make sure not to burn coconut when baking.

Party Cookies

Having a great time...wish you were here. That's what a classic vacay postcard might say and that is what I would have written if I'd sent postcards while in Manhattan Beach last week and earlier this week. The weather was perfect. The beach was gorgeous and I got to drive a dope car, eat great food, hang with the neighbors and their doggies, and best of all spend time with my daughter. Too bad that she was recovering from a really bad summer cold almost the whole time I was there, but real life isn't a post card.

One of the fun things I did was make Giant Party Cookies in a big saucepan with a wooden spoon since there was no stand mixer or similar. The lovely thing about this kind of recipe is that you really don't need fancy tools...a pot, measuring tools, a wooden spoon, foil, and a large baking sheet or pan is it. Even the ingredients are pretty simple...basically chocolate chip cookie ingredients with oatmeal added. Be sure to have some items on hand to decorate them. Colored sugar, dragees, chocolate jimmies, colored sprinkles...use your imagination.

There is a bit of history that goes with this recipe. When the kids were little there were always school birthday parties. In those ancient days it was OK, even expected, that the mom would bring in dozens of cupcakes for the classmates of the birthday boy or girl for the party. The poor teacher had to put up with the resulting sugar high.

I don't enjoy making cupcakes. I love making cakes, but the repetition of icing and decorating thirty or so cupcakes for all those kids just wasn't my cup of tea. My solution was the Giant Party Cookie, which is a super sized chocolate chip oatmeal cookie, shaped as desired, then decorated with drizzles or patterns of icing and sprinkles of various decorating candies. The cookies are just thick enough to hold up the birthday candles if that is what you are making them for. K decorated ours and we took one to dinner at the neighbors and the second to her work.

We were just going for fun, so I made one in a sort of round shape and the other is a sort of heart shape (if you use a round pizza pan you have more room to make shapes), but in the past I've done a football shape for a football event, a shamrock for St. Patrick's Day, etc.  K is very artistic, so she made a pattern on each cookie and used M&Ms and colored and funfetti sprinkles for decor. Both the neighbors and the co-workers were charmed. The great thing is that you can cut a piece the size you want with these. Not much of a sweet tooth? Cut a small piece because these are fairly sweet with all the decorations. Fun!

The recipe below is what I used with these changes: I substituted dried cranberries for the nuts and put the M&M candies on after the cookies were baked, plus we used a packaged white icing instead of the confectioners sugar and hot milk icing. The photo is of a heart cookie I made when I was first blogging. On that one the M&Ms went on to the raw shaped dough as the recipe describes.

Giant Party Cookies

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ cup brown sugar, light or dark, packed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
½ cup quick rolled oats
2 cups (12-oz. package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
½ cup chopped nuts

For circle or heart shaped cookie:
1 cup M & M candies in appropriate colors
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons hot milk
Assorted cake decorations such as dragees, colored sugar, colored small shapes, chopped nuts

For football shaped cookie:
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons hot milk
1 tablespoon cocoa
more confectioners sugar as needed

Combine flour, salt and baking soda in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large mixing bowl and beat until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape bowl and beaters. Gradually beat in flour and beat until mixed. Beat in oatmeal. Mixture will be stiff. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts.

Line a 12” pizza pan with foil. Spray with cooking spray. Put 2 cups of the dough on the foil. Using floured fingers, shape dough into desired shape, either circle or heart. Make shape about 10” in diameter. Exaggerate the shape since cookie will spread. Football shape can be made on foil lined rectangular cookie sheet. For circle or heart, sprinkle M&Ms over dough shape and pat lightly into dough.

Bake one sheet at a time in middle of oven for 15 - 18 minutes until golden brown. Let sit on sheet for 10 minutes, then slide shape on foil onto a cooling rack. Continue to bake the rest of the dough. You can make regular drop cookies with the remainder of the batter if desired.

Once the cookie has cooled, decorate for a party! Mix the confectioners sugar and milk and drizzle over the cookie in a random pattern or pipe in a design. While it is still wet, sprinkle cake decorations over as desired.

Almonds Take This Cookie To Crunchy Town

Often when a recipe calls for toasting the almonds before using them I just ignore it. Although the toasting process gives the almonds a delicious flavor, in a lot of recipes you can barely tell the difference. Not so in this biscotti recipe. The toasting makes all the difference, both in flavor and in the crunchiness of the nuts in the finished cookie.

You start with a cup of toasted almonds. I spread the nuts on a cookie sheet with space between the nuts, bake them at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes, then let them cool. They sort of pop and crackle when they are cooling.

The dough itself is unusual because you add the whole almonds to the flour mixture and so the nuts get mixed in at the same time...which is a bit hard on the mixer to tell the truth. You can also stir the dry ingredients in with a spoon. Just be sure to keep stirring until a cohesive dough forms.

This recipe is one I got from Jana, still very much missed niece-in-law, whom we lost to ovarian cancer over a decade ago. The cookies are fully flavored with almonds being the main flavor note. They are light and crunchy and delicious as is, or dunked into coffee or hot chocolate. She gave us some at Christmas one year so it seems appropriate to make them for Christmas this year. Give them a try. They are easy to make and when you pat the dough into logs you even get to play with your food and no one minds. Here are what the baked logs/loaves look like.

These are twice baked cookies. First you bake these loaves, then you slice the loaves and put the slices on cookie sheets and bake them some more. The actual time you need to work is short, but because you are baking these twice, the baking time is longer.

I tried baking two sheets at the same time for the second bake, but I forgot to switch the pans around halfway through the baking time (twirling them front to back and putting the pans from the top rack down and the ones from the lower rack up). The result was that the bottom sheet had dark brown bottoms. They taste OK but I like the paler ones better.

These make great gifts!

Jana's Almond Biscotti
makes about 3 dozen

1 cup whole almonds
1 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

Toast the almonds 10-15 minutes in a 350 degree F. oven. Let cool.

In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and eggs, adding eggs one at a time and beating well after each addition. Add almond extract with the last egg. Scrape sides and beater(s) as needed.

In another bowl stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and whole, toasted, nuts. Add this dry mixture to the egg mixture on low speed. Let mixer combine them until dough forms.

On a greased 12" x 15" baking sheet, use well-floured hands to pat dough into 2 flat loaves, about 3/4" thick.

Bake in 350 degree F. oven about 20 minutes, until browned at edges and springy to the touch. Let the loaves cool on the sheet until cool, then cut on the diagonal into long 1/2" slices.

Arrange slices on the baking sheet close together with a cut side down. Return baking sheet to oven and bake at 350 degrees F. until cookies are brown, 15-18 minutes longer.

Transfer cookies to a rack to cool completely. Serve or store airtight. These can be frozen for 3-6 months, too.

Crazy Good Cookies

When I was in the LA area my hostess gave me a photocopy of her favorite cookie recipe, grandly called The Best Cookie in the compilation book where it is found. I baked some up this morning for a contest prize at our scholarship meeting and they sure did smell wonderful and they looked delicious, too.

The batter is similar to toll house cookie, but enriched with coconut, oats and walnuts...but no chocolate chips. There is also the 'mystery' ingredient or maybe crazy ingredient...crushed corn flakes. I had to go out and buy those since they are not a usual item in my pantry. The only box I could find was huge, so now I need to find some other recipes that use corn flake cereal!

These are tasty cookies. They are crisp at the edges, a bit chewy if you cook them the shorter time, and delicious if you like coconut, oats and walnuts, plus brown sugar and vanilla. Who knows if they are the best, but they sure are darn good cookies!

The Best Cookies
P.E.O. California Chapter MH

1 cup butter (I used vegan butter substitute)
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup crushed corn flakes
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 cup chopped walnuts (you could use pecans instead)
1 teaspoon vanilla
3  1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Cream together butter and sugars. Add egg and mix well. Add next 6 ingredients (oil, corn flakes, rolled oats, coconut, walnuts, vanilla); mix well. Add the flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until combined.
Shape into small balls, place on ungreased cookie sheet and flatten with a wet fork. Bake 12 to 14 minutes at 325 degrees F.
Makes about 100 small cookies.
The recipe is from Edith Norton, Sebastopol, CA

Half Way

Two days ago we hit the half way mark - the winter solstice. We have reached the darkest day of the year after that day more light each day returns to the world until around the 21st of June, when days begin to grow shorter again. Since it was a cold, damp, rainy day it wasn't really obvious. It was sort of dim all day.

 One of the fun things to do on a rainy day is bake cookies. Since it's been blessedly rainy (remember, we are in a four year long drought) for days now, I've been baking for a few days, too. One of the things I baked was a gluten-free, dairy-free version of Santa's Whiskers cookies, so that I can have some at Christmas. I also made a dairy-free and gluten-free molasses cookie which is tasty but not as chewy as I had hoped. The last recipe is for a cookie that seems very seasonal to me, but this one has butter and regular flour, so I won't have any. Sweetie, on the other hand, can eat pretty much anything. He enjoyed these white chocolate-dried cranberry cookies and I can recommend them as easy to make, although not particularly photogenic.

 I looked at a number of recipes, so I don't have attribution for these, having borrowed a bit from here and a bit from there. I think you could add in some nuts if you like and they would probably be even better.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup white chocolate morsels or chunks
1/2 cup dried soft cranberries

 In a large bowl beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

 Blend in the egg and vanilla
.
On a sheet of waxed paper, or in a bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda and salt. Add to the butter mixture and beat to combine.

Stir in the white chocolate and dried cranberries.

Drop 2 tablespoonful dollops of the dough about an inch and a half apart on baking sheets that have been lined with silicone mats or with parchment paper
.
Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for about nine minutes. The edges of the cookies will be golden brown.

Cool the cookies on a rack, then store in an airtight container.

This recipe makes about 18 cookies, but it can be doubled for about 3 dozen cookies.

Feeling My Oats

Today's bake is for Sweetie. He has been such a staunch supporter as I have worked on the puzzle of what to eat and drink and what to avoid putting in my gut. Things are improving in that area and I'm feeling my oats, walking more, gardening again, and even putting a coat of paint on an outdoor structure. Oats are also the star ingredient in the cookies I made for Sweetie today.

He has always loved oatmeal cookies, especially chewy ones, so that's what I made. I used a recipe from the old standby cookbook Joy of Cooking, with (of course) a few tweaks. I added some chocolate chips and some dried cranberries and some chopped walnuts. Beyond that, it was just the recipe in the book. Classics become classics because they are good enough to stand the test of time.

So for this fairly flat, chewy cookie the dominant flavors are butter, brown sugar, oats, chocolate, vanilla, cranberry and walnuts. The edges are crisp, but otherwise it is a fairly soft cookie. Sweetie really doesn't enjoy crisp, crunchy cookies.

I made the cookies pretty large, so I ended up with 26 of them and he ate five as soon as he got home!They are that good (and almost gluten free, with only 1/2 cup regular all-purpose flour...since I've decided that I can have a little gluten now and then with no harm...and it does help with the cookie structure.)

Quick Oatmeal Cookies
Makes 36 2-inch cookies
A variation of a recipe in Joy of Cooking cookbook

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Measure:
   1/2 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
   1/2 cup granulated sugar
Cream with:
   1/2 cup butter at room temperature
Combine and beat in until smooth:
   1 egg
   1 teaspoon vanilla
   1 tablespoon milk
Sift together and add to the above ingredients:
   1 cup all-purpose flour (I used 1/2 cup gluten free flour mix and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour)
   1/2 teaspoon baking soda
   1/2 teaspoon baking powder
   1/2 teaspoon salt
When beaten smooth, add:
   1 cup uncooked quick rolled oats
   1/2 cup chocolate chips
   1/2 cup dried cranberries
   1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Beat the mixture well. Drop cookies 2 inches apart on well-greased cookie sheet and bake until light brown. Remove to a cooling rack soon after taking cookies from oven.

Old Favorite Anzac Cookies A New Way

This has been a summer of integrating old and new. On the new deck we used some of the old framing, but then used lots of new lumber for the decking and railings. We have a new outdoor carpet anchoring an outdoor living room with a very old wicker couch and chair and an almost new rocker.
Here is Sweetie enjoying the rocker and some dragonfly lights from our daughter.

Some treasure from my Mom's home arrived a few weeks ago and I have been finding them new homes around the house so reminders of her are everywhere. It makes me smile.

I made Straight Shooter Anzac Cookies for his birthday. Since I wanted to be able to eat some of them myself, I made them gluten and dairy free...old and new again. The old recipe was given to me by MaryEllen from Perth, Australia, the wife of an old friend of Sweetie's. Since ANZAC stands for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps and since Anzac cookies were sent to the Australian and New Zealand troops during (I believe) the first and second World Wars, and also sold to raise money for veterans between the wars, getting a recipe for the cookie from an Australian born and bred is special. I hope she is OK with having a gluten free version.

To make the change, I substituted butter flavored Crisco for the butter. Since both get melted I don't think it makes a big difference in the texture and the flavor will be a little different with any butter substitute. I was amazed at how the butter flavored Crisco kept most of the buttery flavor in the cookies. The other change was to substitute gluten free baking mix for the all-purpose flour and self-rising flour. I also added some baking powder and salt since I wasn't using self-rising flour. I left out the nuts, but did put in some golden raisins. Straight Shooter was quite please and, except for the cookies being a little more crumbly than usual, he said they were just like his favorite old Anzacs.

So why should you make these? Well, they are fully flavored and chewy with the coconut, just a little sweet with the brown sugar, golden syrup and raisins, and really delicious, plus they are a great cookie with milk, tea, or coffee...or by themselves.

ANZAC Cookies Gluten Free
based on a recipe from MaryEllen Godfrey

1/2 cup (1 stick) non-dairy butter, melted (I used butter flavor Crisco shortening
2 tablespoons hot water
2 tablespoons golden syrup
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup gluten free rolled oats or regular rolled oats
1/2 cup gluten free flour mix (I used a mixture of brown rice flour, white rice flour, tapioca flour, and cornstarch)
1/4 cup gluten free oat flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup coconut
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a cookie sheet, mini-muffin pans, or decorative small cake pans.

Melt the butter or shortening in a large pot and mix in the hot water and the golden syrup and brown sugar.

In a bowl mix together the rolled oats, flour mixture, oat flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda. Add this mixture to the pot, along with the coconut, raisins and nuts (if using). Stir until well blended.

Form cookies by dropping by teaspoonfuls onto the baking sheet or by filling the mini-muffin pans or small decorative cake pans. Cookies don't rise much but they spread a little so space them a couple inches apart on the baking sheet if using.

Bake in preheated 350 degree F oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool on a rack 5 minutes, remove from pan and cool on a rack until completely cool. Enjoy. Store any not eaten in an airtight container.

So Many Posts and So Many Views and Irish Blonds

Sometime yesterday when I wasn't watching the number of all time page views for this blog passed 500,000! I started in October of 2006 and I will soon have posted 1,000 posts, so it shouldn't surprise me to reach that many page views, but it does.

When I started, blogging was a fairly new thing, especially food blogging as a specific category. Over the years it has grown and grown, sort of like the food shows that now saturate the TV airwaves. Some bloggers have become more commercial, either by accepting ads on the blog, by using the blog to further a business, or by having give-aways of merchandise of interest to food bloggers and foodies. I did that for a while, having drawings to give away copies of some nice cook books. After a while, though, I decided that I didn't really want to have my blogging be anything other than posting recipes and things about my life, including participation in a few baking groups I belong to or have belonged to. It has become for me a sort of diary and digital recipe box, along with a way to be creative with photographs, writing, and the alterations of recipes.

Today's recipe is a perfect example of that creative impulse. While working on my new Index ...which may take a while...I came across a recipe I had baked for blondies, the anti-brownie. For some reason my mind started turning to how I could incorporate some Irish elements into the recipe, including Irish whiskey. Now I know that chocolate and Irish whiskey go well together since one of my all time favorite cake recipes is for a chocolate Bundt cake with Irish whiskey in it. Putting it effectively into a blondie recipe might be more difficult. Redheads and women with dark hair and fair skin are often the types we associate with Ireland, but they do have blonds, too. Hence, Irish Blonds.

In thinking about Irish baked goods I remembered that they often contain currants (as in current scones and tea brack for instance), so I decided to soak some currents in Irish whiskey, then use the whiskey that didn't soak in as part of the liquid in the recipe. Irish recipes also often contain golden raisins, so I decided to use some of them. I like walnuts in blondies, so those were included, too. Part of the all-purpose flour was replaced with King Arthur Flour Irish whole-meal flour, too. Then I added white chocolate chips, not because they are Irish but because the recipe now sounded like one that would do well with white chocolate.

While they were baking I took a cock-eyed photo of late afternoon light on the farm by the back fence. The fragrance of these cookies baking was too intoxicating to stay in the kitchen.

Sweetie might have just been dazed by smelling them baking when he said it, but he declared these the best bar cookies I've ever made. They are very chewy...think nuts, currants, raisins and the whole wheat flour making them more than usually chewy...but still soft except for the edges by the pan sides. They are fruity sweet instead on overly sugar sweet because I reduced the sugar a bit. You can really taste the Irish whisky, especially in the currants, but it is complementary rather than assertive in flavor. You might enjoy these, too. Believe me, you don't have to be Irish to enjoy them.

Irish  Blonds

A variation of a recipe by Jill O’Connor in Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey, Desserts for the Serious Sweet Tooth.

SOAKER:

1/2 cup currants soaked in
1/2 cup Irish whiskey

BATTER:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter

2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour or Irish whole-meal flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

MIX-IN INGREDIENTS:
1  cup nuts – I used walnut pieces, coarsely chopped

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup golden raisins

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Use cooking spray to lightly coat a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

Melt the butter and sugars together in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until the butter and sugars are blended and completely melted and starting to bubble gently. Remove the pan from heat and let the mixture cool slightly.

In a bowl, whisk together the eggs, vanilla and salt. Drain the Soaker currents over a small bowl. Set the currents aside and put the liquid drained off into the egg mixture.Slowly whisk the eggs mixture into the cooled butter and sugar mixture just until combined. Whisk in the flours and baking powder to form a loose batter. (Make sure the batter is cool before stirring in the remaining ingredients, otherwise the chocolate will start to melt before the bars are baked.)

Stir the nuts, white chocolate chips, golden raisins and the drained currents into the cooled batter. (I mixed all of the "mix-in" ingredients together in a very large measuring cup before adding to the batter. That way I knew that there wouldn’t be a clump of nuts here and a clump of white chocolate there, but rather a nice mix of all the goodies.) Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake until the top is shiny and slightly crackled and feels firm to the touch, 30 – 35 minutes. A wooden skewer inserting into the batter should come out with moist crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on a wire rack to room temperature, then cut into bars and serve.

Makes 15 large or 30 small bars.