Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Cookies

One of the best things about loving to bake is this: you get a craving for something sweet, rummage through your pantry, and find the supplies to make wonderfully delicious cookies, which are warm and gooey from the oven in about 30 minutes. One of the worst things about loving to bake: you get a craving for something sweet, rummage through your pantry, and find the supplies to make wonderfully delicious cookies, which are warm and gooey from the oven in about 30 minutes. It works both ways, you see. I love being able to whip up something tasty in just a few minutes, but lots of times it's just too easy to do that whenever I get a craving. Which happens a lot. Like a few weeks ago, I decided I really wanted some cookies, so I found this recipe on the Internet. Did I need these cookies? Absolutely not. But I had all the ingredients...so why not?
If you're a fan of cranberries and white chocolate you will love these cookies. Of course, they're much better when they're still warm, but once they're cool, they're nice and chewy. (I love a chewy cookie...crispy ones, not so much.)

Cranbery White Chocolate Chop Cookies

Brown Eyed Baker

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup light brown suagar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat; set aside.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, bakind soda, and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and both sugards together until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and the vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Reduce the mixer speed to low and gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Using a rubber spatula, stir in the oats, the white chocolate chips, and the dried cranberries.

Roll dough into balls - about 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie - and place on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the tops slightly with your fingers. Bake until teh cookies turn slightly golder, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack until completely cool. Store in an airtight container at room temperature.

TWD: Gingered Carrot Cookies

My copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours has a flaw in it. I guess it was a misprint...it's missing about 50 pages from the cookie chapter, but I have a repeat of 50 pages of the brownie chapter. It's been a bit of a pain, but at the same time, kind of exciting because when TWD members choose a recipe from the 50 pages I'm missing, it's a surprise because I've never seen it. When I saw that this week's pick was Gingered Carrot Cookies, I thought it must have been a recipe I was missing. But when I checked, I had this page...somehow, in the 5,000 times I've flipped through this book, I've never noticed these!
When Dorie was developing this recipe, she was trying to make carrot cake in cookie form. She mentions that the carrot flavor doesn't really come through, and I would agree. These cookies are much like a scone...so much in fact that I've thought about trying to make them as scones...maybe this fall. With a cream cheese glaze! Yum. Butanyway, the only downside to these cookies is the fact that they look like the Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster, no?
These delightful little cookies were chosen by Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina, and she'll have the recipe on her blog. Happy Baking!

TWD: Chockablock Cookies

This is another one of those recipes that I've looked at over and over again since I got my copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours. I loved the fact that there are so many mix-ins (and so many suggestions for variations of mix-ins) in the recipe. It was so nice to know that I could make these cookies with pretty much whatever I had on hand!
I used walnuts and dried cherries, and I included the coconut (which I really didn't even notice in the finished product) and the chocolate. I've checked out a few of the other TWDers who've made these cookies this week, and it seems like everyone used different nuts and or/dried fruit, but all of the cookies look amazing. I just LOVE that we're all making the same "recipe," but we're all getting custom cookies!
A few TWDers were afraid of the molasses in the batter. I went for it (because I had the molasses on hand from these), and I thought I might regret it when I tasted the batter. You see, I'm a batter licker. I can't resist it. If there's batter (or dough, for that matter) of any kind, I have a compulsion to eat it. And most of the time, I'd really prefer to eat the batter than the finished product. So I was a little worried when I tasted this batter (okay, maybe taste isn't the word...I ate at least 2 cookies' worth of batter) and it was really molassesy. But I perservered and baked the cookies...and I was pleasantly surprised. The molasses flavor was just right.
These cookies are great for so many reasons. Again, they are fully customizeable. They don't spread. They stay soft and chewy. And they kind of remind me of trail mix! If you're in the mood to make some of these delicious cookies, visit Mary at Popsicles and Sandy Feet. She's responsible for this wonderful pick, and she's got the recipe. Happy Baking!

TWD: Dulce de Leche Duos

I was so excited when I saw these on the March TWD list. Dulce de Leche? Yum! Dulce de Leche in the cookie batter, then sandwiched between two cookies? Be still my caramel-loving heart!
Have you had dulce de leche? I hadn't heard of it or tried it until I got started food blogging. I found a recipe online to make my own (back about a year ago) from sweetened condensed milk. I thought it was pretty good stuff...we had it drizzled over cheesecake. I had planned on making my own again for this recipe, but time got away from me. So I bought a bottle of the premade stuff at Wal-Mart, and it was so much better! It was much darker than mine and had a lot more flavor. I guess my homemade version would have been better if I had cooked it longer, but I was a dulce de leche newbie and didn't know any better. I'll have to experiement and tweak my recipe to see how close I can get to the brand I bought at Wal-Mart.

Anyway, these cookies were really good, but honestly, it was a little too much dulce de leche at once. I think I would prefer either the cookie (which was so moist and delicious) or the dulce de leche, but not together. It was over the top, even for me. But if you like caramel, you should definitely try these. Dulce de leche isn't the same thing as caramel (which is made from sugar)...dulce de leche is made from sweetened milk, but there's a similar flavor. If you're interested in trying these very unique cookies, please go visit Beansy Loves Cake! Jodi has the recipe posted, and you should check out her impressive cake creations! Happy baking!

TWD: Thumbprints for Us Big Guys

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting with any regularity lately. First, we packed up everything we owned. Then, we moved. Then, we didn't have Internet. We finally got the Internet and got settled in, and then my life fell apart. It's been a rough couple of weeks, but things are looking up. I can't promise that I'll be posting every day anytime soon, but I'll try to do better.
I've at least been trying to keep up with Tuesdays with Dorie. While I didn't make the Toasted Coconut Tart last week, I was able to get the Thumbprints for Us Big Guys made just in the nick of time. They were tasty, and I was so thankful that they were a relatively simple fix. The dough came together really easily, and for cookies, they didn't require too much of my attention. For the record...do you know what you get when to put your macadamia nuts in the food processor? You don't get finely ground macadamia nuts. You get macadamia butter. That was my first error. Then, I didn't have enough of the macadamia butter for the recipe. So I got out the nut chopper and chopped up some almonds. Still not enough. So I threw in some walnuts, too. So this dough is "triple nutty", and it was some of the best dough I've ever eaten.

I made the cookies last night and filled them tonight. Of course, David and I ate several of the plain ones last night, and when we compared them to the ones that were filled with blackberry jam tonight, we decided that we really preferred the powdered sugar dusted plain ones better! The jam was just too sweet. But that didn't stop us from eating way too many of them!

Mike, the Ugly Food Dude, picked this week's recipe. Until tonight, I'd never visited his blog, but I'm pretty sure I'll visit regularly now. He's hilarious! It seems that he has some kind of a mini-disaster whenever he bakes. I usually do too, but I just don't talk about it! :) If you'd like to make a batch of Thumbprints for Us Big Guys, visit Mike's blog for the recipe.

Happy baking!

TWD: Honey-Wheat Cookies

These cookies are a perfect illustration of one of the reasons that I love being a part of the Tuesdays With Dorie group. If they hadn't been "assigned" to me for this week, I would have never made them, and that would have been a shame. I may have a new "almost-favorite" cookie!
I never would have thought that I'd make a cookie that contained wheat germ. Heck, I didn't know what one would do with a jar of wheat germ! But I bought a jar, and I'm glad I did! (And I did buy the "honey crunch" flavor, because I thought it just sounded tasty!) These cookies are so simple...some of the ingredients include wheat germ, lemon zest, and honey. I loved the flavor of these cookies. They were sweet from the honey, but I loved the slight lemon flavor. They taste like something I've had before, but I can't put my finger on it.

As I was rolling these cookies out, dredging them in the wheat germ, and pressing them into rounds, I found myself thinking about my grandfather, Grandydaddy. He owned and worked a cattle farm that I grew up on. He was on the farm every single day, and I loved to go "help" him, especially when I was little. He had a barn full of cats, and I loved to try to catch them! The farm was the one he grew up on, and "The Ol' Homeplace" is still there. It was his parents' house (my great-grandparents), but now it's in a state of disrepair. Anyway, he had a refrigerator in the house that held two things: Pepsis and Zagnut candy bars. I remember loving to stop by that house for a can of Pepsi and a Zagnut with Grandydaddy. And the whole time I was rolling, dredging, and pressing, I remembered eating those Zagnuts with Grandydaddy. He passed away about 10 years ago, and guess it's been even longer than that since I've had a Zagnut. These cookies didn't taste anything like a Zagnut, but I was so glad to have those memories while I baked!

If you're interested in these tasty little cookies, visit Flourchild's blog. It looks like she had a ton of fun baking these cookies with her daughters, so I guess Honey-Wheat Cookies will hold lots of memories for her, too! Please, don't let the wheat-germ freak you out or turn you away from these cookies. If it hadn't been for TWD, I'd have never made them, but I'm so glad I did! Yum!

TWD: My Best Chocolate Chip Cookies

I have a confession to make. (It seems like I do that a lot around here...) Anyway, I don't like to bake cookies. I like to bake cakes, pies, tarts, but not cookies. You know why? Because you constantly have to tend to them and watch them. I like to mix up one big batch of stuff, stick it in the oven, then come back about 45 minutes later to some kind of delicious confection. But cookies? There's scooping, baking, removing to a cooling rack, letting the cookie sheets cool, etc. On and on until you finish the batch. And there's another thing about cookies. One cookie isn't a satisfying snack. I need to eat three or four to feel like I've had something. But one piece of cake or pie is satisfying! Anyone agree with me?
Another problem I have with cookies is that I haven't perfected a cooking method. I like chewy cookies, but I always let mine cook until they're crispy. And I'd rather have no cookie than a crispy cookie. And my cookies always spread out and get really flat. What's with that?
Anyway, Dorie's cookies solved at least one of my problems!

Even though I let the first batch cook a little long, they were still chewy after they'd cooled! And the next day, they were still chewy too! Thank you, Dorie, for a chewy chocolate chip cookie! These did still spread an awful lot, but I can take a thin, chewy cookie. These cookies had a great chocolate chip flavor...they were better than the Tollhouse recipe, which is the only chocolate chip cookie I've tried. They were very well received at the Super Bowl Party (everyone loves chocolate chip cookies!), and David and I snacked on them for a couple of days afterward. These will definitely be my chocolate chip cookie recipe from now on! Kait, of Kait's Plate, picked these cookies. If you'd like the recipe, head on over to her website.

TWD: Sables

Every Christmas, David and I look forward to those blue tins of Royal Dansk butter cookies. It seems like someone always has one of those tins, and he and I love them! I always go for the pretzel-shaped ones with the sugar crystals on them, but they all taste the same. When I pulled these cookies out of the oven, David said, "They look like those Christmas cookies in the blue tin!" And they do. Only they taste even better!
Bungalow Barbara chose this week's TWD recipe...Sables! They're sandy, buttery shortbread cookies, and they're delicious! This week's recipe can be found on Barbara's blog, or in Baking: From My Home to Yours on pages 131-133. Dorie offers several variations on the basic sable recipe, and I chose to make the spice sables, since we're so close to the holidays. They're full of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg...some of my favorite flavors!

It's important to have a light hand when mixing the dough, so that you can keep the sandy, tender texture that's characteristic of sables. I tend to have a heavy hand when mixing, so I purposely tried to work the dough less. And this time, I think maybe I didn't work the dough enough, because some of my cookies fell apart. But they still tasted great! Isn't the sugar on the outside pretty? Some of the TWDers rolled their cookies in pretty sanding sugar, but I just used regular ol' turbinado sugar. Still a very pretty effect!

These cookies would be perfect if you're going to a cookie exchange, or if you plan to give some food gifts to friends and family. Visit Bungalow Barbara for the recipe, variations, and a couple of tips on how to get perfectly round logs of dough. Happy baking!

TWD: Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies

All this month, the TWDers are baking out of sequence. This week, I chose the Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies...mostly because I thought they'd be easy to throw together. And it didn't hurt that over the past couple of weeks, I've seen other bakers who've made these, and they look delicious! As you can imagine, molasses is a main ingredient in these cookies. Molasses isn't something I particularly enjoy, but I remember my grandfather eating molasses on biscuits pretty regularly. And I think my little sister likes molasses, too. But around here, we call it sorghum. As in, sorghum molasses. I don't know if I had sorghum molasses, but I know it was store-bought, so probably not. If you know what sorghum molassses is, and if it's any different from the molasses you buy at the store, please let me know!
Anyway, let's get to baking. This is the picture of all my dry ingredients. I love pictures of flour topped with spices. Here, we've got ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and...black pepper.
After mixing together the dough, you leave it in the fridge for about 30 minutes, because it's so darn sticky. After a quick chill, you pinch of little dabs of dough, roll into balls, then roll in sugar. After they've been placed on the silicone-mat lined baking sheet, you press them with the bottom of a drinking glass so that they're sugar-coated discs of goodness. Aren't they pretty?

When they come out of the oven after baking for 12-14 minutes, they're supposed to pretty much look the same...only darker and crinkly/cracked on the top. Except I didn't pay attention to the baking directions and put 12 on the cookie sheet instead of 9. So they spread like crazy and I got a few fairly good looking square cookies:

But most of them got mangled as I tried to wrestle them apart, so they looked like this:

No, they're not pretty, but they are delicious! These are simple little cookies to make, but I think they've got a sophisticated taste. They're "grown up" cookies, but I think little ones would like them, too. These are cookies that you could be proud to serve to company...which is a good thing, because I've got a disc of dough frozen in the fridge. If you stop by sometime soon, let's have some of Dorie's Sugar-Topped Molasses Spice Cookies!

Next week, you should be able to find the recipe on Pamela's blog, Cookies with Boys. She's the baker responsible for these delightful little morsels! Thanks, Pamela!

Chocolate Reese's Pieces Cookies

Happy Halloween! We really don't get any trick-or-treater's where we live (unfortunately), but every once in awhile, a couple of our friends will stop by with their little girl, if they happen to be in the area on Halloween. I like to have a little something ready for her, just in case. I can't imagine what would be worse than stopping by a house for trick-or-treating, only to find that there was nothing there! Last Sunday, I bought a big ol' gummy spider for her, in case she stopped by. But the more I looked at it, the more I thought it might terrify a 3-year old. It gave me the perfect excuse to make cookies. Four dozen of them, in fact. I wanted something that was a bit "Halloween-y", but not too labor intensive. I visited The Sisters' Cafe to see what they'd been up to, and I found this recipe, which I changed up a teensy bit.
The original recipe from The Sisters' Cafe called for Reese's peanut butter chips, but I had mini-Reese's Pieces. Earl and Shirley were cleaning out their pantry and brought me a bag of mini-M&Ms and this bag of mini-Reese's pieces. David and I ate the bag of mini-M&Ms, but I decided to save these for something special. And today I decided they would make the perfect "Halloween-y" cookies! These cookies are wonderful! I have a horrible habit of overbaking cookies. I like a chewy cookie, but when I take cookies out of the oven at the point where they'll be chewy when cool, I convince myself that they're not fully baked. Then I end up with hard, crunchy cookies. Today, I resisted temptation and pulled the cookies from the oven at 9 minutes. They seemed raw, but once they cooled, they were perfectly chewy!
It's almost 9pm, and I'm pretty sure that official trick-or-treating hours are over. We didn't have a single spook, ghost, or goblin show up, so now I've got about 3 1/2 dozen yummy cookies in my kitchen begging to be eaten. Help!

Chocolate Reese's Pieces Cookies

The Sisters' Cafe

2 cups flour

3/4 cups cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/4 cup butter, softened (I used 1 cup)

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups (10oz. bag) of Reese's peanut butter chips (or mini-Reese's Pieces)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together dry ingredients and set aside. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Gradually add flour mixture, beating well. Stir in peanut butter chips or Reese's Pieces. Drop by rounded tablespoons onto ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8 to 9 minutes. Cookies will puff up during baking, but will flatten when cooled. Do not overbake! Cool slightly and remove to wire rack.

TWD: Cottage Cheese Pufflets

Yuck. Sorry...that's it. I was so disappointed in these things. They were a pain in my rear from the time I started, and by the time I was done, I was cranky.
Cottage cheese has its place, but it does not belong in dough. This has got to be the stickiest, most stubborn, temperamental dough ever in the history of the world. It seemed like I had it out of the fridge for a minute and a half, and it was goopy and sticking to everything. I let it chill overnight before I started working with it. Then I rolled it with about 4 passes of the rolling pin, then chilled it (repeat about 6 times). I cut my rounds with the cookie cutters, then chilled them. Then I filled them and chilled them. Finally, by the time I got the first batch in the oven, I had used up my patience quotient for the day (and those of you who really know me know that I don't have much to begin with). I had high hopes. I filled some with PB and Nutella (due to my recent addiction to the stuff) and others were filled with strawberry jam. I baked them just like Dorie said, and I dusted them with powdered sugar and let them cool. And they weren't good.
This was one of the PB/Nutella ones. Look at that stupid "pufflet". There's no puff involved, really. It's just a cottage-cheesy flop. These won't be on my "to-make" list ever again. I sure hope some of the other TWDers enjoyed them, but I didn't. Ugh. For the record, though, this is the first time I've been disappointed with a TWD recipe. And oh my goodness...I have high hopes for next week. Chocolate? Check. Caramel? Check. Honey roasted peanuts? Check. I'm gonna have to get some bigger pants.
Anyway, if you're feelin' froggy this week and have some cottage cheese you want to make cookies out of, head on over to Daisy Lane Cupcakes for the recipe. I hope Jacque had better luck and more patience than me!

Thrifty Thursday: Homemade Take 'n Bake Cookies

Next week is Bible School, and of course, we've got to feed the kiddos. I volunteered to provide the snack for three nights of the week. (Our Bible School is small...we're expecting about 50 mouths to feed...that includes the kids and the volunteers.) I needed something I could make ahead and that would make a large quantity, and that could be cooked quickly. This was one of the options I came up with...chocolate chip cookies.

I won't have time to actually bake the cookies before Bible School, because of my crazy work schedule, but I decided that homemade "Take 'n Bake" cookies would work well. Tonight, I made almost 5 dozen cookies, and they're now in David's grandmother's upright freezer, flash-freezing.

That way, they'll all freeze individually, then I can just pop them in a big Ziplock bag and they won't stick together. Devona (the Bible School Snack Czar) can pull them out, stick them on a cookie sheet, and bake them while the kiddos are in class. Then, right before they leave, they can have a warm chocolate chip cookie! I don't buy the "real" Take 'n Bake cookies, because I just like to bake, but I know they're pretty pricey. I think they're about $3.50 for a dozen. I bet I made all 5 dozen of my cookies for that price. Pretty thrifty! I think this is a great idea for a quick dessert to have on hand in your freezer...you know, for those times when you have company stop by unexpectedly, or even more importantly, when you have an attack of the sweet tooth! I've thought many times that I need to make several batches of Dorie's pie crust, just to keep in the freezer. I haven't done it yet, but it's on my to-do list!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy Independence Day, ya'll! I hope your day has been full of family, friends, food, and fun. Here in Kentucky, it's been raining pretty much all day, but that hasn't stopped the fireworks or the barbeques! David and I went over to my sister and brother-in-law's house to hang out with them for awhile. We had a great time...hotdogs, baked beans, scalloped potatoes, and ice cream for dinner/dessert, games, and fireworks. Earlier this week, I wanted to make something a little patriotic to celebrate today, but it didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped.
These were supposed to be red, white, and blue cookies. They're sugar cookies with dried cherries, blueberries, and white chocolate chips. Except the cherries looked just like blueberries...really dark blue. And the white chocolate chips didn't really show up that well. But they sure were good! I started the recipe with this sugar cookie recipe that I found at Joy the Baker's website. Then I just added in the goodies until the proportions looked right.

Vanilla Sugar Cookies with Blueberries, Cherries, and White Chocolate Chips

adapted from a recipe by The Pastry Queen

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup vegetable oil, such as canola or sunflower oil

1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus additional for sugaring tops

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract, or the seeds of 1 vanilla bean

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 oz. dried blueberries

6 oz. dried cherries

4-6 oz. white chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper, or foil, or grease generously with butter or cooking spray.

Using a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter in a large bowl on medium speed for about 1 minute. Add the vegetable oil. It may not fully incorporate with the butter, but that’s ok. Add the granulated sugar, powdered sugar, egg and vanilla, beating on medium speed until each ingredient is completely incorporated.

Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt all at once using a wooden spoon or the mixer set on low. Add the blueberries, cherries, and white chocolate chips. Mix just until incorporated. The dough will be soft.

Refrigerate the dough for 1 hour or freeze for 15 minutes just so it’s easier to handle.

For large cookies, dollop 2 Tablespoons of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. For smaller cookies use 1 Tablespoon for each cookie. Press the dough evenly with your fingers or palm to 1/4-inch thickness. Generously sprinkle sugar on top of the cookie dough.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes for larger cookies or 8 to 10 minutes for smaller cookies. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before transferring to racks to cool completely. The cookies will keep for up to 3 days if stored in an airtight container.