Christmas Cookies 2014

I love Christmas cookies. I like that I get to be in charge of them every year (for both sides of the family) and I like making something new each year.

I asked my family for their requests. I received these: almond crack candy, Mexican wedding cakes, peanut butter blossoms with dark chocolate kisses, and chocolate peppermint crackles. Yay! The chocolate chip peppermint crackles were new to me, and I added Cinnamon Sugar cut-outs to round it out.

 

These didn't make it to the Christmas platters but I made gingerbread cake balls for a work holiday potluck. They were a hit!

 

A picture of my handy chocolate melter. I never thought it would get so much use. Melting chocolate for strawberries, for candy melts, cake balls, and now making my own body butter/creams (a later recipe?)

 

Back to cookies.

The Chocolate Chip Peppermint Crackle cookies were better than I expected. They had crushed peppermint candies inside the dough, tasted brownie-like, and then were topped with a piece of peppermint candy to make them pretty. I was so glad these made it on the platter!

The peanut blossoms are a pretty standard cookie but my Jimmy said these tasted better than usual. It's that love ingredient, you know! And the dark chocolate kisses were a great choice. Good job, Richie!

 

 

The Mexican Wedding Cake cookies. Can you believe that I didn't even try these? They are made with pecans. I'm okay with pecans but the peanut butter blossoms and almondy candy called my name so much more.

 

 

I really, really enjoyed making royal icing this year. I had this plan of making gnome cookies for over a month. I wanted to try an easier technique using royal icing and it worked so well! I made one huge batch of royal icing and then separated it into a few bowls for different colors. I only made one consistency of royal icing- thin enough to spread but thick enough to stay put. I used this woman's blog for her technique.

Here's Frosty the Snowman, complete with a flower on his hat! These were fun but required a lot of patience. The colors needed to be piped one color at a time, so they didn't run together. I'd wait 15-20 minutes and then go back to the cookie with another color or to add a detail on top of a color. They were worth it. I think they were darn near perfect.

 

One gnome as Santa!

 

The gnomes were the most fun. I knew my sister would love them :) I was even able to add the tiny eyeballs once I became familiar with the consistency of the royal icing. Delicate work.

 

The cookies dried overnight but I still took care that they wouldn't smear. I kept recalling my Thanksgiving cookie fiasco so I made sure the covered pan had plenty of room above each cookie and then I carried the tray on my lap during the car ride. They made it!

 

Yay for cookies!

 

Click here for the stolen recipe for Gingerbread Cake.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Cut-out Cookies.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Hershey's Peanut Butter Blossoms.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies (or Snowball Cookies).

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Chip Peppermint Crunch Crackle Cookies.

There is no shared recipe for the Almond Crack Candy. Sorry!

 

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Coconut Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

I have two parties tomorrow that require treats. Okay, require is a strong word. I signed up to bring treats! That's a lot of baking so I thought I would make cookies. Cookies aren't that hard. Combine dry ingredients, cream butter and sugar(s), fold in other ingredients, bake. They are also fun to make.

The hard part is baking a dozen at a time, many times if you double a recipe like I did. But checking the oven every 10 or so minutes is fine by me.

And if you know me, you know that I adore coconut. This recipe has shredded coconut AND coconut oil. AND oatmeal. And double chocolate (cocoa powder and chips). YUM. I do admit that I'm not getting the full flavor effect... due to my glass of red wine that I've been sipping on... :)

 

So they don't look like my normal fancy cupcakes, but I'm hoping they are an unusual flavor combination and my "fans" won't be disappointed. There was a high expectation of "moist cupcakes" for one of the gatherings. That particular group of people are getting used to disappointment. Sad face.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Coconut Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies.

 

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Oreo Icebox "cake"

Easiest dessert ever!

 

You dip Oreos in milk and layer those between spoonfuls of Cool Whip! The hard part is letting it sit for 6+ hours or overnight. I must confess that I couldn't wait that long! I believe I made this one night Jim was out of town. The beauty of this dessert is that you can make one portion or a whole 9x13 pan!

No recipe needed.

 

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Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars

 

 

For a cookie exchange I made these bars. They were a hit! I had several people ask for the recipe. I think that's a good sign that they were liked!

I had one person tell me that they reminded them of a Twix bar. Yes, I see that too!

The bars were not difficult. I think they took a long time though. Each layer needed to be made separately, and allowing for cooling time before adding the next layer.

The shortbread was flakey and buttery. The caramel was firm but soft and chewy. The chocolate was smooth and added a bit of hard texture, kind of keeping all the layers together.

I will definitely make these again!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Salted Caramel Chocolate Shortbread Bars.

 

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Christmas Treats

In early December I started putting together some holiday treats, namely for my baby sis Kiki and my bro-in-law Berto. They are in California and I knew they wouldn't be here for later treats. I was also experimenting on them- could treats be mailed? Would they make it??

I'm told that a gingerbread lost his head. RIP little dude. And one of the stockings broke.

Zeus and Zorro are Kiki's furbabies.

 

Next time I will bubble wrap each cookie! I kid!

I also made homemade Cracker Jacks. I love Cracker Jacks. Why doesn't anyone ever buy me Cracker Jacks?

I made a few Eiffel Towers for giggles. It was a challenge to get the icing thin enough for details. I did the best I knew how.

I think they were pretty for my first attempt!

 

I gave an Eiffel Tower to my friend Jess, at work. She also has a love of Paris and Eiffel Towers :)

 

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies

My husband has been making noises about wanting chocolate chip cookies. I hope he will be happy with these cookies, something **I** have been craving. Oatmeal. Yum. And craisins because I have a super sized bag from Sam's Club to use up some time soon. (I use a lot of craisins in my steel cut oatmeal but I'm uncomfortable with keeping this bag around TOO long.)

This recipe is just a recipe that I googled but she says that it's from the inside of the Quaker canister. I figured it would be a pretty basic, comfort-food type of recipe. Yup! Chewy oatmeal cookies with some sweetness and tart fruit. Deeeeeeelicious.

I made the mistake of calling them Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies to my son. He is a purist. Didn't want to try them because of the oatmeal. I even made two cookies without craisins so he wouldn't pick those out. He took one tiny bite and declared them "too crunchy". And they're not! He tasted one tiny bit of edge that was slightly crunchy. Silly kid.

I feel sad thinking he'll never try some of the sweets that I make!

I made half of a batch of cookies, which was about 18 cookies. This is less than the recipe states, so I figured I might have eaten a few cookies worth of dough! JK. I think I made them bigger than I was supposed to?

Click here for the stolen recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies.

 

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies

My husband has been making noises about wanting chocolate chip cookies. I hope he will be happy with these cookies, something **I** have been craving. Oatmeal. Yum. And craisins because I have a super sized bag from Sam's Club to use up some time soon. (I use a lot of craisins in my steel cut oatmeal but I'm uncomfortable with keeping this bag around TOO long.)

This recipe is just a recipe that I googled but she says that it's from the inside of the Quaker canister. I figured it would be a pretty basic, comfort-food type of recipe. Yup! Chewy oatmeal cookies with some sweetness and tart fruit. Deeeeeeelicious.

I made the mistake of calling them Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies to my son. He is a purist. Didn't want to try them because of the oatmeal. I even made two cookies without craisins so he wouldn't pick those out. He took one tiny bite and declared them "too crunchy". And they're not! He tasted one tiny bit of edge that was slightly crunchy. Silly kid.

I feel sad thinking he'll never try some of the sweets that I make!

I made half of a batch of cookies, which was about 18 cookies. This is less than the recipe states, so I figured I might have eaten a few cookies worth of dough! JK. I think I made them bigger than I was supposed to?

Click here for the stolen recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Craisin Cookies.

 

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Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches

OMG! I might be just in a really good cookie mood or these were just ridiculously good!

I am home on a snow day (!!!!!!!) and had the dough whipped up before 8:30am. How lovely to have all of these ingredients on hand (: The dough had to chill a bit before you roll it out, which makes it fussier than I like but I had the time today. And you're welcome to my husband for doing the dishes in all of my spare time too!

But the dough ripped apart easily when I tried to roll it out between waxed paper sheets, which is my preferred method, so I ended up making traditional peanut butter cookies with the criss cross pattern I'm top. I'm sure my cookies are thicker than the recipe's and it will make fewer cookie sandwiches but oh well.

I ended up baking the cookies for even less time than the recipe states (about 14 minutes) so I don't know what's up with that.

I posted on Facebook that there isn't much better than peanut butter cookie dough... But I might have been wrong- this peanut butter filling is the bomb diggety!

Can you believe my little son refuses to try even a bite or a lick of peanut butter "frosting"?! Crazy kid.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies.

 

Danger Ahead!

My child is going to grow up thinking that his Mom can whip up cookies in just 15 minutes. I guess it's going to be true! This is a great recipe and I love that I can make just enough for the three of us to be satisfied, and not a whole tempting batch that sits on the counter or in the freezer for midnight (okay, 8:00, we're old here) munchies.

These One Bowl Chocolate Chip Cookies for Two (errrrr, Three) were simple and delicious! I never know what to use for shortening but in this recipe I did use some Smart Balance spread and it worked well. Yay!

The recipe made 4 medium-large cookies. Here is my one cookie-

James tackled one cookie, happily. And we left these two for Dad. Actually James didn't count fast enough to see that there were two left. I didn't think James needed two cookies so I told Jim to get his share out of the kitchen fast :)

I'm going to try and start posting printable recipes for y'all. This is a great recipe to start doing this with and you'll enjoy it if you make it!

Click here for the stolen recipe for One Bowl Chocolate Chip Cookies for Two.

OR

Click here for my Printable Recipe.

HaHa! I just labeled these healthy because I figure it's better than making a whole batch of 2-3 dozen!

And you should always just have chocolate chips laying around your house...

Banana Bread Cookies

I grew tired of making banana bread with our overripe bananas. I found a recipe for these cookies and thought they'd be a good change. They were like mini fluffy banana breads! I froze most of them, just like I normally do with banana bread.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Banana Bread Cookies.

Salted Caramel Chocolate Turtle Cookies

I usually stick to recipes, not changing one little detail. I found this recipe and I loved the idea of making a spectacular, different kind of thumbprint cookie. The original recipe used melted caramel candies but I knew that I have a salted caramel recipe up my sleeve that kicks that idea's butt.

I'm going to just announce that this recipe stinks. I think maybe then I won't have to share with anyone else. Okay, maybe my husband will get a cookie or two :)



Seriously, these are great. I don't even like pecans. You know, I keep saying that about nuts. I think I may have changed my mind after my husband's pecan pie. I think I just don't like plain nuts but if they are encased in sweet gooeyness or coupled with chocolate and salted caramel... well, what's a girl to do? EAT IT!

In this picture you can see that I didn't even wait for the caramel sauce to cool and harden a bit before putting it together. I need to learn patience!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Turtle Cookies.
Click here for the salted caramel recipe. This sauce is included in one of the best brownie recipes ever.

Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies

I made these cookies, thinking they'd maybe make it on my Christmas cookie plate later. Yeah, maybe. There are just so many cookies I'd like to make, so now that I've made these they might be out of my system, no matter how good they were. They were good! I found the recipe because I knew they'd be similar to Panera's cookies.

The first batch came out too dry. I overbaked. They were so soft to the touch that I kept adding minutes and more minutes to the baking time. Mistake. I guess they set a bit after you pull them out, more so than other kinds of cookies. So I learned. I made them smaller with the next batch and took them out earlier. They were crunchy on the outside but chewy on the inside. Yum. And so minty!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies.

Star Wars cookies

I think these are my third official attempt at Royal Icing. I want to say that it's getting better with each attempt but I think I'm just failing to read the directions completely before I get too deep into the process.

Anyway, these were fun :) They were for James' 4th Birthday party and for the treat bags. Each of his little friends took home one cookie, wrapped with so much love.

Plain cookies. These are cute enough just like this!







I didn't get many pictures of the details but this is one cookie, very wet.



The cookies were all bagged up after completely drying overnight plus. I once made the mistake of moving and letting plastic wrap touch not-completely-dry cookies. Ugh. Never again.

We think they turned out well. Four year olds aren't picky!

My sister gave me this embosser for my birthday. Each cookie had my seal on it. I looked so professional!

Giant Ginger Cookies

My big sis needs a little cheering up so I baked some cookies for her. Okay, for all of us. I ended up only having a half cookie (3.5 points) but Jim enjoyed a whole one. He is a sucka for ginger anything :)

I hope Ana likes these! They are HUGE and gingerlicious. Martha just doesn't fail me!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Giant Ginger Cookies.

Chocolate Biscotti

My sister made a special request for Chocolate Biscotti for Christmas last year. I happily accepted the challenge even though I'm not really familiar with biscotti and had never made it. This recipe was easy to make, and I remember laughing as I made them because when I patted it out, it looked like a giant log of... well, you know.

The chocolate is a deep, dark flavor due to the espresso powder. This recipe made quite a bit so I gave most of it to my sister and froze the rest for myself. They defrosted quickly and were yummy with coffee!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Biscotti.

Oatmeal Ginger Cookies

I love the Cook's Illustrated line of books. I love my Baking Illustrated. I wanted to make some cookies for a staff bbq, but it was a last minute decision so I found a recipe that used the ingredients I had handy. I also wanted something that would be okay at room temperature (or even hot weather) until lunch time. You just can't go wrong with oatmeal cookies too :)


I'm not a fan of raisins so I made the variation of the recipe which was Oatmeal Ginger. Ginger is another favorite in this house of mine. My husband is cuckoo for ginger!


Simple, great cookies!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (and the Oatmeal Ginger variation).

Turkey Cookies

These cookies were my first experience with piping and flooding cookies with royal icing. I was so excited! I had a plan and a great cookbook for guidance, and I thought I could do it.

I did it! And then I made the big ooops of misjudging their doneness. I mean, when I transported them to my sister's house for Thanksgiving I put them on a pretty serving tray and then put Press N Seal wrap on top. Ugh! The wrap stuck to the cookies and ripped off all of that hard work. The hours of carefully piping the borders and then squeezing the thinned icing in the middles, spreading with a toothpick, and then adding the swirls of colors. I let them dry overnight but it wasn't enough. I know better now. I don't count this as a failure because of the silly mistake. They were fabulous cookies for about an hour :)



There is not a stolen recipe for these cookies. I used the sugar cookie and royal icing recipes from Cookie Craft.

BEST

These are not homemade, but next year I don't see why I couldn't make them ahead of time for my wonderful son to decorate. I consider this one of our best projects because it was one of the first Mom/Son baking projects ever! My son had THE BEST time decorating his Gingerbread Boys. He had been reading a book about The Sweet Smell of Christmas and he was pumped about gingerbread boys. They are definitely a part of Christmas for us now :)

Christmas Cookies

I love Christmas baking! First, here is my final tray of cookies.

I made:
Gingerbread cookies
Roll-out sugar cookies
Almond candy
Peppermint marshmallows
Chocolate Peanut Butter Blossoms
Mexican Wedding Cakes


My assembly line of sugar cookie decorating. The squeeze bottles contain the thin "flooding" icing- it squeezes out very thinly and will harden eventually. The pastry bags have my coordinating colors of piping icing.

I found that making a true red icing is very difficult. I remember that I gave up the year before when I started to mix the colors. I got so frustrated by my failure that I didn't even decorate or finish the cookies!

My Christmas trees are pretty wild looking. I remembered that I had christmas light bulb and candy cane decorations from the year before, so we decorated using those. I still had a lot to learn about the piping and flooding techniques!



The swirled candy canes were my favorites! Especially the ones with the green and red.


Marshmallows are surprisingly easy to mae. I would not do the swirls again though. The food color clumped and looked like something unpleasant- blood. The peppermint flavor was nice though. That's all it really needed anyway!

Marshmallows are cut into squares and tossed with powdered sugar to prevent them from sticking together. Mmmmm... imagine these bad boys in some hot chocolate!

Click here for the stolen recipe for marshmallows.

Click here for the stolen recipe for Chocolate Peanut Butter Blossoms. These cookies were an accident. I asked Jim to print out the recipe for the regular Peanut Butter Blossoms, he mistakenly printed CHOCOLATE Peanut Butter Blossoms, with cocoa in the peanut butter cookie dough. It ended up being a very nice mistake!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Martha's Mexican Wedding Cake Cookies. I actually got the recipe from my Martha Stewart Cookies cookbook, but the recipe is online.

There is no stolen recipe for the sugar cookies YET. I still need to type this out from my cookbook Cookie Craft.

There will never be a stolen recipe for the Almond Candy. I am sworn to secrecy on that recipe. For real!

Click here for the stolen recipe for Gingerbread Cookies. These are AWESOME. I did make the mistake of leaving these out overnight (to dry) and if they are on the thin side, again, they get stale. I made them thicker the next time and they were much better. Actually they didn't really get stale but crispy. I think they are much better soft.

I think Christmas cookies are my best baking experiences. I love it :)

Flower Power Sugar Cookies

I made roll-out sugar cookies on Sunday, freezing them until tonight. I whipped up some royal icing and colored it bright bright purple and blue. I knew I didn't want realistic looking flowers because my son was going to help me decorate them. He didn't really get into it but he did like dropping the "paint" and then I rushed to get it smoothed out with a toothpick, into every little corner. I think I would normally be more precise but I could barely keep up with my little man. I figured they are for his daycare teachers, so they will appreciate the effort!

Daycare teacher appreciation day is on Thursday and so they are encouraging the parents to bring in flowers for each of the teachers in our child's classroom. I figured the teachers would like a cookie flower. I know I would!

I have some work to do if I ever want to master this royal icing thing. I have this amazing book called Cookie Craft and it goes into so much decorative detail and creativity. I just need to spend the time.

Click here for the stolen roll-out sugar cookie recipe. This blogger did a comparison of sugar cookie recipes and actually made FIVE doughs. I used the first recipe, which she considered the best.

I used the royal icing recipe in my Cookie Craft book- basically two cups of powdered sugar, 4 teaspoons of meringue powder, 3 T warm water, 1 T lemon juice. Beat for five minutes until smooth and the consistency of toothpaste. The piping (border) is that proportion of ingredients, the "flooding" icing is thinner with more water.

You can read about the icing technique here. Cookie Craft goes into so many more beautiful details but the basics are on that blog.