Chocolate Chip-Pecan Cookie Bars

I realized while I was mentally writing the blog entry for these bars that I had forgotten to tell you all a couple of exciting news items (no, I am not pregnant).

The first exciting-to-me thing is that I defended my senior seminar project (like a thesis) and received Honors on it. Sometimes, as a student, papers can be good or they can be finished, but I was very proud of the effort I put into it and am glad other people were impressed by it as well.

The second thing is that I’m going to be the camp chaplain at an Episcopal camp here in Tennessee this summer! I never was much of a camp person growing up, but I’m really looking forward to it. It will be great experience for me, and everyone I know who is affiliated with this camp cannot say enough good things about it. After the whirlwind of finishing up Divinity School, it will be a welcome change to be caught up in the whirlwind of kids and camp and nature and living on the mountain. And it would be a lie if I didn’t think about how awesome the running and hiking is going to be!

And it’s relevant to these bars, you see, because I made them for my first face-to-face meeting with the camp co-directors. I offered to bring a dessert to our meeting but quickly realized I had no idea what I wanted to make – something low-key and not fussy but not boring either. In retrospect, I should have made my favorite camp-type treat: No-Bakes! These came together faster than cookies and are a more health conscious option than many desserts since they contain whole wheat pastry flour and a mix of butter and oil. Initially, the dough was crumbly, but once I pressed it into the pan, it behaved just fine. The flakes of kosher salt add a lot of delicious salty flavor, balancing the chocolate and nuts. I was tempted to take Food & Wine’s suggestion of adding dried cranberries to the mix but decided that might be overkill. Maybe next time!

Chocolate Chip-Pecan Bars
source: Food & Wine Magazine
Yields 24-32 bars

Ingredients

1 cup pecans
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 tablespoons canola oil
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 350° and line the bottom of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Spread the pecans in a pie plate and toast for about 8 minutes, until golden. Chop the pecans and let cool.
2. In the bowl of a standing electric mixer, beat the butter and oil with the granulated sugar and brown sugar until creamy. Beat in the egg and vanilla until smooth. In a small bowl, whisk the flour with the baking soda and salt; beat the dry ingredients into the mixer at low speed. Add the chocolate chips and pecans; beat just until incorporated.
3. Transfer the dough to the prepared baking pan and press into an even layer. Bake for about 20 minutes, until lightly browned and nearly set in the center. Let cool completely, then run a knife around the edges and invert the rectangle. Peel off the paper and invert onto a cutting board. Cut and serve.

Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies

I hope you all had a lovely New Year’s Eve and start to 2011. I made these cookies to take to a party celebrating Erin’s engagement! Little did she know that it was going to happen until that night. On New Year’s Day, Joe and I had signed up to run the Resolution Run 5K. I needed a race to keep me motivated, even though I knew I probably wouldn’t PR with the staying up late and the drinking more than usual. Add to that drizzle and hills and headwind, and it wasn’t my fastest race, though I’m still pretty happy with how I did. Official chip time: 29:40. My dad ran too, and my mom volunteered. That’s the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in the background!

 

Some of my friends joke about how crazy my family is since we’re always running on holidays when other people are sleeping in or eating big breakfasts or watching parades, but that’s just how we roll! I spent the rest of the day writing my sermon for my ordination exams. Yep, I’m heading back to Texas for the week to take my ordination exams, visit my niece, and attend my friend’s ordination to the priesthood. I’m kind of nervous and scared but also excited because I’ll get to really see how much I’ve learned over the past two and a half years in divinity school.

I’ve been travelling a lot, and once I’m back from this trip, I’m looking forward to being home for a while. I miss hanging with my husband and cats, and I know once I get back that the craziness of my last semester of graduate school is going to start up again. Where did my Christmas break go? I promise once I return that I’ll get back to making real food again and not just desserts!

At least I got some fun baking in. These were the perfect New Year’s treat. The buttery shortbread topped with the peppermint bark was really delicious. I had some problems cutting them, which I think had to do with them being too cold since I chilled it overnight. At room temperature (after chilling to set the chocolate), they’re much softer and easier to cut. This wasn’t too peppermint-y for me, and I actually liked the addition of the peppermints. They look so festive too!

Chocolate Peppermint Bark Cookies
source: Epicurious as seen on Bakin’ and Eggs

Ingredients
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
6 ounces high-quality bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup (about 3 ounces) finely chopped red-and-white striped hard peppermint candies or candy canes
2 ounces high-quality white chocolate (such as Lindt or Perugina)

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13 x 9 inch baking pan with nonstick spray. Line bottom of pan with a long strip of 9-inch-wide parchment paper, leaving an overhang on both short sides of pan.

Whisk flour and salt in medium bowl. Using a hand-held electric mixer or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter in large bowl until creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually beat in sugar and continue beating until mixture is light and fluffy, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla, then egg yolk. Gradually add flour mixture, beating on low speed just to blend.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls into prepared baking pan, spacing evenly. Using moistened fingertips, press dough to form even layer over bottom of pan. Pierce dough all over with fork.

Bake cookie base until light golden brown, slightly puffed and edges begin to come away from sides of pan, about 30 minutes. Place pan on wire rack and immediately sprinkle bittersweet chocolate over. Let stand until chocolate softens, about 3 minutes. Using a small offset spatula, spread chocolate over top of cookie in a thin even layer. Immediately sprinkle chopped peppermint candies over.

Stir white chocolate in a medium metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from water and use a fork to drizzle the white chocolate all over cookies. Chill until white chocolate is set, about 30 minutes.

Grab the paper overhang and lift from pan. Transfer to work surface and using a large knife, cut cookie into irregular pieces.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies

Here is how a typical fall semester ends at the Divinity School: We have our last day of classes in early December, which is the last time that we’re guaranteed of having face time with one another. Then we immediately fall into a panic, writing final papers and studying for exams. We might see our friends in the library and nod hello, but there’s no time to stop and chat. We trade updates on our papers and stress-induced panic on Facebook and Twitter until said papers are due. Then, most people immediately leave town to go home where, inevitably, they collapse on their parents’ couch and watch bad television until sufficiently recuperated.

The problem with this is that there’s no time for decompression, no time to celebrate either the end of the semester or the birth of Christ. So I invited a few girlfriends over when most of us were finished with our semester for a small dinner and cookie exchange for this exact reason. I put on Christmas music, and my friends came over with sweets to munch on and wine to drink. It’s safe to say that we all needed that time to vent, whine, and moan and then to laugh and celebrate the completion of another semester of graduate school.

I made these cookies for our little get-together as well as for a Secret Santa gift. They’re the recipe that Cindy McCain submitted for the First Lady cookie recipe contest that didn’t end up being her recipe (Cookie-Gate!). They’re a touch crispy for my taste, since I like chewier cookies, but they have that great caramel and butterscotch thing going for them. As an addition to a cookie platter, they would be good for people who aren’t that into chocolate, and such people do exist, but otherwise they’re a little meh for my taste.

Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies
As seen on Erin’s Food Files
Yields 3-4 dozen cookies

Ingredients
3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cups butterscotch chips

Preparation
Preheat oven to 375F. Line a baking pan with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Blend in eggs and vanilla until mixture is smooth.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Stir into butter mixture, then mix in the oats and butterscotch chips.

Drop rounded tablespoonfuls (large balls) of cookie down onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between each cookie to allow for spread.

Bake for 10-11 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

The Chewy

The theme of this month has been cookies and singing. This semester I’ve had a few seminar classes with really great people, so what better way to show my appreciation than to bake them cookies? Pumpkin Oatmeal cookies for the worship committee and various people in Bible and Sermon, and chocolate chip cookies go to my fellow Episcopalians in Readings in Anglican Liturgics. Besides, baking is a far more enjoyable way to spend a cold winter afternoon than huddling with a stack of books in a library carrel.

And the singing? Well, any musician knows that this time of year is stellar for cash flow. Between Lessons & Carols and performances of Handel’s Messiah, December is a great month for music. Between First Friday at the Cathedral, community worship at school, and Advent Lessons & Carols, I’ve been asked to sing quite a bit. It’s also a way of letting myself rest and tapping into the more creative side of my brain.

A couple years ago, a variety of recipes for chocolate chip cookies made their way through the blogosphere, and for my Anglican Liturgics friends, I wanted only the best cookie recipe, so I turned to Bridget, who in her delightfully scientific way had done a cookie comparison of all of the different recipes. Though each recipe had its pros and cons, she ultimately recommended Alton Brown’s The Chewy.

I can certainly see why. It’s my ideal chocolate chip cookie with crisp edges and a soft interior. They were particularly addictive fresh out of the oven, and Joe and I may have made some ice cream sandwiches with these cookies. Who are you accusing of stress eating? Joe said that these were the best cookies I’ve ever made. They didn’t seem to be quite as good the next day, but fresh out of the oven, these were nothing short of transcendent.

The Chewy
source: Food Network

Ingredients

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation

Heat oven to 375 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat.Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.

Pour the melted butter in the mixer's work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies

On Saturday, we finally got our tree up and decorated. Weekends in December are a bit hectic. In addition to all of the fun holiday things, I’m also facing school deadlines. Because I’m going to be traveling quite a bit in the latter half of the month, we decided this year to do a fake tree. My parents always get a real tree, but I just wouldn’t be home enough to outweigh the frustrations and mess of a real tree. We won’t discuss how I spent a good portion of last January picking up tree needles by hand. Before we got dressed up for Joe’s department holiday party, we got a quick picture of the family in front of this year’s tree (LED lights!). Let it be noted that I will post unflattering pictures of myself on my blog.

Sunday morning, I woke up to make these cookies. These are the perfect fall-winter bridge cookie. They’re also freaking delicious. Chewy but soft and flavorful, with just the right amount of mix-ins. I love the wintery combination of dried cranberries and white chocolate chips but with the fall spices. It’s everything you could ever want in a cookie.

Seriously, until I made these, my favorite cookies are white chocolate macadamia nut and oatmeal raisin. I love the creaminess of the white chocolate chips and the chewy spiciness of oatmeal raisin cookies. These combine all of that, plus pumpkin. And who doesn’t love pumpkin?

Real or fake tree this year? Or what’s your favorite cookie?

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies
source: Annie’s Eats
Yield 2 1/2-3 dozen

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
¾ tsp. ground ginger
¼ tsp. ground cloves
¼ tsp. grated nutmeg
Dash of allspice
½ tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup pumpkin puree
1½ cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dried cranberries

Preparation

Preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line baking sheets with silicone baking mats or parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, spices and salt.  Whisk to blend.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Blend in the egg and vanilla.  Beat in the pumpkin puree until well incorporated.  With the mixer on low speed, mix in the dry ingredients just until incorporated.  Beat in the oats until combined.  With a rubber spatula, fold in the white chocolate chips and dried cranberries until evenly mixed.

Drop in small scoops (about 1½-2 tablespoons) onto prepared baking sheets, spaced 2-3 inches apart.  Bake 12-14 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly browned, rotating the sheets halfway through baking.  Allow to cool on the sheets about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Store in an airtight container.

Super Snickerdoodles

When I was a kid, my favorite kind of cookie was a snickerdoodle. It's a fun word to say, and the crispy outside belied a chewy middle with a great cinnamon flavor. I also loved Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. As my semester is winding up, I wanted to make something special for my field ed group. We've been together all school year and have gotten to know each other very well and have shared a lot of ourselves and our ministries with one another. Because I saw one guy in my group eating a snickerdoodle one day, I decided snickerdoodles would be the perfect treat.

Kelsey recommended a few recipes that she had made, even listing these Super Snickerdoodles as one of her top 10 recipes of 2009. The texture of these cookies was incredible, but I thought they tasted just a tad too strongly of butter. Not that having a cookie tasting of butter is a bad thing, but I just wanted a slightly more nuanced cookie with perhaps a stronger cinnamon taste. These were gobbled up though, so I don't think anyone else minded!

Super Snickerdoodles
source: Kelsey's Apple a Day

Ingredients
2 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1 c. unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 c. sugar, divided
2 large eggs
4-5 tsp. ground cinnamon

Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

3. Put butter and 1 1/2 c. sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about three minutes. Mix in eggs.

4. Reduce speed to low and gradually incorporate flour mixture.

5. In a small bowl, stir together remaining 1/4 c. sugar and cinnamon to preferred ratio.

6. Shape dough into 1 3/4 in. balls (you should have about 20). Roll in cinnamon sugar and place three inches apart on baking sheets lines with Silpat or parchment paper.

7. Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, twelve to 15 minutes. Let cool on wire racks. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in an airtight container for up to three days.

Peanut Butter Cookies

On Wednesday, my friend L grabbed me after theology and asked me if I would be interested in baking for our field ed group the next day. Another friend and member of our group, J and his wife had just had their first baby, and we wanted to acknowledge and celebrate J's entry into fatherhood. I, of course, jumped at the chance.

Sometimes I over-think baking for people, especially in a group. Is anyone vegan or gluten-free or allergic to nuts? I decided to make these peanut butter cookies and prayed that no one was allergic to nuts and would feel left out. The first time I made these cookies was with my best friend Abby when I visited Bloomington last May. She rightly calls them crack cookies. They are seriously addictive, and I ate 5 (at least they're small) while they were cooling on the rack. Sure enough, the cookies that I brought were quickly devoured, and I was encouraged to bring more baked goods to field ed group should I feel the urge to bake again.

These cookies have a great peanut butter flavor, and I appreciate the addition of chocolate chips. I skipped rolling them in more sugar, since I didn't feel like they needed it. They can be easy to overbake, and I thought they weren't done enough, but when they cooled, they were perfect.

Peanut Butter Cookies
source: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup chocolate chips

For sprinkling: 1 tablespoon sugar, regular or superfine

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Place sprinkling sugar — the remaining tablespoon — on a plate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar, then onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisss-cross pattern, but do not overly flatten cookies. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not.

Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Chewy Chocolate-White Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Apparently being in Bloomington got me on a baking kick, because one of the first things I did when I got home was bake some cookies. Joe had a rough time at work and stuff while I was gone, so these were like an I'm back! present for him as well as clearing out a few things in the pantry. I also wanted to use my pretty pink new cookie scoop.

For some reason, chocolate-white chocolate chip cookies remind of the box lunches from Jason's Deli that we would get for church meetings. While I like regular chocolate chip cookies, I always wanted to trade for a chocolate-white chocolate chip or a white chocolate-macadamia cookie. So this kind of cookie reminds me of delis and turkey sandwiches and church.

I particularly like the strong chocolate flavor set off by the sweetness of the white chocolate. The dense chocolatiness makes the cookies feel like such an indulgence, even though they aren't any moreso than any other cookie.

Chewy Chocolate-White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
source: Confections of a Foodie Bride via Dinner and Dessert

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup dutch-process cocoa*
1/2 cup butter, cubed and room temp
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 cups chopped white chocolate (I used white chocolate chips.)

*Don’t substitute with natural cocoa. The Oreo-like flavor comes from the richer dutch-processed cocoa.

Preparation

Preheat oven to 325 and place oven racks in the upper and lower middle position.

Whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and cocoa, and set aside. Beat the butter on medium-high until light and add sugars, creaming well. Add the vanilla and beat until smooth. Add the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternately with the milk in one batch, mixing well. Chill dough for 15 minutes.

Scoop the dough onto a parchment- or silpat-lined cookie sheet (however you bake your cookies) and bake (see note below). Let the cookies cool completely on the cookie sheet and store in an air-tight container.

Here’s a tip from Shawnda:

Let’s talk about the size of of this cookie. I use a No 12 scoop to drop a well rounded scoop of chilled cookie dough (a little less than 1/2 cup of cookie dough) onto parchment-lined baking sheets and bake for 24 minutes. I get 8 or 9 cookies with a diameter of 6 inches using the No 12 scoop. Perfect if you’re going for the “real bakery” look, perhaps less-than-perfect if it’s just you and 8 of your new chocolatey friends over a weekend. If you scoop a more normal sized cookie, I’d estimate 12-16 minutes in the oven.

I used a normal cookie scoop, which yielded about 2 1/2 dozen cookies (counting the few I dropped on the floor). 16 minutes was about how long it took the cookies to bake.

Peanut Butter Cookies

When confronted by a request to bring something to a Memorial Day picnic-turned-cookout-turned party, Abby almost immediately suggested Smitten Kitchen's Peanut Butter Cookies. She had made them before and she and her friends referred to them as "crack" cookies because of their addictive properties. Peanut butter cookies aren't usually my absolute favorite but I definitely wanted to try them. So we headed off to Kroger for the third time in the three days that I had been there to obtain chunky peanut butter.

Abby was a total pro at forming the cookies and rolling them in sugar, though we skipped the criss-cross step. And they were just as addictive as promised. I loved the textural contrast of the chocolate and peanut butter chips with the smooth, buttery dough. We ate the ones that came out slightly burned on the bottom, and they all vanished by the end of a heated game of Taboo.

Peanut Butter Cookies
source: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup chocolate chips

For sprinkling: 1 tablespoon sugar, regular or superfine

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, the baking soda, the baking powder, and the salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and the peanut butter together until fluffy. Add the sugars and beat until smooth. Add the egg and mix well. Add the milk and the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat thoroughly. Stir in the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Place sprinkling sugar — the remaining tablespoon — on a plate. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls into the sugar, then onto ungreased cookie sheets, leaving several inches between for expansion. Using a fork, lightly indent with a crisss-cross pattern, but do not overly flatten cookies. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Cookies may appear to be underdone, but they are not.

Cool the cookies on the sheets for 1 minute, then remove to a rack to cool completely.

Thick Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

My standard breakfast has become oatmeal with raisins and sliced almonds, so I knew I would love these cookies that popped up on Smitten Kitchen in addition to having all the ingredients in my pantry. While my dad loves oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies, I'm a big fan of oatmeal raisin cookies. I was baking a cake for a bake sale benefiting Second Harvest Nashville, and when it didn't turn out well, I was a little distraught. I knew I barely had time to make something else, let alone run to the store, when I remembered these cookies.

Sure enough, they turned out wonderfully, and I even kept about a dozen for our own personal consumption. You may remember that I made oatmeal raisin cookies before. These are much better. They're crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. There are plenty of raisins too, and the chilling step makes a big difference. I only had them in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, but they turned out beautifully! This will be my go-to recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies from now on. You can also halve the recipe if you don't want so many cookies laying around.

Thick and Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
source: Smitten Kitchen
Yields 4-5 dozen tsp sized cookies

Ingredients
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats
1 1/2 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.

At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them.

The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.

Chewy Coconut Cookies

Since I'm trying to use up some of the ingredients in my pantry, including a random bag of coconut, these coconut cookies were ideal. I'm a big fan of coconut in baked goods, and these cookies were the perfect balance of buttery, chewy, light, and crisp. I neglected to read how big they were supposed to be (1 tsp), so mine ended up quite a bit larger. Chances are that you also have most of these ingredients in your kitchen, so they're perfect for whipping up on a whim. I love how the coconut got a little brown and toasted on the top!

Chewy Coconut Cookies
source: Delicious Meliscious

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C.) Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla until light and fluffy. Gradually blend in the flour mixture, then mix in the coconut. Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Cookies should be about 3 inches apart.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or until lightly toasted. Cool on wire racks.

WC Recipe Exchange: Santa Surprise Cookies

These cookies are intense - basically mini-Snickers baked inside a peanut butter cookie. It's kind of like a deep-fried Oreo; you wonder whoever thought up such a thing, and it might strike you as somewhat disgusting and over-the-top and yet SO GOOD. I was a little worried about the logistics, so I detailed the wrapping of the dough around the Snickers photographically.



I've also added to the recipe to make it a little more clear. The original recipe says to bake them at 300-degrees, but that would've taken hours, so I baked them at 350-degrees, and they turned out perfectly. The dough gets really sticky if it gets warm, so just stick it back in the fridge for a few minutes if it starts to warm up.



Santa Surprise Cookies

source: WC Recipe Exchange



Ingredients

2 sticks butter, softened

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 pkg (13 oz) snickers minatures

Preparation

Combine butter, peanut butter and sugar using mixer on medium until light and fluffy.

Slowly add eggs and vanilla until totally combined. Then mix flour, salt and baking soda.

Cover and chill 2-3 hours

Unwrap snickers – and sneak one for a taste test. (Or not, because I used every single last Snickers!)

Take chilled dough and divide into 1 tbsp. pieces and flatten.

Place snickers in center of flattened dough and form dough into ball around the snickers.

Place on greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. (May take up to 15 min.)

Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then remove to rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

You can also sprinkle with powdered sugar and/or drizzle with chocolate for an added treat.

Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, and Pecan Cookies

I don't normally take things like cookies and cakes and look for healthier recipes. If I'm going to indulge, I'm going to indulge. But when I was flipping through back issues of Cooking Light, I found these cookies and just so happened to have all the ingredients in my pantry. I made some slight changes, recorded below, based on suggestions from the reviews on the Cooking Light website.

As a warning, these are not really drop cookies as the recipe advertised. The dough is pretty dry and crumbly, but it isn't difficult to roll into balls. The cookies came out perfectly with crisp outsides and chewy insides. These would be great cookies to leave out for Santa and his reindeer, especially if Santa (*ahem* Dad) really likes pecans.

Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, and Pecan Cookies
adapted from Cooking Light, December 2007

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup regular oats
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/4 cup chopped pecans, toasted
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour and next 4 ingredients (through salt), stirring with a whisk; set aside.

Place sugars and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add vanilla and egg; beat until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating at low speed just until combined. Stir in pecans and minichips. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until edges of cookies are lightly browned. Cool on pans 2 minutes. Remove cookies from pans; cool on wire racks.

Yield: 3 dozen cookies (My cookies were bigger and made about 2 dozen.)

Peanut Butter Blossoms

If you can possibly believe it, I did not like peanut butter as a child. It was too goopy and stuck to the roof of my mouth and got inbetween my teeth. It wasn't until I went to boarding school and started eating peanut butter on bananas to avoid the awful cafeteria food that I began to like peanut butter.

These are such a classic cookie that it's hard not to like them. I made them after taking half of my finals, and the act of rolling the dough into little balls was so calming and mindless after my brain had been fried. I served these on Saturday night when we had a few people over before going out to dinner.

The recipe states that it makes about 4 dozen cookies, but I only got 3 dozen out, most likely because I rolled them a little larger than recommended. I waited until I had a count to unwrap the Hershey's Kisses, saving me from having some unwrapped kisses with no cookies to go on.

Peanut Butter Blossoms
(source: Hershey's Kitchens)

Ingredients

48 Hershey's Kisses
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
granulated sugar

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375°F. Remove wrappers from chocolates.
2. Beat shortening and peanut butter in large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 cup granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture.
3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet. 4. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.

About 4 dozen cookies.

Chocolate-Glazed Pumpkin Cookies

When I saw the picture of these in Sherri's blog, they looked so fluffy and delicious that I knew I had to try them at some point. They are very cake-like, and the hardened chocolate really takes them over the edge. I'll admit I had a lot of fun swirling the chocolate over the cookies. The spice is very subtle, so you can taste the pumpkin nicely. These also look gorgeous. I currently have them stacked up on a covered cake stand, and they look like I bought them from a bakery!

I used a round tbsp to scoop them out, and the dough yielded 20 cookies.

(If you haven't noticed, I recently discovered the food setting on my point-and-shoot digital camera, so my pictures have gotten SO much better, in my opinion.)

Chocolate-Glazed Pumpkin Cookies
(source: yum.)

Ingredients

2 c. flour
1/2 t. soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. pumpkin puree
4 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

Preparation

Preheat oven to 375.

Whisk dry ingredients together. Set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light. Add egg; beat, until smooth. With mixer on low alternately add flour in two parts and pumpkin in one. Beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Do not overmix.

Bake until puffed and golden- about 15 minutes.

When cookies have cooled, melt chocolate either in microwave at 30 second intervals or over double-boiler. Drizzle over cookies and cool in refrigerator until chocolate is set.

Reference: Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine.

Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Yesterday morning I decided that I didn't want to go to the gym before work, but I needed something to occupy myself...like bake. I always bake with good intentions, that I'll send them to the hospital for the nurses with Joe or pass them out at work, but then I remember that I didn't like when food was forced upon me so I end up keeping them. At least I threw a few bags in the freezer so there's not so much pressure to Eat. Them. Now.

I'd never made oatmeal raisin cookies before, but they're one of my favorite kind of cookie. I mean, you get your whole grains and fruit in cookie form. Plus they're rarely heavy. I decided to go straight to the source, Quaker Oats, for a recipe, and they didn't disappoint.

Before they go into the hot fiery oven:

I've been accused of making my cookies a little on the large side, so I like to give them room to spread out.

Joe was very pleased to come home to some homebaked goodies, and I enjoyed licking the bowl while making these. They're very chewy, like injure-your-jaw-chewy, and the oatmeal features prominently. Next time I might look for a recipe with a higher flour to oat ratio and add in more raisins since the cookies are a little too oaty. I don't know if that would work though since I haven't quite mastered the chemistry of baking.

Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (courtesy of Quaker Oats)

Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional)
3 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked)
1 cup raisins

Directions
1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla; beat well. Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well. Add oats and raisins; mix well.
2. Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. Store tightly covered.