Ginger Snaps

To me, ginger snaps are--along with anything pumpkin--a must-have of the holiday season. They're 1) easy to make, 2) full of spicy goodness, and 3) beautiful when covered in sparkly sugar. Now, I've recently heard about ginger snaps with a firey kick of black pepper... but that will have to be for another year. For now, these cookies have gotten me through the last three holidays of baked gift-giving, so it's about time I put them up here!

Ginger Snaps

Adapted from Food Network

Ingredients

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

small bowl sugar (turbinado makes for extra pretty cookies) for rolling

Directions

1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar using a hand mixer.

2. Stir in the molasses and egg using a spatula.

3. Next, add 1 cup of the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves, stirring until combined.

4. Add the remaining flour, 1 cup at a time until fully incorporated.

5. Chill your dough in the freezer for 15 minutes. This will make it easier to shape.

6. Shape your dough into 1-inch balls, then roll them in sugar to coat the outside.

7. Bake on a greased cookie sheet (or on parchment paper) for 10 minutes in a 375 degrees F oven.
8. Enjoy with milk or pack up to send off as gifts.

Snickerdoodles

The chewiness of these cookies each time you take a bite is unbeatable. 

Snickerdoodles
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen 

Ingredients
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cups olive oil (in place of 1 cup butter)
1 cup sugar + 3/4 cups splenda (in place of all sugar)
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
2 large eggs


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Using a sieve, sift together flour, cream of tartar and baking soda into a medium bowl and set aside.
3. In a larger bowl, cream together olive oil (or butter) and splenda plus 3/4 cup of sugar using a hand mixer until smooth and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
4. Scrape down bowl and add eggs and beat using mixer.
5. Scrape down bowl using rubber spatula and add dry ingredients, stirring to combine. 
6. Once you've formed a dough, place bowl in the freezer for a few minutes until the dough is manageable. 
7. In a small bowl, combine remaining sugar and cinnamon.
8. Using a Tablespoon measuring spoon, scoop out dough and form into balls. Toss the balls, a few at a time, into the bowl of cinnamon sugar to coat.
9. Place cookies about two inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes or less, until they crack in the center -- again follow your nose! Mine got a little extra crispy on the bottom because I ignored my senses :( These babies smelled delicious about 2 minutes before the timer went off, so I should have known, sigh. 

Chocolate Chip Cookies, two ways

Chocolate Chip & Double Chocolate. 
Even after freezing these to avoid temptation, I couldn't help myself.

I'm not gonna lie. I never really liked chocolate chip cookies.


I'm sorry, but it's true.


When I share this fact with others, I almost invariably get some sort of disapproving look or comment, like something's wrong with me. Literally, someone recently reacted with "What's wrong with you?!?!" Ridiculous, I think.


To be honest, I'd just never had a really awesome chocolate chip cookie. And there was something about their ubiquity at bake sales that helped them lose their novelty, so I started to dislike them even before I had a chance to form any kind of appreciation.


This first recipe changed my mind. These are your traditional chocolate chip cookies, kinda soft, perfect dunked in milk, and delicious frozen -- which, I found out only after freezing them in an attempt to keep myself from eating them... and that didn't work. While I don't see myself craving these cookies anytime soon, let's just say that if I ever need to make a housewarming gift or something else to give away, this one will be a top contender, if only so that I can have the extra few that I'll inevitably make. Just to make sure the recipe worked, you know?


The second recipe in this post.... Oooooh boyyyyy. 


Check it: Chocolate cookie with chocolate chips. I'm a dark chocolate fanatic, so the intensity of these are right up my alley. Microwaved, they become almost cake-like, and the secret added ingredient completely seals the deal for me. This is the perfect baked gift for a chocoholic for sure. But why chose? Make both on the same day! You can't go wrong :)  

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

I love the lighting in this photograph.

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup white sugar 
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F and line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
2. Using a sieve, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt, and set aside.
3. In a medium bowl cream together melted butter and both sugars using a hand mixer until well blended.
4. Beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk, then mix in dry ingredients until just blended. 
5. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the chocolate chips, then drop cookie dough 1 Tablespoon at a time onto the cookie sheets (if you're like me and only have one, that's OK -- just drop the cookies onto sheets of parchment, and each time you finish baking a batch, pull off the parchment with the baked cookies, place the new, cookie-dough-laden parchment onto the cookie sheet, and place back in the oven. Repeat until you're done.)
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges of the cookies are just toasted. 
7. Allow to cool completely before attempting to freeze -- this will keep the cookies from becoming misshapen and the precious chocolate chips from smearing all over your containers or ziplock bags.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from AllRecipes.com

Double Chocolate. Need I say more? 

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1.5 cups  white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cups natural cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
and the secret ingredient: 1/3 of a teaspoon almond extract


Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. 
2. In a large bowl, using a hand mixer beat together the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla and almond extract until light and fluffy.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Stir dry ingredients into the butter mixture until well combined. 
5. Using a spatula or large spoon, stir in chocolate chips. 
6. Drop onto parchment paper-lined baking sheet, one Tablespoon at a time.
7. Bake for 8-10 minutes, then allow to cool before storing, as above, and enjoy :) 

Check out that partial print. Proof that these are handmade.

French Butter Cookies

For this year's Second Annual Make-Christmas-cookies-for-Chefski's-family (and mine!) Baking Day,  I decided to try something a little special, a little nostalgic, and I knew I'd found what I was looking for when I stumbled on a recipe for French Butter Cookies. You may remember these from that ubiquitous blue tin often sold in drug stores or ::gasp:: Woolworth's of yore. Buttery, even sandy-feeling (in a good way), these cookies take a bit of time and effort, but it was worth it just to hear my mother tell me how much she really liked them -- and she's not even a cookie person!

Here's how I adapted the recipes I found on Annie's Eats:

French Butter Cookies

For the dough

1 large egg

10 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup plus 1 Tablespoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour*

*For the Black n Whites, make one batch of FBCs as directed, and one using only 1 1/3 cups flour + 1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

For finishing

1 large egg white + 1 teaspoon water, lightly beaten

Turbinado sugar for sprinkling 

Directions
1. Soft boil your egg by placing it in a pot of water, with about an inch covering it.  Bring the water to a boil, then remove the pot from the heat and allow the egg to sit in the boiling water for 10 minutes.
2. Next, place the the egg in a bowl of ice water and let stand for 5 minutes. This will make peeling the shell off much easier.
3. Separate the white from the yolk, and discard (read: eat) the white.
4. Place the yolk in a large bowl. Add the butter, sugar, and salt, and then with a hand mixer beat the mixture until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the bowl occasionally as the mix attempts to escape your bowl.
5. Add vanilla. I actually went up to 1 tablespoon for my cookies, and was so pleasantly surprised by the vanilla flavor that I'll definitely be doing this in the future.
6. Add the flour and mix until just combined. Using a spatula, press dough down into a ball.
7. If you're making the regular butter cookies, divide you dough in half, and then roll each ball into a log about 6 inches long, with a 3.75 inch diameter. Roll in parchment paper, twisting the ends closed, and chill in the freezer for an hour. As this point, you may freeze your dough, in freezer bags, for up to two weeks (this will definitely come in handy in the future).
8. After your dough has firmed, you may slice the dough into 1/4 inch rounds. Brush on the egg white mixtures and sprinkle with turbinado sugar. These cookies will be so sparkly and crunchy once baked!
9. Bake on a parchment-lined baking sheet for 15 minutes at  350 degrees F. Enjoy.

Black and White Spiral Cookies

Basically the same ingredients as for the French Butter Cookies, and you'll need one batch (or a 1/2), but, as stated above, to make the "Black" part, sub in 1 1/3 cups flour + 1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder in place of the 1.5 cups flour.

In my case, I couldn't find Dutch-processed cocoa, so I consulted baking 911 on how to substitute natural cocoa powder for Dutch (3 Tablespoons natural + 1/8 teaspoon baking soda = 1 Tablespoon Dutch).

Directions

1. If you made full batches of each, divide in half as directed for French Butter Cookies.  

2. Roll each out separately into rectangular sheets about 6 by 8 inches, and 1/4 inch thick. 

3. Place one chocolate sheet atop a vanilla sheet, then starting at the long end, roll the dough cinnamon-roll style, creating a tight log.

4. Chill in the freezer for 1 hour. Slice and bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees F.

5. If you've got extra chocolate dough, as I did, just roll those up a la French Butter Cookies, chill, slice, and bake on their own.

6. Allow to cool, pack up and deliver as gifts :)

Raisin' Hell: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Forgive the dark photos -- I took these way before I got my fancy-schmancy Nikon.

 

My first real attempts at baking were during senior year in college, and while I've never been too much of a cookie fan, I know other people are. It's probably something about how portable and usually portion-controllable they are. At least that's my guess. Plus, they're easy to make and give away, so I've tried to become adept at a few different kinds. I started with my favorite, the (usually) least sweet of all: oatmeal raisin. It's the kind of cookie you can trick yourself into believing is good for you. I mean, come on! Raisins? Oatmeal? How could it not be good for your heart?

I got this super easy recipe for oatmeal raising cookies from the same book I found the baguette recipe I'm fond of. They're chewy, only use a few ingredients, and have always been a hit as a gift. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Adapted from The French Don't Diet

Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
pinch, each, of baking soda, cinnamon, and salt
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup raisins

Directions
 
Preheat over to 350 degrees F

In a large bowl:
Blend the wet ingredients (butter, brown sugar, egg, and vanilla).

In another bowl:
Mix dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, oats, and raisins) and then fold them into the wet ingredients.

Scoop the dough, in ping-pong sized balls, onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden.

Allow to cool, then munch away.