Category: Cookies

Glazed Apple Cookies

MAKES 3-4 DOZEN [Caution: If you are making a tray of assorted cookies and plan to cover it, do not put the apple cookies on the tray. The flavors might draw into the other cookies. Also, the apple cookie softens crisper cookies.]

Cookie Ingredients:
2 cups sifted unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup shortening
1-1/3 cups brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 egg, unbeaten
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup finely chopped unpared tart apples
1 cup raisins, chopped (optional)
1/4 cup apple juice or milk

Vanilla Glaze:
1-1/2 cups confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon vanilla 1/8 teaspoon salt
2-1/2 tablespoons light cream

Preheat oven to 400° F. Sift together flour and baking soda. Mix shortening, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and egg until well blended. Stir in half of flour mixture. Add nuts, apples and raisins. Blend in apple juice, then remaining flour mixture. Drop by tablespoons, 2-inches apart, onto greased cookie sheets. Bake approximately 12 minutes.

Meanwhile, make vanilla glaze. Mix together all ingredients until well blended. Spread thinly over hot cookies.

I scanned the internet for a good double chocolate chip cookie recipe, and found one that I tweaked a bit – they came out fabulous! Of course, it’s hard to mess up basic chocolate chip cookies, but you don’t want to take serious risks with CHOCOLATE! 😉

They were gooey when they came out of the oven but after waiting for them to cool down before removing them to the cooling rack, they stiffened up nicely, and then remained chewy for as long as they lasted. I think my swapping out some of the white sugar for brown sugar helped. Also, feel free to use a little less sugar if you like – reviews of the original recipe seemed to indicate that the amount can be flexible according to taste.

Here’s the final recipe I ended up with:

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar (not packed)
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 oz. bag of chocolate chips

Cream together butter and the sugars. Then add in eggs and vanilla, mixing well.

Blend in cocoa, and then baking soda and salt.

Mix in flour.

Fold in chocolate chips.

From dough, make balls about the size of a rounded teaspoon, place 1.5 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Slightly flatten each ball.

Bake at 350F for 8-9 minutes. Cookies will be gooey when you pull them out of the oven – let them sit in the cookie sheet for at least five minutes before using spatula to remove them to the cooling rack.

Had the urge to bake cookies today!

I used our usual Thumbdrop Cookie Recipe (below) but swapped out the almond extract for two teaspoons of lemon extract, and filled the cookies with blackberry jam.

They’re very tasty, and imagine they’d be really nice with ‘afternoon tea’ or the like, as they are somewhat delicate in flavor with that burst of berry. Happy Friday!

Thumb Drop Cookies

3/4 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 tespoon salt

Mix oleo and sugar till well blended, add eggs, mix well. Add extract. In separate bowl mix flour, baking powder, and salt. Add to margarine mixture, mix well. Roll into small balls on a greased baking sheet. Put finger into center of cookie and put in jelly or jam as desired to fill hole. Bake 350 degrees 10-12 minutes or until done.

Last week I made soft and chewy peanut butter cookies, with chocolate chips. They came out SO good. If you want to try an alternative to the more traditional crunchier type peanut butter cookies – this’ll do ya.

I started with an online recipe and made a few small tweaks, as usual. Here’s the recipe:

Chewy Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup smooth or chunky peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips or chunks

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In medium size bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In large bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, brown and white sugar until creamy.

Add eggs. Stir well.

Stir in the corn syrup, water, and vanilla. Gradually stir in the flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.

Place loaded teaspoons of the dough on ungreased cookie sheets. Even when the dough is soft these cookies do not spread, so if you want your cookies a little flatter, pat each teaspoon of cookie dough down into a flatter cookie shape before baking. You can leave each drop of dough as is if you want them a little bumpier and irregular.

Bake each sheet of cookies for 9 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. After baking, cool for 1 minute on the cookie sheet, then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Mmmm… cookies……

[Tags: recipe, baking, food, cookies, recipe]

A few weeks ago I made a pan of blond brownies, or, technically Congo Bars. They were very tasty, and luckily I got a photo of one before the pan was gone:

This is an awesome recipe – just mix everything all together, and you don’t even have to grease the pan!

Congo Bars

2 2/3 cups sifted flour
2 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teasspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening, melted
2 cups brown sugar
3 eggs
1 cup chopped nuts
1 6 oz. package of chocolate chips

Mix all ingredients. Pour into a 9X13 inch pan, bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.

I have been baking quite a bit for the holidays this year, and the other day decided to make some cookies that I hadn’t made in a LONG while – Cinnamon Twists! They’re a little more time intensive and messy than other cookies, more of a pastry in some ways, but they’re also not as sweet and go really well as a classy side to hot beverages. And they look fancy:

Here’s the recipe – enjoy!

Cinnamon Twists

4 cups sifted flour
1 1/2 cups margarine
3 egg yolks
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites
3 tblsp. sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
sugar and cinnamon

Place in a large bowl: flour, margarine, yolks, sour cream, and vanilla. Cut in (as for pastry mix) well and chill overnight. When ready to bake, divide dough into eight parts. Roll each part onto a board dusted with confectioner’s sugar. Cut into 8 or 12 wedges. Then beat the egg whites until fluffy; gradually add sifted confectioner’s sugar. Fold in vanilla. Brush rolled dough with egg mixture. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll each wedge loosely (starting at wide end). Brush rolled slices with egg mixture and cinnamon and sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet in oven at 400 degrees. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Supposedly, this serves about 30 people.

In the New York City area they are called Black & Whites and have chocolate and vanilla icing on them, but in upstate New York, where I am from, they are called Half Moon Cookies and have more of a traditional frosting than a hard icing.

Anyway, I’ve adjusted the recipe we have on our site, which originally came from the New York CookBook. Basically, the changes are… instead of 2.5 cups of cake flour and 2.5 cups of all purpose flour, I found that 4 cups of cake flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour make for a much lighter cookie, but still with excellent consistency. They were just too dense and heavy before with so much of the regular flour.

Also, instead of the 20-30 minutes of cooking time, I suggest 12-15 minutes MAX. I don’t even know where they got 20-30 minutes – if I left them in that long at the suggested temperature they’d be dark and crispy, and not in a good way. 12 minutes at 375 in our oven works just fine.

Here’s the recipe:

Half Moon Cookies

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
4 large eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
4 cups cake flour
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375. Butter two baking sheets and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar and butter and mix by machine or hand until fluffy. Add the eggs, milk, and vanilla and lemon extracts and mix until smooth.

In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking powder and salt and stir until mixed. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in batches, stirring well to combine. Using a soup spoon, drop spoonfuls of the dough 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the edges begin to brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Allow to cool completely.

Note: Frost flat side of cookie, half in chocolate, half in vanilla – can use your favorite frosting recipes, although some prefer more of a glaze or icing than a frosting.

Oh, and that photo of the Half Moon Cookies up there is an older photo. I did make a successful batch a day ago, but just as I was mixing all the dry ingredients we lost power for a few hours. It was after 8 p.m. when we got power back, and by the time the cookies were mixed and baked and ready for frosting I was really tired so I only did chocolate frosting on them – LOL – making them, effectively, just new moon cookies, I suppose. So that’s why I didn’t take new photos – but they came out just perfect with the recipe adjustments – deliciousness!

It’s holiday time, so I’m starting to pull out recipes I usually only make this time of year. (For no other reason except that it’s nice to have some recipes for special occasions.) I started with Cherry Cookies, since I haven’t made those in a LONG time, and they look so darn festive – covered in chopped walnuts with a cherry in the center!

See? Festive!

Cherry Cookies

2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup butter or margarine (softened)
3/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups finely chopped walnuts or pecans
2 unbeaten egg whites
cherry halves
In small bowl combine flour, baking powder, and salt.

In large mixer bowl beat margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks, dry ingredients and vanilla. Mix well. Chill dough 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Grease 2 large cookie sheets. Place chopped nuts in one small bowl and egg whites in another. Roll dough by the teaspoonful into balls, flatten slightly, dip in egg whites, then roll in nuts. Place on cookie sheets. Press cherry half into center of each cookie. Bake 12 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 54.