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Snowball Swirl Cookies Recipe

26 Dec

My sister usually has 1 or 2 new cookie recipes she finds each year, and this is one from this year.  She and my older daughter made these together.   They came together really easily, and have a short ingredient list, which is great for little hands and short attention spans!

Here is how they turned out for us:

Snowball Swirl Cookies

 

Note: I didn’t get this picture taken until after we’d had a few….or maybe a lot!  They were that good.  Reminded me of a shortbread cookie, with white chocolate chips and sprinkles added in.

Original post with recipe here: Snowball Swirl Cookies Recipe | In Katrina’s Kitchen.

What you need:

1 1/2 cups softened butter (3 sticks)
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2-1 cup sprinkles in colors of your choice
How to make it:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Beat butter and sugar with mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add in vanilla, mix well. Add in salt and flour, a little at a time, mixing until well combined. Dough will be thick.
Fold in the chocolate chips and sprinkles.
Using a small cookie scoop, drop cookie dough onto cookie sheets, leaving about 2″ between each cookie.
Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes or until just starting to lightly brown.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking sheets for at least 10 minutes.
Store in airtight containers.

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Adventures in Coconut Macaroons

1 May

I say adventures because for me it has been an adventure making these coconut macaroons!  I had gotten 2 coconuts from Bountiful Baskets, which were a lot of work to prep.  First, I poked a hole in each coconut in one of the eyes to get out the coconut water.  Once each was drained, I then tapped around it with the back of a heavy knife (not the sharp side).  Then, I used a knife to pull the meat away from the shell.  There are a few different methods to do all this, and this article, 8 Ways to Open a Coconut, explains it well with lots of pictures.

Once I got the meat of the coconut, I left the husk  on (lighter brown part) ran each one through my food processor.  I considered hand grating it, but decided the food processor would be fine.  I got it fairly fine like this:

Coconut through the food processor

Then, it sat in the refrigerator a few days until I could get to it again!  When I had time, I got out one container (each coconut yielded approximately 3 cups of grated coconut) and started on a coconut macaroon recipe that was straightforward and easy.  And, the first pan turned out like this:

Mushy coconut macaroonsGooey, stuck to the parchment paper, overly sweet coconut macaroons.  Boo!  It was too runny, probably because of the moisture content of the fresh coconut.  The other half of that batter I put in the fridge overnight.  The next morning, I put it in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, stirred constantly, for about 15 minutes.  That yielded macaroons that looked like this:

Fixed Coconut MacaroonsMuch better structure, but still too sweet, too much sugar. I still had 3 cups of coconut, so it was time for one last attempt.  This time, I started by toasting the coconut in a large skillet on the stove since I didn’t want to heat up my house too  much using the oven.

Toasting coconut on the stoveThen, I made sure to beat the egg whites well, halved the sugar, and this time got a much better result:

Finally, good Coconut Macaroons!

So, here is my final combination of ingredients and methods:

Coconut Macaroons

What you need:

3 cups fresh coconut, or 3 cups unsweetened coconut flakes
3 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (make sure it is gluten-free, if needed)

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

Toast coconut in a large skillet over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, for 15-20 minutes, or until coconut becomes slightly browned.  Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

In a medium bowl, whisk egg whites, sugar, and vanilla extract until frothy.   Stir in coconut until just moistened.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.  Use a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon to drop mixture into small balls onto parchment paper.  Bake in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Gingerbread Cookies for Santa

24 Dec

Gingerbread Cookies for Santa

Every year, this is the cookie we would make and decorate for Santa.  They are a nice, soft cookie, not too spicy, but still a nice gingerbread taste.  The cookies above were decorated with sprinkles before baking, and the other half were baked, then decorated with frosting and sprinkles.  Either way, they are cute and good to eat!  I believe this recipe came from an ad for Mrs. Butterworth syrup in the 1980s, and my mom has the cut out from the magazine with the recipe!

Gingerbread cookies for Santa

What you need:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup
2 cups unsifted flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 F.

In medium bowl cream butter, sugar and syrup. Sift dry ingredients together; blend into creamed mixture. Chill 30 minutes. Roll dough on floured surface to 1/8 inch thickness, cut with cookie cutter. (See photo below).  Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on wire racks. Yield: 2 dozen (5 1/2-inch)

Rolling out the dough and cutting out cookies

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Bountiful Baskets DIY Cookies

17 Feb

 

For a few different holidays, Bountiful Baskets has a DIY cookie pack available as an extra add-on.  This one was for Valentine’s Day, and was $10.  We finally had time and were feeling well enough to do this.  As you can see from the picture above, we got 15 heart-shaped cookies and 4 containers of frosting, 2 white, 1 pink, and 1 red.

Here is what I like best about these cookies, the ingredient list:

Cookie Ingredients: Flour (cake and pastry), butter, sugar, whole eggs, salt, baking powder, vanilla.
Icing Ingredients: Powdered sugar, milk, butter, vanilla, salt, colors.

Simple, and I know and can pronounce what everything is!   I know that I could make these at home, probably a lot cheaper, but I haven’t had time to make much lately and I’m horrible at baking.  My cookies would not have looked nearly as nice or tasted as nice.  So, we get the cookie pack and my 2 girls and I have a blast making a mess.  It’s good quality time!

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Toffee Squares

29 Dec

While I have plenty of old favorites to bake at the holidays, I am always happy to find new ones.  And I think this is definitely a new favorite.  My mom got my sister and me a book from Hallmark this year called Very Merry Cookie Party.  I haven’t had a chance to go through it yet, but my sister did and found this recipe.  I think it will be making it into my yearly baking.

Toffee Squares

What you need:

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
2 cup flour
1 bag milk chocolate chips
1 cup chopped toasted almonds or 1 cup toffee baking bits

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease a 13 x 9 pan.

In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar.  Beat in the egg yolk, vanilla, and salt.  Gradually beat in the flour,  just until mixed.  Pat the dough evenly over the bottom of the pan.

Bake in center of oven until pale gold on top, about 20 minutes.

Remove pan from oven and scatter the chocolate chips evenly over crust.  Return to oven for 1 minute.  Remove pan and spread the chocolate evenly over the crust.  Sprinkle evenly with the almonds or toffee baking bits.

Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack.

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Easy Cookie Cutter Cookies

24 Dec

Yesterday, I had some shopping to do, so my girls stayed with grandma and grandpa (my parents).  Grandma got a roll of Pillsbury Refrigerated Sugar Cookie Dough, sprinkled some flour on their working surface, and rolled it out to make shapes with the cookie cutters.  She baked them according to the package directions, then frosted them with a can of frosting from the store, and added sprinkles.  My 5 year old helped with the sprinkles, she likes sprinkles a lot.

They had a lot of fun doing this together, and it went pretty quick for them.   These will be the cookies we leave out for Santa.

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Andes Peppermint Crunch Chunkies

23 Dec

 

My mom made these with my kids while I did some shopping today, and they are really yummy, so I thought I would share the recipe.  She made these without the coconut and pecans in the original recipe, and I don’t feel like it’s missing it.  I think they are just fine without them, but would still be good additions.

 

Andes Peppermint Crunch Chunkies

What you need:

2 sticks (1/2 Lb.) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup old fashioned rolled oats
1 cup sweetened grated coconut (we left these out)
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped pecans, toasted (we left these out)
1 1/2 cups Andes® Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips

How to make them:

Preheat oven to 300° F.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy (about 3 minutes).  Beat in egg and vanilla extract.  On low speed, add baking soda, salt and then flour. Mix completely.  Stir in oats, coconut, pecans, and Andes® Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips.

Place round balls on lightly greased cookie sheets two inches apart.  Press lightly.  Sprinkle some of the remaining chips on top of each cookie.  Bake for 20 minutes for large cookies or 12-15 mins. for small cookies Do not over bake.

They get crunchy on the outside but remain soft inside. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool.

Makes: 30 – 3″ or 60 – 1 1/2″ cookies.

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Oatmeal Scotchies Cookie Bars

9 Dec

 

 

These cookies are one of my favorites to make, a close tie with good ol’ chocolate chip cookies.  What makes them even better?  The butterscotch chips were on sale recently AND I had a coupon!  I usually make these as bars instead of cookies, mostly because I don’t have the patience to scoop out dough for individual cookies, then bake multiple pans of cookies.  They end up tasting the same.

Oatmeal Scotchies (from the back of the bag of Nestle Butterscotch Chips)

What you need:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or grated peel of 1 orange
3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1 2/3 cups (11-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Butterscotch Flavored Morsels

How to make them:

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake  for 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9 to 10 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

PAN COOKIE VARIATION:
Grease 15 x 10-inch jelly-roll pan. Prepare dough as above. Spread into prepared pan. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes or until light brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Makes 4 dozen bars.

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Persimmon Cookies

20 Nov

I was so excited to get persimmons last week.  Last year, I made cookies with them that were very good, and I wanted to make them again this year.   These cookies are more cake-like, and spiced much like pumpkin cookies.  In fact, my husband thought they were pumpkin.  They are getting eaten, in fact, this picture should have been a full 2 dozen, but as you can see, there are only 18.

First, let’s talk a little about persimmons.   There are 2 varieties common in the US, hachiya and fuyu.  The persimmons I got were fuyu persimmons, which resemble a tomato.  They are ripened when they are orange, and can be eaten raw.  The hachiya can be eaten raw as well, but you have to wait until they are very ripe, or they will be very bitter.  Here are what the fuyu persimmons look like whole, and then I cut them in half each way to show the insides as well.  They are quite interesting on the inside.

To prepare them, you remove the leaves from the top, then remove the peels.  Put them in the blender and puree.  It’s more of a gelatinous puree.

I had 4 persimmons, so I doubled this Persimmon Cookie recipe, but left out the chopped walnuts.  We aren’t big fans of nuts.  They seem to be a big hit in our house again this year!

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