cookies

Holiday Sweet Treats: Gift Basket Ideas

/ TaMara

I’m falling behind this week. I meant to post some holiday treat recipes over the weekend, but didn’t get around to it. Now the house needs to be cleaned, the carpets shampooed and the recipes for Christmas Eve started.

But I did want to post some holiday gift recipe ideas. It’s fun if you add the recipe to the package of sweets (that’s how I got several new recipes, including these peanut butter cookies)

From 2017:

Sunday is my annual cookie baking day with friends. Most of the goodies are going into gift boxes, but I’ll hold enough back for my annual Christmas Eve dinner. This is the usual round-up.

Pictured above:

Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies, recipe here

Spritz Cookies, recipes and instructions for using a cookie press here.

Pecan Cookies, recipe below.  Much more below the fold.

But wait, there’s more! Click to read

Holiday Gifts: Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookies

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

Someone asked me for this recipe this morning and after I shared it with them, I decided to make a batch myself.

From June:

I really like these cookies, they’re simple to make and gluten-free. But one thing about them is they are terribly sweet. So I decided to see what would happen if I cut the sugar down considerably.

They turned out super – not too sweet and super peanut butter flavor.  Changes are in blue.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Revisited)

(makes 12-18)

  • 3 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tbsp packed brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 egg

baking sheet

Cream ingredients together and drop by spoonful onto a baking sheet. Dip a fork in sugar and press down the dough. Bake at 300 degree F for 10-13 minutes.

This usually gets a good, soft cookie, but I wanted to try for a crispier outside. But they are prone to burning. So at the 13-minute mark, I turned off the oven and let them sit for 5 more minutes. They turned out perfectly – crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Going to make them again soon.

Holiday Gifts: A Variety of Spritz Butter Cookies

/ TaMara / 3 Comments

A day late, but in honor of National Cookie Day, my favorite Christmas cookie recipe. I made my first batch yesterday and they are always a big hit.Spritz Cookies

I love spritz butter cookies. They’re tiny little, melt-in-your-mouth bites that go great with a cup of coffee. I didn’t realize how easy they were to make. It helped that a friend of a friend gifted me her all-metal, ratchet handled press. These are not easy to come by any more, at least not when I went looking. Most of the new ones are partially plastic and received tepid reviews, especially for durability and ease of use.

I love all the cute designs. Although my Christmas trees kind of look like trilobites, they taste great.

I have also upped the ante and made zesty butter cookies – one with lime zest and another with lemon zest and dust with citrus powdered sugar. Recipe here.

Spritz Raw

Spritz Cookies

  • 1 cup butter, softened/room temp
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 3 egg yolks, room temp
  • 2 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Continue reading →

Gluten Free Peanut Butter Cookies Revisited

/ TaMara

I really like these cookies, they’re simple to make and gluten-free. But one thing about them is they a terribly sweet. So I decided to see what would happen if I cut the sugar down considerably.

They turned out super – not too sweet and super peanut butter flavor.  Changes are in blue.

Peanut Butter Cookies (Revisited)

(makes 12-18)

  • 3 tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tbsp packed brown sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 egg

baking sheet

Cream ingredients together and drop by spoonful onto a baking sheet. Dip a fork in sugar and press down the dough. Bake at 300 degree F for 10-13 minutes.

This usually gets a good, soft cookie, but I was wanted to try for a crispier outside. But they are prone to burning. So at the 13-minute mark, I turned off the oven and let them sit for 5 more minutes. They turned out perfectly – crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside.

Going to make them again soon.

Holiday Gifts: Pecan Cookies

/ TaMara

These have several names: Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, or just Pecan Cookie Balls. Whatever you call them, they are melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

Pecan Cookies

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • ½ cup powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 ¼ cups flour
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 1 cup chopped nuts pecans
  • Powdered sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 350°. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Continue reading →

Dark Chocolate Caramel Walnut Bars

/ TaMara

Not surprisingly, I don’t have a lot of processed food in the house. I generally make things from scratch. And this week I was really craving something sweet and there was not a cookie or candy bar in sight.  Luckily, I keep a LOT of ingredients in the house. There are always chocolate chips, nuts and raw coconut flakes in the cupboard/refrigerator.

I didn’t have the time to make cookies, so these bars were born.

Dark Chocolate-Caramel-Walnut Bars

  • 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, melted and slightly cooled
  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/8 tsp dash of salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 8 oz 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chips
  • 1/2 cups walnuts, roughly chopped
  • 4 oz of caramel chips
  • shredded or flaked coconut (I use raw, unsweetened)

8×8 baking dish, bowl Continue reading →

Tidbits

/ jeffreyw

Chicken noodle soup doesn’t need grilled cheese sammiches to make it lunch but I made some anyway.These are chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.  I like to process the oats a tad before mixing them into the cookie dough.  I was showing Mrs J how a new blender gadget works and it absolutely pulverized the oats before she could stop.  I’ll have to do a gadget post on it.I love the sous vide setup.  We have settled on 138° as the preferred setting – pink enough for me and done enough for Mrs J.I sauteed sprouts with fresh sweet corn, cut off the cob, in olive oil and butter to accompany the ribeyes and it worked out just OK.  Didn’t look right, tasted great.This is the result of my first go at a shepherd’s pie.  This one has pork and green gravy with corn and carrots and peas.  I didn’t make quite enough mashed potatoes for a proper top, my pan was a bit too big.  I think I’ll make them as individual pies the next time.This was a quick lunch, a couple of chicken thighs braised in bbq sauce, some potato salad, and kimchi.  Since MrsJ won’t eat the kimchi I’ll have to double up.  We still have a ton of that cabbage and cucumber summer salad.Those cookies make good ice cream sammiches.  I don’t remember what Kroger ice cream flavor is in this but it has crunchy bits and caramel. Moar kimchi!  Told you I was going to double up.  I didn’t make that big of a batch (one head of Napa cabbage) and the smallest daikon radish was still too much so I match sticked it and put it back in a simple pickle of seasoned rice vinegar, salt, and water.  Crunchy and sweet from the rice vinegar!

Variations On Shortbread: Coconut and Tahini

/ TaMara / 1 Comment

I was telling a friend I was going to make Tahini shortbread cookies to use up the tahini I had leftover from the Tahini Walnut Rolls (recipe here). She asked if it was dairy free, because she’d like to make shortbread, but was avoiding dairy.

The original recipe wasn’t, but I thought I’d give it a try with just tahini. And then because I Iove coconut, I thought I’d do the same thing with coconut oil. So both of these are dairy free.  Continue reading →