Molasses Crinkles

One of the perks of teaching piano is that when Christmas rolls around, some of your students will bestow you with gifts!  Some bring cards or candles, and other times they give something they made themselves!  One of my absolute favorite, most talented students (and her mom) baked me some cookies last year.  They were delivered in a tall, pretty cellophane bag with a satin green bow and oh MY were they delicious!  Mr. D literally spent the entire week sneaking them out of my stash when he thought I wasn't looking, and so I thought, I need to MAKE a batch of these!

Molasses Crinkle Cookies

The student's mom (thank you so MUCH Mercedes) was kind enough to give me her family recipe and allowed me to also share it with all of you!  This cookie is easy to whip up, bakes into perfect sugary circles, is great for Christmas goodie trays, sharing with friends (and teachers), and has all the flavors of the holiday season baked in.  The molasses must be the secret ingredient to make these cookies have that perfect chewy factor while keeping the light crisp edges everyone loves.  This coupled with just the right amount of spices, and you've got yourself a new go-to holiday cookie!   Here are the ingredients you will need: (full printable recipe at the end of the post)


Molasses Crinkles

3/4 cup soft shortening
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg 
1/4 cup molasses
2-1/4 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger


Put the shortening and brown sugar into your mixing bowl and cream together

I doubled this recipe, these will go fast, I highly recommend making bigger batches

Add in one egg

then add in the molasses

Make sure everything is creamed together nicely

Next it says to sift the dry ingredients together, however I just added them one by one (I'm such a rebel).  Add the 2 1/4 cup of flour, 2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp of cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp of ginger, and1/4 tsp of salt.

Spices... they are the spice of life. (deep thoughts)

Make sure everything is mixed thoroughly

Chill the dough

Once the dough is chilled to firm, roll into walnut sized balls and roll in granulated sugar

Place on a silpat mat covered baking sheet

Silpats rock!  If you don't have any it's not to late to ask Santa to bring you some for Christmas

Bake at 375º for 10-12 minutes until soft set

By the time you pull the first pan out of the oven, your whole house will smell like holiday heaven!  The granulated sugar you rolled the chilled dough in bakes up into a shiny, shimmery topping.  So pretty!  I love the "crinkled" look the tops get, and I also love that each cookie is the same size and perfect round shape.

This makes them easy to stack high into a towering treat you can give away

 

Or, you know... eat warm off the tray with a cold tall glass of milk.  

No judging people, once you taste these cookies you will be hooked!  

This, by the way is a great way to use up extra molasses you might have around after some of your other holiday baking.  Come to think of it, the last day of school is only two days away.  While I had every intention of making all of my girls' teachers homemade ice cream like we did last year, I think I have run out of time.  I'll probably be baking a couple batches of these tonight and wrapping them up pretty for school on Friday. 

Go ahead and try these cookies and let me know what you think!  Full printable recipe found here.  Enjoy. 

Halloween Cookies

It was conferences this week at school.  That means the girls had half days, (more like super short 2.5 hour days) and we had some extra time on our hands in the afternoons to have a little fun.  We came across these Halloween inspired chocolate chips at the grocery store, and thought we could do something creative with them.  We succeeded!

Ooo spooky fun PURPLE cookies!

We had only just started whipping up our regular cookie recipe: the Nestle Toll House one on the back of the bag (with 2 small alterations which I will share in a moment), when my oldest suggested we dye the cookie dough orange or purple.  We went with purple!  I, myself, who has loved making rice krispie treats all the colors of the rainbow from my teenage years on up, had never once in my whole life, ever thought to dye chocolate chip cookie dough.  

...And a child shall lead them...  Genius!  

Nothing more perfect to bring out the orange and black colors in the chocolate chips than amping them up with that other fun Halloween color of purple!  Here are the chips.  We found them in the baking aisle or sometimes they will have a holiday baking section in the grocery store.  The orange colored chips are actually orange flavored, and the others are the regular semi-sweet.

The orange chips add a nice flavor to the cookie!

Then we mixed our dough.  We only happened to have the neon food colors, so I was not sure how that would turn out... but shazam, the dough did indeed turn purple!  By the way my two secret "enhancements" to the Toll House recipe (in making a double batch) are as follows:  Add 1/2 cup extra flour, and 1 tsp extra vanilla

Ooo purple-y dough!

Then we plopped them on the cookie sheet as normal.  Oh I guess I do one MORE thing different in the cooking department as well.  When I use these sturdy half sheets pans with the handy dandy silpat mats (love them!!), I will bake these at 350º for 13 minutes exactly.  The original recipe calls for 375º for 10 minutes but I was tired of brown edges and soft centers. 

With the lower temp of 350º and the slightly longer bake time and they came out perfect for us.

Mmmm cookies

After that all you need is a nice cool glass of milk and a stack of your purple spooky treats to enjoy.

 
The neon color dye made this a light purple shade.  I'd love to try it again with a few drops of regular red and blue to attempt a darker shade.

 
It sort of reminded me of the back of a sting ray creeping through the ocean...

 
See what I mean?  I don't know if you've ever seen a sting ray before up close, but they are huge, glide-y... almost alien-esque.  Some of these above are as big as dinner tables, and although we were told they were friendly and snugly like "big cats"... All I could think about were they were over-sized wasps with killer tails.  Did I mention I kissed one?? I was told it was 7 years of good luck if you do.

Hubby and me kissin' sting rays in Grand Cayman Island

Sure.. I look "happy" in this picture... but would you believe I'm terrified!?  Standing chest deep on a sandbar with ocean currents knocking you over and your last known instructions were "do NOT STEP ON OR SWIM OVER A STING RAY"... careening through your head... Right after this pic I high-tailed it back to the boat, having to navigate past 12 other huge stings rays just to make it back safely.  Why did I go off on this crazy sting ray tangent just now?  Because sting rays scare the crap out of me, and purple chocolate chip cookies oddly now remind me of them. Especially Halloween themed cookies, which should be scary too!

All in all it was a fun way to slightly change up a regular cookie baking afternoon with some newfangled chips and some revolutionary fun cookie dough colors.  I have to thank my 8 year old for the inspiration.

Reindeer Cookies

I was perusing Pinterest yesterday and came across the cutest little cookie idea. I knew the girls would just love to try it, so we off and braved the long lines and "crazies" at the store just to pick up a few odds and ends to make these adorable cookies.  What could be more festive on a holiday tray of goodies I ask you, but Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer himself?

Cute lil' Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer cookie

I got the idea from the ladies home journal, which includes their own peanut butter cookie recipe.  I just used our regular family peanut butter cookie recipe and added the reindeer details.  By the way, if there is a nut allergy you do not have to make peanut butter, but I would guess plain chocolate chip cookie dough (minus the chips) would work just fine too.

We used 1 inch dough baller to make these, the first ones were a bit too big  so we made them slightly smaller after that

The trick to making these reindeer faces is to have all the ingredients ready before the hot pan of cookies comes out of the oven.  You need to place the eyes, red nose, and antlers while the cookie is still hot and pliable.  We made three little bowls of:

Red Peanut butter MnM's (because they were larger and round)
Pretzels broken into 1 inch "antlers"
Chocolate chips for the eyes

The antlers were fun to make, sort of free form as you brake larger twist pretzels apart

Once the cookies have baked for 10-12 minutes pull them out of the oven hot and place the horns down at an angle but almost flat against the cookie so they will stay.  Be sure not to push all the way through the back of the cookie.  Quickly place the chocolate chip eyes with the points down and push down as you add the red nose.

You have to work quickly here and if little hands are helping you make sure they do not touch the hot pan

Soon you will have a whole pan full of cute little faces staring up at you.

The antlers will surprisingly stay if you put them in before the cookie cools

I let these guys cool completely on the pan because I was afraid to move them.  Turns out the eyes, nose, and antlers did stay put if they were put in when the cookie was still hot and allowed to completely cool before moving them to a cooling rack.  After that I transferred them to a cookie carrier and I was extra careful on how I stacked them, making sure the antlers of the reindeer below was not crushed by the reindeer above.   A double batch of our regular peanut butter cookie recipe yielded 50 of these guys.

How cute are these faces? 

This is our first attempt at making these reindeer cookies and let me tell you, they were a big hit!  The girls took turns, each getting to do faces for one hot pan of cookies.  I can't wait to see our cousins and Grandma's face on Christmas day when they see our brand new fun creations.

Rudolph with your nose so bright... won't you guide my sleigh tonight...

Anyway, just thought I'd show you a last minute, late additions to our normal holiday treats.  I believe this will be a new tradition for us.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone.  :)

Coconut Macaroons

Well in the midst of all of that Thanksgiving cheer, my hubby Mr. D had a birthday.  His most favorite flavors trend towards the tropical, so on his actual birthday I tried to spoil him with some chewy, sweet, coconut macaroons. 

If you are a fan of coconut, you will be a big fan of these coconut macaroons

I've tested a few recipes over the years but surprisingly, the easiest one turns out to be the best!  Not only that but it has very few ingredients. It doesn't even have flour (if you have a gluten concern).  You can thank my "friend" Ina Garten, (who as you might remember doubles as my imaginary neighbor in my dream world) for this recipe.  Preheat your oven to 325º and you will need:

1 bag (14 oz) sweetened coconut
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 extra large egg whites (room temperature)
1/4 teaspoon salt

In a mixing bowl, put the sweetened coconut flakes, the condensed milk, and the vanilla.

So few ingredients, but such a delicious cookie

She says to use the egg whites of 2 extra large eggs.  They must have very large hens over there in the Hamptons because my eggs were on the medium to small side, so I did three medium egg whites.  After separating the room temperature eggs, put them in the Kitchenaid mixer or with a hand mixer, add the salt, and start to blend.

Eggs, the greatest cooking invention ever

Whip on high for a few minutes and these will start to get white and fluffy.

getting fluffy

The whisk attachment is perfect for this, and you want to get this to "medium stiff peaks".  I was so excited when this puffed up pretty big and I then totally forgot to take a picture of the peaks.  The next step is to "fold" aka stir the fluffy egg mixture slowly into the heavier coconut/condensed milk mixture until they are combined.

Then, to be all food networky, I got my baking sheet, my silpat mat, and my pampered chef scoop and made perfect little scoops of dough onto the tray.  I'm sure wherever Ina Garten was in the world, she paused for a just moment and nodded her head in loving approval.

No-stick silpat mats are great for this type of cookie

Bake in the 325º oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden around the edges and the tops are slightly browned.

hot macaroons, right from the oven

Cool on a wire rack and serve!  This recipe made me about 30 ball sized macaroons.  

The hubby was so surprised when he came home.  The texture is very thick and chewy.

like a big ol' sweet lump of coconut

The condensed milk, (or is it the egg whites?), make this almost carmelized crispy edge that is my favorite part.  I would actually just go and eat the edges off of all the cookies on the plate if I was allowed.  This makes me believe I should probably try that other kind of macaron (the French kind) soon.  They are made with egg whites, almond flour, and are pretentious and tricky so that would be a great goal for a blog in the future.

coconut macaroons!

These go great still warm with a tall glass of milk or for another idea after they are cool, dip the bottom of the cookies in a bit of melted chocolate and let them harden up on some wax paper. These would be great for parties, gifts for neighbors or teachers, child care providers or even cookie exchanges.  I went above and beyond just these cookies and ended up making him homemade coconut ice cream with a pineapple syrup to pour over the top... AND I even toasted up some sweet coconut to sprinkle over the top.  I'll share those recipes soon!  By the way, Ina Garten's original printable recipe can be found here.