Cookies

Cherry, Almond & Coconut Oatmeal Cookies

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When Ben ate one of these he practically fell over, overtaken by deliciousness.  The tart cherries, sweet coconut, crunchy almonds and oats make this an incredible cookie.  I have nothing else to say.  Enjoy.

Cherry, Almond & Coconut Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups quick cooking oats
  • 1 cup blanched, chopped
  • 1 cup shredded coconut
  • 1 cup dried cherries (or cranberries)
Directions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°
  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter, shortening, brown sugar, and white sugar until fluffy.
  3. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add the vanilla.
  4. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats, almonds, coconut and cherries until just blended.
  5. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto cookie sheets, about 6 to a sheet.
  6. Bake for 10-12 minutes rotating half-way through. Cool cookies on a wire rack.
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Simple Oatmeal Cookies

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This past weekend Ben and I went to Angel Fire, New Mexico and spent all day Saturday skiing.  That’s right.  I skied for the first time in 10 years.  And get this, I did not fall, even once.  Maybe that is because I played it safe and stayed on greens and easy blues.  I was pretty proud of myself, regardless.  Even Ben, the man who owns his own skis, said I did a “very good job”.  This means quite a bit to me.

Here we are before the day began.  The weather was great, and the snow was the best Ben has ever seen by New Mexico standards.  I had such a great time!  Who knew that I would ever get a renewed love for skiing?   This statement will come back to bite me sometime soon, but I must say this…I like to snow ski.  If Ben hadn’t encouraged me to try it again, I don’t know if I would have.  Thanks, Ben! 

Speaking of Ben…his favorite cookie is the classic oatmeal raisin.  I have become enamored of this cookie as well during our 7-year relationship.  The hearty oats in the butterery dough with tart, sweet raisins is delicious and utter perfection.  I made a few hundred of these cookies as favors for our wedding in 2006.  My lovely and incredibly helpful aunts and cousins from California came in about a week before the wedding and helped prepare the 250 packages of cookies in cute cellophane bags and tie them with blue and brown ribbon and a “Carrie & Ben” hang tag.  I found them to be adorable, but I don’t know if people even noticed them.  Oh well.  I guess there are things you make for your wedding that you put incredible blood, sweat and tears (or butter, eggs and flour) into that no one really notices…

Back to the real subject here, cookies!  Sometimes you want a plain and simple oatmeal cookie.  No extras, nothing to take away from the pure goodness of the oats, butter and warm brown sugar.  These cookies fit perfectly in that simple, no frills category.  I used a recipe from allrecipes.com with one change; I used half butter and half shortening.  I think it yields a more sturdy cookie while maintaining the lovely butter flavor.  These cookies are incredibly easy and crazy good.  The amount of salt in this recipe surprised me a bit, but it was wonderful against the sweet sugar.  A little salty-sweet is great in a cookie.

Soft and Simple Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 3 cups quick cooking oats
Directions
  1. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, shortening, white sugar, and brown sugar.
  2. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.
  3. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour.
  4. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls, and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets.
  5. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
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Superbowl Cookies

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Our good friends Tim and Jackie had us over for the Saints v. Colts game Sunday night.  There was so much food!  The spread included black bean chili, queso, chips & salsa, veggies, layered Tex Mex salad, hot wings, and cookies.  This is one of the main reasons I love the Superbowl.

I brought the yummy layered salad and these cookies.  I made plain sugar cookies using left over sugar cookie dough that I’d stashed in the freezer, and some chocolate sugar cookies.  Both recipes come from the Joyofbaking.com.

The chocolate dough was easy to prepare and easy to cut out.  They baked up pretty evenly and tasted good.  I did find them a bit drier than the plain sugar cookie, but still tasty.  I made sugar cookie helmets honoring both teams, and chocolate cookie footballs.

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Banana Oatmeal Cookies with Coconut, Walnuts & Chocolate Chips

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Bethenny Frankel was on the Today Show yesterday talking about her cookbook, The Skinny Girl Dish, and I was inspired to search for a healthy dessert recipe to try out.  I found a recipe for banana oatmeal cookies that sounded very tasty.  To my dismay, I did not have all the ingredients.  So I searched a bit more, and saw some other tasty sounding banana cookie recipes, but none were exactly what I wanted, so I made my own.

These are definitely not the original healthy banana oat cookie that inspired me, but they are yummy and at least a bit healthy thanks to the bananas, oats and protein packed walnuts!

I love the coconut and the dark chocolate chips.  You could easily omit the coconut if you’re not a fan, or substitute the walnuts for pecans, or go nut free if you must.  Milk chocolate chips would be good, and peanut butter chips would also be terrific.

My only complaint with these cookies is that the banana makes them very moist and they become soft when stored in an airtight container, and they will stick together.  Make sure to cook them so that there isn’t a gooey center, and don’t store them on top of each other.  Another way to avoid stickiness is to eat them all, but I wouldn’t recommend that unless you have some help.  Here is the original healthy recipe, and here is my version.

Banana Oatmeal Cookies with Coconut, Walnuts & Chocolate Chips

Ingredients
  • ¾ cup butter
  • ¼ cup shortening
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ cup brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 ripe bananas, smooshed up good
  • 2 cups oats
  • ¾ cup coconut
  • ¾ cup walnuts, toasted and chopped
  • ¾ cup chocolate chips, dark or milk
Directions
  1. Cream together butter, shortening and sugars.  Add in egg and vanilla and mix well.
  2. Stir in bananas, then stir in flour, baking soda, and salt until well combined.
  3. Mix in oats, coconut, walnuts and chocolate chips.
  4. Drop by tablespoons onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, and baker for 10-11 minutes until browned lightly on top.
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Daring Bakers: Gingerbread House

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For years before my sisters starting getting married, having babies and spending Christmas with their in-laws, we made gingerbread houses together.  We did all of it: made the gingerbread dough, baked all the pieces, assembled the house, and decorated the house using nothing but edible candies, chocolate, etc.  We would spend the days before Christmas, and sometimes a day or two afterward, perfecting the house and adding more detail.  It was so much fun.

So, I was pretty excited about this challenge.  When I really started to think about it, I got a little sad.  I had no one to help me!  No one to stay up til 2 am with, piping icing on gingerbread cars to put in the gingerbread carport.  No one to spend hours with, piping icicles on the eaves. To make things even more difficult, we’re going out of town for the holidays so no one is really going to see it.  My great excitement for my gingerbread house was dwindling.

Despite my negativity toward this challenge, I was determined to complete it.  I am glad I did, because I ended up having a fun time despite the fact that my house looks like a bunch of 3-year olds decorated it for me.  Merry Christmas!

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

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Peanut Butter Marshmallow Bites

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These little, unassuming bite-size goodies made quite an impression last weekend.  I brought them to a Christmas party where they were completely devoured and raved about.  I saw one of the party guests 2 days later and she asked me for the recipe.  I hadn’t had such a great response to a dessert in, well…ever!  I wish I could say they were my own creation, but alas, they were not.  I got the recipe in my 12 Days of Cookies email from the Food Network.  This was Day 10: Sunny’s Crunchy Peanut Butter S’more Bites.

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If you go to the Food Network site and read the review on these cookies, you will wonder why I made them.  Bad reviews on taste and preparation.  What was I thinking?  Well, I wasn’t.  However, with a few modifications to the recipe, they taste yummy (still very sweet of course) but still make quite a mess of your kitchen.  Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good!

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Christmas Cookie Exchange

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This past Saturday I hosted and attended my first cookie exchange!  It was a really fun afternoon of visiting with friends, and snacking on delicious cookies.  I ended up with more than 4 dozen of eight different types of cookies, and I only had to make one kind.  This is a pretty sweet deal.  Get it? Sweet?  Anyway…

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I had a fun time decorating and getting everything ready for the party.  I think I could be very happy as a party planner.  Aside from the tiny breakdown I had on the living room floor when I had yet to take a shower, still had more things to prep and set up, and it was only an hour till the party started, I did an OK job!  Well, if you want the real story, ask Ben.  Or just let me know and I will fill you in on all the nitty gritty details that made my day so horrifically hilarious.

Along with the cookies, we had veggies and a creamy dill dip, crackers and cheese.  To drink I made apple cider and got a Starbucks traveler coffee box, which I highly recommend when you have other things to do for a party, and making coffee isn’t something you want to spend time doing.  Ben bought some very nice carafes to store the coffee, and I am so glad.  I think they will come in handy in my future as a hostess.

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Witch Hat Cookies

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witch6Happy Halloween!  I made these cookies for the trick-or-treaters at Ben’s office.  I thought they would be more fun than little bags of candy, and too cute for words.  I also thought they would be quick and easy.  Cute, yes.  Quick and easy, kinda.

This Halloween treat can be made in a day, but I spread the preparation out over 3 days.

Day 1: Bake chocolate sugar cookies.

Day 2: Brush ice cream cones with chocolate and let set.

Day 3: Assemble & decorate hats.

My original plan was to make royal icing to decorate the hats, but as the deadline approached and a stack of about 100 papers needed grading, I broke down and bought tubes of Wilton icing in orange, black, green and purple.  As I completed the last hat I was very thankful that I’d made this adjustment.  Sometimes you just have to take shortcuts.

The Wilton icing tubes are pretty great.  You simply attach Wilton decorating tips and get creative.  It’s easy to switch out tips and the colors are nice and vibrant.  It’s often hard to achieve really vibrant color when you color your own icing, so this saves time and the stress of making the perfect color you’re looking for.

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Witch Hat Cookies

  • 24 chocolate sugar cookies
  • 24 sugar ice cream cones
  • 1 package chocolate candy coating
  • 2 large bags M&M’s
  • Various icings, sprinkles, decorations, etc.
  1. Melt chocolate coating according to package instructions.
  2. Use a pastry brush to coat all the cones with chocolate.  I found it easiest to place a few fingers in the cone to hold it while I brushed on the chocolate.  Stand up on parchment paper and let set.
  3. Fill the ice cream cone with your choice of candies.  Candy corn, M&M’s, Skittles, whatever.
  4. Use some of the frosting to pipe around the base of the ice cream cone.  Top with the cookie and flip over to set.
  5. Decorate as desired.

These are a fun treat and would make a fun party favor.  Happy Halloween!

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Chocolate Sugar Cookies

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There is something very special in store for the trick-or-treaters at BMWB this Friday!  To prepare for this treat, I had to make some chocolate sugar cookies.  These cookies were easy to put together, did not require any chilling, or rolling, and tasted sweet, crunchy and rich.  They will also be the perfect shape and texture for my Halloween treats.

10-25-2009This recipe originally came from  my dear friend, Martha Stewart.  I found it on How to Eat a Cupcake.  I doubled the recipe to make these cookies and ended up with about 45 medium sized cookies.

I only needed 30 for my Halloween goodies, so I had some dough left over.  I thought about freezing it and using it later, but then I found a roll of Rolos hiding in my cabinet leftover from my candy bar blondies.  Maybe, just maybe, I could wrap the dough around a rolo and bake it to create a cookie with a nice caramel surprise inside.  Genius!

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These cookies turned out to be quite delicious.  I think that there are a lot of candies that could be hidden inside this cookie dough.  The dough is sturdy and not too sticky, so would probably be a good dough to experiment with.  I will definitely make these cookies again.  Easy, chewy, delicious and versatile.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies (Courtesy of Martha Stewart and How to Eat a Cupcake)
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder
  • 2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1 cup vegetable shortening, melted and cooled
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
  1. Preheat oven to 375F. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.
  2. Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in melted shortening (or butter). Add egg and vanilla; mix until creamy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until just combined.
  3. Using a 1 inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 2 inches apart. Bake until edges are firm, 10-13 minutes.  Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 days.
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Daring Bakers: Macarons

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The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

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One of my best memories is eating a traditional French macaron at Harrods in London 12 years ago.  A delicate, light, crunchy exterior with a sweet luscious filling.  They were about the size of your palm, and I think we went back to Harrods a few times just to buy more.  I haven’t had a real macaron that delicious since.  This challenge made me crave those macarons and want to recreate them.  Was I successful in this endeavor?  No way.  But, it was still a fun challenge.

I made two kinds of macarons.  One plain almond with a white chocolate eggnog ganache filling.  The second was a chocolate macaron with chocolate ganache.

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