I thought there had been a previous cookie thread but couldn’t find it.
The following recipes are very simple. The third one, the monster cookie, has no gluten, although it does have peanut butter. The m& m’s can be different colored to go with a holiday. The cut out cookies are classics for decorating.
Cut Out Sugar cookies
3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
8 ounces butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp flavoring( vanilla, almond, or lemon extract)
Cream butter and sugar and blend in eggs and flavoring. Stir together dry ingredients and add to sugar mix just until they are absorbed. Chill dough, then roll out on a floured surface and cut into shapes desired. Bake on parchment paper linws pan in a 350 F oven(175 C) Time depends on how thickly they are cut, it won’t be a long bake. The dough can be tinted. If you color it it’s best to use coloring paste rather than liquid. If you ice the cookies and put on sprinkles do the sprinkling right away before the icing dries.
Cut Out Gingerbread Cookies
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
1 egg yolk
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Cream the margarine or butter with the sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and egg yolk. Mix the dry ingredients evenly and stir in the wet mixture. Chill the dough for at least an hour. Heat the oven to 350F(175C). On a lightly floured surface roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut into desired shapes. Place cookies on a lined baking sheet, not really close they will expand a little. Bake 8-10 minutes, until firm. When baked cool on a wire rack if you have one
Monster Cookies
4 eggs
11 ounces brown sugar
9 ounces
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp corn syrup
2-2/3 tsp baking soda
5-1/3 ounces butter
16 ounces peanut butter
19 ounces oatmeal
5-1/2 ounces chocolate chips
5-1/2 ounces M&M’s
Blend together the first nine ingredients. Then mix in the chips and candy. Scoop balls of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350F(175C)
I used this recipe, which was very popular, at the cafe where I baked. I made two sizes, one with a #8 scoop, which is 1/2 cup in volume, and one #30 scoop, which is about 6 teaspoons. The scoops spread out as they are baked so they shouldn’t be too close. This is especially true for the large size. When you scoop it out the big ones should be partly presses down before going in the oven. Bake 12-15 minutes depending on size.
The recipes on this thread are delectable. I enjoy the cheap cookies (Great Value from Walmart and Target) but the homemade ones I get to make are fun too!
Do you have any yummy recipes that don’t have cane sugar in them? The ones I’ve baked are rank.
Ooh, I’ve seen these called Mexican wedding cookies. Only without the cherries.
I love Mexican wedding cookies! Also have never had them with candy cherries, but that is intriguing.
We are down to the last few brown butter pecan cookies at home, which I made on a whim last weekend. I love them. My youngest does not like nuts and cookies, which is why I still have a few left.
Making Christmas cookies is a family tradition. I made them with Mom many years ago. Then I made them with our daughter when she was growing up. When she was about in 3rd or 4th grade, she made drawings of the favorite things she liked to do with her parents: she liked to makes cookies with Mom and fish with Dad. The year before my Dad passed he came over and we made the Christmas cookies together. About 8 years ago my husband & I were dogsitting for Dakota in Chicago the 2nd week of December. Not a lot for us to do there so I decided that we could bake the Christmas cookies together. We’ve done so ever since; however, we always do the cut-out cookies after our daughter arrives as 6 hands help with the rolling, cutting out and particularly the decorating.
Each year I ask my husband, our daughter, our former (as of 7/11) SIL, (and Mom and Dad when they were alive), what cookie they were requesting for Christmas. Here’s what we normally make: Peanut Butter Blossoms (aka PB Kisses), Thumbprint, Russian Tea Cakes (or per Grandma Neisenpfeffers), Anise Cut-out, M&M cookies, Molasses Raspberry. On occasion we’ve also made Millionaire Shortbread, Magic Bars, Crème de Menthe, Not Neiman Marcus, Andes Chocolate Chip, Spiced Chai, Chocolate Crunch Bars, Chocolate Mint Blossoms, Polish Gingerbread, Scotch shortbread (Mom’s favorite), Almond Butter (Dad’s favorite)
My husband’s favorite cookies were the ones his Mom made. She sent the recipes to me in 2006 after MIL & FIL moved to Florida. They are the Neisenpfeffers and Anise Cut-out.
While our daughter and I love anything with chocolate in it, our favorite is Thumbprints.
Will share recipes for favorites in future posts. And am going to add Chefguy’s Orange Nut Crisps to the cookies we make this year.
This is kind of a pain in the butt to make (getting it tidy when you roll it up) but these always disappear. I usually don’t add candy canes, just peppermint extract and I usually add some green food coloring to emphasize they’re mint to newbies https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chocolate-peppermint-pinwheel-cookies-recipe2-1953696
And this recipe is never fail for me. I usually just make a half batch because I use a small disher to make them all the same size and it makes a lot of small ones. They’re basically just your standard chocolate chip cookie recipe with cocoa powder and half peanut butter chips but they are so good Soft and chewy chocolate peanut butter chip cookies recipe
Are the cherries supposed to be wholly enclosed by the ball or are they more like “noses” on the ball?
Completely enclosed. I think they give a nice difference in texture and add a bit of juiciness to what can be a dry cookie.
I almost forgot chrusciki (kroosh-cheeky), or Polish angel wings. These can be a pain to make, as the dough has to be very thin. The cookies are then quickly deep-fried to make them light and airy but not overly brown, then rolled in powdered sugar. The recipe above is just an online example. I found that the only way to get the dough thin enough without a lot of frustration and effort is to run the dough through the pasta attachment for my Kichenaid mixer, using successively smaller appertures.
I also like to make brandied mince tarts (meatless), using candied fruit like lemon and orange and cranberries.
For a lower cost chocolate chip, I actually really like the Great Value ones from Walmart. They are much better than Nestle.
When I was at the baking school we all had to do a class presentation. I did mine on cocoa and chocolate as used in the baking industry. I learned a lot about regulations for what can be called chocolate. One can purchase “chocolate flavored chips” Those are cheaper as a portion of the actual cocoa fat has been removed and replaced with other vegetable fats. And white chocolate is a misnomer as to be called chocolate a product must have cocoa powder in it.
So when purchasing chips be sure to get those labeled as “chocolate” not “flavored”.
Christmas Cut Out Cookies
(my family’s favorite cookie recipe, from the Michigan Gas Company Cookbook, 1950s)
1 cup butter
1 tsp nutmeg
¾ tsp salt
2 cups sugar
2 beaten eggs
3¼ cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ cup milk
Cream butter with nutmeg and salt.
Gradually add the sugar and beaten eggs.
Combine the flour with the baking powder, then add it to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.
Roll dough into several balls, wrap in plastic or cover, and chill.
When cold, roll dough to ¼ inch thickness. Cut cookies with floured cookie cutters.
Bake cookies on a greased cookie sheet (or on parchment paper), at 375°F, for 11 to 15 minutes.
Traditionally, our family would cut a hole at the top of each cookie before baking, for stringing and hanging on the Christmas tree. We would also decorate the cookies with colored icing, sprinkles, colored sugar, etc. However, I prefer these cookies plain and unadorned.
That nutmeg sounds good, I may have to try it. No, not may I WILL try it!
Pardon the snip. My wife makes quite similar ones for me, with a lot of raisins and pecans. I actually asked for a batch as a change from my normal sweet snacks for a long roadtrip (different thread) because I wanted something with actual nutrition, fiber, protein and fat to offset the sugar/carbs and the consequential heartburn and blood sugar issues.
They were so good in fact, that my father (who I was visiting) ended up with half my supply. Which is -good- in that he has a number of health issues but diabetes isn’t one of them. NOT eating enough and losing weight is one of them. So my wife baked a batch to send him this past weekend, but right when we were about to send them he contacted the extended family that he and my step-mother are isolating after a Covid diagnosis. So, I guess we’ll eat them, baked ANOTHER batch in 2 weeks and repackage and send them then.
A legacy of my old low-carbing days is a fondness for almond flour shortbread cookies. They are of COURSE still very high -calorie- but it’s one of the few options that I actually enjoyed more than the flour based versions. Especially if you up the almond flavor with a shot of amaretto or go for a lemony flavor with some lemon zest and extract. Our recipe was similar to this:
Although it works fine with sugar (if you don’t need to watch that), honey, or nearly any sweetener you care to name and balance the acidity/water content for.
Can’t you mail them to him? Or drop them off at his doorstep?
Timeline was thusly.
Sunday Morning: Cookies baked, let cook, sealed and packaged so I could take it to the Postal Annex business (they do UPS, USPS, Fedex and a couple of others) Monday before or after work.
Sunday right before Bed: 2 sentence email from father, he and step-mother have Covid, she’s isolating per doctor’s orders for a week, he (due to more severe health issues) for two weeks. Unclear (2 sentence remember) if they’re isolating together at home, or elsewhere.
Monday: Many emails sent, including offers to come down before/during/after, requests for confirmation, etc. No response. Cookies age.
Tuesday: Back channel with sibling, who they will talk about medical issues with (they’ll bug me to no end about electronic / computer / smartphones though!). He’s waiting to hear back.
Wednesday: Sibling informs me that they’re doing okay, but they weren’t very sharing and seem to just want to stick it out and not be bothered by anything. Point to that, they STILL don’t respond to emails.
Thursday: concerned that now with 3ish days to ship, cookies would be less than ideally fresh, and that’s not a great idea if they’re recovering from major illness, they are reclaimed and the plan to bake a fresh back and ship in the future is related.
FTR: They live in a very nice community that is interposed with Golf courses near the country club. Most deliveries go to a secure box, and it’s iffy to get direct to door deliveries. Not impossible, but you’re taking your chances.
Not that they golf, but they’ve made good money all their lives, and my father wanted access to the Country Club’s full sized pool - he loves to swim but considers a personal pool the height of waste and unneeded effort to maintain.
The monster cookies I posted a recipe for have no flour. They are bound by oatmeal.
Here is another of my favorite winter cookies: Hot Cocoa Cookies. These are like chocolate thumbprint cookies, where there is chocolate and a half a marshmallow in the thumbprint.
Chocolate crinkle cookies. Recipe shared by @JaneDoe42
Ginger Snaps. Recipe courtesy of @silenus
Since we went to the Christmas market, neither of are hungry. Smelled good while baking.
I got out a pair of nitrile gloves for the chocolate crinkle cookies - much better than getting chocolate dough stuck to my palms. Didn’t need gloves for the ginger snaps. Surprisingly not very messy, except for the one that decided to make a run for it. So I lost one to the floor and one was way too small and got a bit overdone. Oops.