Tag Archives: christmas

red velvet cookies

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Today’s cookies are easy cookies.

Because it’s Sunday.

And because I’m baking cookie swap cookies today.

But I can’t post those yet.

And because BF couldn’t shut up about how good these were.

So today’s cookies had to be easy enough that I could make them and not interfere with my other baking.  But still good enough that BF couldn’t keep himself out of the kitchen.

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Inspired by Shannon’s beautiful 1-2-3 cookies.  She was embarrassed by how easy these were, but really, when you’re making a bajillion cookies for people, sometimes you need one really easy cookie.

I know I do, at least.

To make these more festive, you could color your topping green, or put Christmas-themed sprinkles on them.  Or you could make cute little Christmas Cookie Pops (similar to Shannon’s “caramel apples”… but maybe call them “ornaments’ or “holly berries” or something Christmas-y instead).

Oh, and did I mention that we made a cream-cheese-stuffed version?  I didn’t have the patience to freeze my cream cheese so it ended up kinda weaving itself through the cookie, which was actually rather delightful.

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Red Velvet Cookies

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • 1 box red velvet cake mix
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/3 cup + 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • Vanilla candy coating (optional)

If you want to add cream cheese filling

  • 4 ounces cream cheese
  • 1 tablespoon butter, softened
  • 1 3/4 cups powdered sugar
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • tiny pinch salt (super tiny, MAYBE 1/8 teaspoon)

1.  In a large bowl mix cake mix, eggs, and vegetable oil with an electric mixer until smooth.  (It gave my mixer quite a workout).  Oh, and wear your apron unless you always wanted that shirt to have pink polka-dots anyway.

2.  Dump into dough-mound onto plastic wrap.  Wrap and chill 2 hours.

Once chilled, scoop into 1-inch balls and place on parchment-lined baking sheet.*

*Alternatively, you could scoop immediately and then cover with plastic wrap and chill 30 minutes to an hour. 

3.  When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350F degrees for 8 – 10 minutes until baked through.   Let cool on baking sheet.

4.  Drizzle with melted candy coating in a haphazard manner.  Add decorative sprinkles before the coating dries, if desired.

If you want to add the cream cheese… 

1.  Whip cream cheese, vanilla, salt, and powdered sugar until blended.  Cover and freeze until firm, about two hours.

Once frozen, scoop into 1/2 teaspoon-sized balls.

When ready to form your cookies…

1.  Working in batches (so some can stay chilled in the fridge), flatten one of your cookie-dough balls until it is about 2-inches in diameter.

2.  Place cream cheese ball in the middle and pinch dough closed around it.  Roll until smooth and return to refrigerator for 15 minutes.

3.  Bake at 350F degrees for 11 – 13 minutes until done.

You may also like these Pumpkin Dessert Squares which cheat with yellow cake mix 🙂

pumpkin dessert (or breakfast) squares

Peppermint Crack

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peppermint crack 1

This wonderful little concoction is called, simply, “crack”. And, if you sprinkle peppermint on top, it becomes immediately festive “holiday crack” or “peppermint crack” or… something equally addictive but slightly more festive, it doesn’t really matter what you call it.

Sorry it’s too late for Christmas, but I’m sure you can make it for your New Year’s party as well. Or maybe for someone you fought with over the holidays and need to make up with? One bite of this and they won’t be able to stay mad… It’s so simple, and you wouldn’t believe what the actual ingredients are… the flavors, though, my god… salty, crunchy, chewy, sweet…. addictive. I guess that’s why they call it “crack”.

“Crack”

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • 51 saltine crackers (or less, if you want to use the larger matzo crackers)
  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 cup dark brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 12 ounces high quality dark chocolate (70% or greater)
  • 2/3 cup crushed candy canes or peppermints (optional)

 

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a 12 x 17 inch jelly roll pan with foil. Place saltine crackers salt side up and side-by-side in the pan as tightly as possible without overlapping. Use saltine pieces to fill any gaps at the bottom of the pan. Set aside. Chop chocolate so pieces are about the size of standard chocolate chips and set aside.
  2. In a medium saucepan melt butter over medium heat stirring frequently with a spatula. Once butter has melted, add brown sugar and vanilla stirring to combine. Cook for about 5 minutes or until mixture is an even dark brown color and has begun to bubble. Remove from heat and pour over saltines using spatula to spread sauce.
  3. Bake crackers for 5 minutes or until butter mixture begins to bubble. Remove from oven and sprinkle evenly with chocolate allowing the heat to melt the chocolate. Spread chocolate evenly with the spatula so all of the crackers are completely covered. (I had to pop mine back into the oven for a minute to encourage my chocolate to melt)
  4. Let the chocolate cool to the touch, but not harden. Sprinkle crushed candy canes or peppermints (if using) evenly on top and refrigerate until chocolate sets and hardens. Break apart and serve..

 

[ adapted from serious eats ]

home made gifts – pistachio cherry biscotti

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cranberry-pistachio-biscotti

This is “American” biscotti, not as hard and tooth-breaking as their Italian counterparts. The salty pistachio pairs well with the sweet, fruity cherry. You could add whatever mixins you like, but I think they’d still have been great left plain.

Make sure you don’t use the pistachio “kernels” though, their flavor is too overpowering for these. Unfortunately, it’s what I accidentally grabbed at the store so that’s what I used. I had to just imagine how much more delicious they’d have been if I’d used proper pistachios. 🙂

Cherry Pistachio Biscotti

[ Printable Recipe ]

  • ½ cup chopped pistachios
  • ½ cup sweet or sour dried cherries
  • 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) a large (18 x 13-inch) baking sheet.

In a medium bowl, whisk salt, baking powder, salt, and flour. Set aside. In a medium-sized bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, don’t stress if your mixture looks a little curdled. Lower the mixer speed, add the flour, and mix until smooth. The dough will still be soft and sticky. Stir in the pistachios and cherries.

Transfer the dough to the prepared baking sheet, shaping it into a rough log about 14 inches long. It will be about 2 1/2 inches wide and about 3/4 inch thick.

Bake the dough for 25 minutes. Remove it from the oven and let cool until you can handle it (5 minutes, or up to 20 minutes). Lightly but thoroughly spritz the log five minutes before cutting, making sure to cover the sides as well as the top. This will soften the crust a bit to make slicing the biscotti easier. While you wait, reduce the oven to 325°F.

Cut the biscotti into 1/4- to 3/4-inch slices. Without nuts or any add-ins, is easy to slice thin. Once you start adding chips, almonds, raisins, and other chunky ingredients, a 3/4-inch slice is more realistic. When you’re slicing, be sure to cut straight up and down, if you cut at an angle, biscotti may be thicker at the top than the bottom, and they’ll topple over during their second bake.

Set the biscotti upright on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and transfer them to a rack to cool.

snickerdoodle blondies

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snickerdoodle blondie stackDespite snickerdoodles being one of my favorite cookies, I usually only make them for the holiday season. They are just so labor intensive (for me). I’m far too lazy for all the rolling and the sugar-coating… ugh. No thanks.

These blondies differ from traditional snickerdoodles in a number of ways, which make them both easier and more delicious than your usual snickerdoodle. First off, where a normal snickerdoodle is just a sugar cookie rolled in cinnamon sugar, these have the cinnamon flavor throughout the entire base PLUS the cinnamon-sugar coating. Second, they are bars. That means you don’t have to chill, scoop, or roll them. Just smoosh them into a 9×13 pan and you’re good to go.

snickerdoodle blondie

These snickerdoodle blondies have been in my Christmas Cookie care packages the past two years running, but BF complains that I should make them all year long. It’s just not fair that I only break them out for Christmas. So when BF’s cute little niece came over the other weekend requesting snickerdoodles, I took that as an opportunity to break this recipe out. I don’t think Boyfriend ate a single one, poor thing.

You can see by the slightly cakey texture that these ended up with a bit too much flour in them. It’s amazing what a difference just a little extra flour makes, but these things happen when you have a young apprentice in your kitchen. Luckily, the blondies still tasted great – and that’s the important part. So if you worried that adding too much flour would be the end of the world, don’t be. But if you want the more dense blondie texture for your snickerdoodles, be sure to “scoop and sweep” your flour. 🙂

 

 

< — The texture is usually more dense, like this
Pardon the poor picture quality as it was taken during christmas baking with a cell phone… 2  years ago…  🙂

Perhaps I can add new pictures next time I make this recipe (in December…)

 

 

Snickerdoodle Blondies

[ Printable Recipe ]

For Blondies:

  • 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon grated or ground nutmeg
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup butter, room temperature
  • 2 eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For Topping:

  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • a pinch nutmeg
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9×13 inch pan with foil or parchment – this will make cutting and removing your blondies inifinity easier.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt; set aside. In a small bowl, mix the remaining cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg; set aside.
  3. In large bowl, beat together butter and brown sugar for 3-5 minutes. Add in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, and beat until smooth.
  4. Stir in the flour mixture until well blended.
  5. Spread evenly in prepared pan* and sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture over the top of the batter.
  6. Bake 25-30 minutes or until surface springs back when gently pressed. Cool before cutting.

[ Adapted from MBA ]