what do you want to eat?

chocolate-orange cookies

My friend, client and cookie baking queen Amanda recently posted on her Sweet Bella Bakery blog a recipe for Chocolate-Orange Sugar Cookies that I just had to try. I'd volunteered to make Valentine's treats for Dylan's preschool class, and decided we'd make these for Dylan to take to school. I made a few changes to the recipe (noted in italics below) and they turned out delicious. I didn't have orange extract, so I used orange zest and a little orange juice. They didn't have a strong orange flavor at all, so I'll have to pick up some extract for next time I make these. I also decorated with buttercream frosting that I had in my freezer instead of making the royal icing.

These are delicious cookies with a rich, deep chocolate flavor.  Mine came out a bit crunchy, but after being stored for a day they are now soft.  And did I mention yummy?  Oh yeah, I did.  Maybe I should go have another one just to be sure.  :)

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Chocolate-Orange Sugar Cookies from Amanda Lassiter, Sweet Bella Bakery
adapted from Southern Living's Chocolate Fleur-de-Lis cookies

3 sticks butter
2.5 cups sifter powdered sugar (I'll admit, I didn't sift my powdered sugar, the fine mesh strainer I use for sifting was buried in my sink.  And my cookies turned out fine...just so you know)
2 eggs
1 tsp. pure orange extract (I used the zest of 1 orange and about a tablespoon of juice)
3 cups All Purpose Flour (I used 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1 1/2 cups of AP flour)
1 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp. sea salt

Soften butter at room temperature and beat until smooth in an electric mixer. Add sifted powder slowly until blended. Beat eggs and orange extract in a small bowl until combined, add to butter mixture.

Combine flour, cocoa, & salt and slowly add to the butter mixture. Beat for 2 minutes until blended. Divide dough in half and place on wax paper sprinkled with a small amount of flour/cocoa mixture. Roll each portion out to 3/8"-1/2" thickness and chill.

When dough is chilled, cut out shapes with cookie cutter or card stock design. Bake at 350 for 10-13 minutes, depending on the size of your cookie. Decorate with Royal Icing (I already mentioned that I used leftover buttercream frosting from my freezer, but I'm including Amanda's Royal Icing recipe anyway). 

Royal Icing
16 ounces powdered sugar
30 grams meringue powder
1/2 tsp. light corn syrup
less than 1/2 cup water

Sift powdered sugar & meringue powder into the bowl of an electric mixer with whisk attachment on low. Stream in water and speed up to medium high. Drizzle in corn syrup and mix for 5-6 minutes. For Outline Icing, place in decorator bags with #3 tip. For Flood Icing, add 1/2 teaspoon of water at a time until mixture is the consistency of thick syrup and place in decorator bottles.

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Dylan making a big mess of the flour and cocoa mixture. I clean the counter really well before we start so I can brush all that spilled flour back into the bowl.


Dylan loves to squish out the dough, but not as much as he likes to eat it ("want to eat it" gets said a lot when we are making cookies).


After the squishing, it's time to roll the dough thinner. He hasn't quite mastered the squish and roll needed with the rolling pin yet.


I let Dylan pick out the shapes for the cookies. I couldn't quite believe I didn't have a heart in my vast collection of cookie cutters. I'll have to remedy that sometime soon. Dylan really enjoys squishing down the cookie cutters and making the shapes. Here he is putting the shapes on the cookie sheet.


Since these were Valentine's cookies, I stuck with pink icing (which looks nice with the chocolate don't you think?) and used hearts where I could. (Also, I didn't have a whole lot of time for decorating, another reason for the one color choice...probably the real reason =)

Groundhog Day Cookies

I never got around to posting about Groundhog Day Cookies last year, although I did take some photos.  So, this year, before I've even made a batch, I thought I would go ahead and post for those of you who may want to make these on Wednesday for Groundhog Day.

First, a little background.  My dad was from Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the groundhog.  Not only is my Dad from Punxsy, but we can trace the Shermer family living in Punxsy back in 1848 where my great-great grandfather owned a shoe store. When I was a kid my mom made these cookies for us and we even had Groundhog Day parties some years.  I still have the old napkins that my mom saved.  I remember where they used to live in the dining room china cabinet and pulling them out every year.  I love that I still have her cookie cutters and can carry on this tradition with my kids.  If you'd like to order your own cookie cutter, click here.

I went to Punxsy a few times growing up.  And we visited Punxsy Phil, the groundhog.  He lives in the library and you can view him through a window from the outside.  My last trip to Punxsy was Labor Day weekend 2009.  We were living in Ohio and some of my cousins who I hadn't seen in many, many, MANY years were getting together for a reunion.  Since this is the first time I've ever lived within decent driving distance, we made the trip.  It was nice to see everyone again and revisit the Punxsy Camp, site of the last reunion I had attended around 18 years ago.  

So in honor of my Punxsutawney heritage, I give you Groundhog Day cookies.  :)

Cutting out the cookies.


Here are the little critters before heading into the oven.

 

Groundhog Cookies
from www.groundhogday.org 

2 cups sifted flour (I did half whole wheat and half all-purpose, and threw in some flaxseed)
1/2 teaspoon salt 
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground ginger 
1 teaspoon ground cloves 
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon 
1/2 cup soft butter 
1 cup sugar 
1/2 cup molasses 
1 egg yolk
1 egg, slightly beaten 
Currants or raisins

Sift together first seven ingredients. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Blend in molasses and yolk. Stir in flour mixture and mix well. Form into a ball.

Wrap in plastic wrap. Chill overnight, several nights or freeze. (I more than likely made this the same day I baked, so just chill for 1/2 and hour to an hour then proceed)

Place small amounts of dough on a sheet of plastic wrap, and cover with plastic wrap. Roll 1/8 inch thick. Cut out cookies with lightly floured cutter.

Place cookies on greased baking sheet. Brush with slightly beaten egg. Decorate with currants or raisin eyes. Repeat until all dough is used.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes in a preheated 350-degree oven. Cool slightly before removing from cookie sheet. Makes 72 or more medium-sized groundhogs.

Homemade Oreos

While doing some research for a cookie bakery that I have been working on a design project for, I ran across a website called Bake at 350.  Well, I shouldn't say ran across, my client pointed me in that direction.  While perusing, I discovered her post on Homemade Oreos.  And my pregnant self decided they needed to be made.  Like right then.  So, Dylan and I got to work making the chocolate wafer dough, rolling it out and cutting out the cookies.  By the time we got to the rolling it out part he wanted to eat the dough.  And he did.  The silly boy (he is his father's son after all).  We actually made these back in September and I didn't take too many photos (except for these two bad camera phone photos).  Here's a link to the recipe.  The only change I made was to use half white whole wheat flour in place of half of the all-purpose.

 

Denny created a triple decker oreo.


And then ate the whole thing.

homemade thin mints

I recently ran across this recipe for Homemade Thin Mints on one of my favorite food sites 101cookbooks.com.  I decided I needed to try it and an invitation to a cookie exchange gave me the perfect excuse.  One of the best things about 101cookbooks is her use of natural and whole grain ingredients.  It makes me feel less guilty about eating the yummy things I bake (and sharing them with my little one) if I can use healthier ingredients.  

The thin mints are definitely more of a time consuming process than I originally thought.  I made two batches and the dipping in chocolate portion of the recipe took a long time for the almost 8 dozen cookies I ended up with.  These are worth the effort, although don't expect them to taste just like their Girl Scout cookie counterparts.  The cookie part is a softer, richer tasting cookie...not as crisp.  However, these are just wonderful out of the freezer and that tends to give the cookie a bit more crunch.

Here's some of the process through photos and the recipe and the slight changes I made are below the photos.  Be sure to visit 101cookbooks.com and scroll through some of her other delicious recipes.  

 

Here's my little helper after helping measure out all the ingredients. I love the smudge of cocoa powder on his nose.


Cutting out little circles of cookie dough. You have to roll the dough really thin for the thin mints. I found that if I used smaller amounts of dough, it made it much easier to get them thinner.


The cookies don't spread much, so you can fit more on your cookie sheet.


Here are my stacks and stacks of cookies waiting to be dunked in melted chocolate/peppermint goodness.


I'm sure I didn't need to show you the chocolate chips melting...but they just look so lovely and scrumptious I couldn't help myself.

My dunking station is at the ready.

A freshly dunked thin mint.


Dylan came over to "help" me dunk the cookies. Translation: "want to eat a cookie". I finally had to shoo him away before he ate them all.


The cookies out of the freezer...all set and ready to eat.

Homemade and All-natural Thin Mint Recipe
from 101cookbooks.com, my notes are in italics

Chocolate Wafers:
8 ounces organic butter, room temperature
1 cup organic powdered sugar
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
1 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey Special Dark cocoa powder)
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
I also threw in a handful of ground flaxseed 

Chocolate Peppermint Coating:
1 pound good quality semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
(I used a mixture of about 2/3 bittersweet to 1/3 milk chocolate chips...it also took more than 1 lb for a batch..more like 1 1/2 to 2 lbs for me)

1/4 tsp. peppermint extract (Here, I also used a lot more than called for...more like a whole teaspoon of extract to get a good pepperminty (but not toothpasty) flavor.)

Preheat your oven to 350. Racks in the middle zone.

Make the cookie dough: In a mixer cream the butter until it is light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and cream some more, scraping the sides of the bowl a couple times if necessary. Stir in the vanilla extract and then the salt and cocoa powder. Mix until the cocoa powder is integrated and the batter is smooth and creamy, sort of like a thick frosting. Add the whole wheat pastry flour and mix just until the batter is no longer dusty looking, it might still be a bit crumbly, and that's o.k. You don't want to over mix and end up with tough cookies.

Turn the dough out onto a counter, gather it into a ball, and kneed it just once or twice to bring it together into once nice, smooth mass. Place the ball of dough into a large plastic bag and flatten it into a disk roughly 3/4-inch thick. Place the dough in the freezer for 20 minutes to chill.

Rollout and bake: Remove the dough from the freezer and roll it out really thin, remember how thin Thin Mints are? That's how thin you need your dough, about 1/8-inch. You can either roll it out between two sheets of plastic, or dust your counter and rolling pin with a bit of flour and do it that way. (Here is where I used smaller pieces of dough to roll it out thin.  My dough out of the freezer was a bit crumbly anyway and breaking off small pieces to roll out seemed to solve that problem.) Stamp out cookies using a 1 1/2-inch cutter (this time I used one with a fluted edge, I've done hearts and other shapes in the past). Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool completely on a baking rack if you've got one.

Make the peppermint coating:
While the cookies are in the oven you can get the coating ready. I use a makeshift double boiler to melt chocolate (a metal pan over a saucepan of gently simmering water), but I know many people who swear by melting chocolate in the microwave. Slowly melt the chocolate, stirring occasionally until it is glossy and smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. If you think the chocolate needs a bit more peppermint kick, add more extract a drop or two at a time - but don't go overboard.

Finishing the cookies: You are going to coat the cookies one at a time and then gently set them on a parchment-lined baking sheet to set. Drop one cookie into the chocolate and (using a fork) carefully make sure it gets fully coated. Lift the cookie out of the chocolate with the fork and bang the fork on the side of the pan to drain any extra chocolate off the cookie. You are after a thin, even coating of chocolate. (Not sure how thin and even mine got...be careful shaking or banging off the excess cookies..I had a few of my thinner cookies break during this process...but remember..mistakes mean more for the tasters in your house.)  Place on the aforementioned prepared baking sheet, and repeat for the rest of the cookies. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer to set. They will set at room temperature, it just takes much longer, and I prefer them straight out of the freezer anyways ;)

Make 3 or 4 dozen cookies.

 

banana-pumpkin cookies with chocolate chips

This recipe is a variation of one that I ran a few months ago: Susan's Yip Yap Organic Snaps. I wanted to add some pumpkin to the mix since it's the pumpkin season and thought I'd try and slim these down a bit in the process.

They turned out yummier than the original....more moist and a little less cakey. I also made them smaller than the original recipe, which made for a crispier on the outside cookie.

Toddler Note: Dylan had fun helping me make these...especially when we got to add the chocolate chips (which he added to his mouth instead of to the bowl).

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Banana Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Makes a bunch of cookies...maybe 3-4 dozen (I really should have counted)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups mashed very, very ripe organic bananas
1 can of pumpkin
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg (a little less if freshly ground, which I highly recommend)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon salt
1 or 2 big handfuls of chocolate chips

Heat the oven to 350F. Using an electric mixer (I use a hand-held mixer), cream the butter and sugars in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs and beat until well combined. Beat in the vanilla.

Combine the baking soda and mashed bananas in a small bowl and let sit for 2 minutes to froth a bit. The baking soda reacts with the acid in the bananas to give the cookies their lift and rise.

Mix the bananas and pumpkin into the butter mixture, then add the flours, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt and mix on low speed just until combined. The batter will be more like a thick cake batter than traditional cookie dough.

Stir in the raisins, chocolate chips, and/or nuts. Drop the cookies by the teaspoon or tablepsoon-ful onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. If the batter gets too gooey to handle, put it in the freezer for a few minutes to stiffen up. Bake cookies until nicely browned, about 14 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight container or freeze. Unfortunately, once they are stored they soften up and you use the crisp outer edge. They are still good though.

No Bake Cookies--Powerballs

I found this recipe in Wondertime magazine, and it was an improvement over the No Bake Cookies Dylan and I have made before (with a recipe randomly picked from AllRecipes.com.  Dylan loved mixing it together and especially enjoyed helping me make the little balls.  Although, I think his favorite part was eating them.

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Powerballs
Source: Wondertime Magazine, September 2008

These wholesome little snacks are simple to make and rival cookie dough eaten right out of the bowl (not that we'd do that). The easiest way to make them is to comibne all the ingredients in a stand mixer, but the fun way is to push up your kid's sleeves and let her mush it all by hand.

Mix together 1 cup peanut butter and 1 cup honey until smooth.  Gradually add in

3 cups old fashioned oats and 1/2 cup ground flaxseed.  Add 1 cup chocolate chips and 1 cup of any combination of nuts and soft dried fruit (I used cranberries and golden raisins) and gently mix and smush together.  Roll into Ping-Pong-size balls and, for maximum presentation value, put in paper mini muffin cups.  You can eat them right awawy, but they'll be less sticky after a night in the fridge. They freeze well too, layered on wax paper in an airtight container.

I found this recipe on a blog called Farmgirl Fare.  Dylan helped me make them by adding the ingredients after I measure them ( he likes adding flaxseed and wheat germ because he can put in a little handful...that would be the only change we made to the recipe).  Mine came out cakey....almost like banana bread cookies (the picture on the Farmgirl Fare site looks like hers were less puffy).  They were yummy....we made half with chocolate chips and half with raisins.  I personally preferred the chocolate chips. 

Toddler note:  Dylan just carried his cookie around and said "cookie" a lot.  He never took a bite.  Which is probably a good thing *grin*.

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Susan's Yip Yap Organic Banana Snaps
Makes about 30 very large cookies (which freeze beautifully)
You can make these cookies with raisins or chocolate chips and/or nuts or with nothing but the spices. Joe loves the raisin version; I like them with mini chocolate chips the best. As always I urge you to use local and organic ingredients whenever you can.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-1/4 cups mashed very, very ripe organic bananas
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg (a little less if freshly ground, which I highly recommend)
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon salt

Optional additions (I usually split the batter in half and make two kinds):
2 cups raisins or 2 cups chocolate chips (per whole batch)
2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (per whole batch)

Heat the oven to 350F. Using an electric mixer (I use a hand-held mixer), cream the butter and sugars in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs and beat until well combined. Beat in the vanilla.

Combine the baking soda and mashed bananas in a small bowl and let sit for 2 minutes to froth a bit. According to Grandma Capune and Garrett, the baking soda reacts with the acid in the bananas to give the cookies their lift and rise.

Mix the bananas into the butter mixture, then add the flours, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt and mix on low speed just until combined. The batter will be more like a thick cake batter than traditional cookie dough.

Stir in the raisins, chocolate chips, and/or nuts. Use a 1/4-cup scoop or 1/4-cup measure to drop cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet (I put 6 cookies on a half-size commercial baking sheet).If the batter gets too gooey to handle, put it in the freezer for a few minutes to stiffen up. Bake cookies until nicely browned, about 16 to 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight container or freeze. I think they taste even better the next day, after the flavors have had a chance to mellow and mingle.