Iced Hermits

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE COOKIES
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for baking sheet
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Pinch of ground cloves
1 1/4 cups packed dark-brown sugar
2 eggs
1/4 cup unsulfured molasses
1 cup chopped candied ginger, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
3/4 cup raisins

FOR THE ICING
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons whole milk, plus more if needed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup sifted confectioner’s sugar, plus more if needed

DIRECTIONS

1. Make bars: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-by-15-inch rimmed baking sheet. Line bottom with parchment paper, and butter parchment; set aside. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, pepper, and cloves in a medium bowl; set aside.
2. Put butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on medium speed until smooth. Add brown sugars; mix until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg and yolk, and molasses. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture. Mix in 1/2 cup candied ginger and the raisins.
   Spread dough evenly onto prepared baking sheet. Bake, rotating sheet halfway through, until firm, 18 to 22 minutes. Let cool completely in baking sheet on a wire rack.
3. Make icing: Put brown sugar, milk, and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, until butter has melted and sugar has dissolved. Remove from heat; whisk in vanilla and confectioners sugar. If icing is too thick to drizzle, stir in more milk, a teaspoon at a time. If icing is too thin, stir in more confectioners sugar, a teaspoon at a time. Let cool slightly.
4. Drizzle bars with icing; sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup candied ginger. Let stand until icing has set, about 15 minutes. Cut into 2-inch squares. Bars can be stored in single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 5 days.

NOTE: These bars are a bit on the dry side. I added 1/4 c milk to keep them moist. With the milk, they will not store as long as they would otherwise.

NOTE2: DO NOT double the spices in this recipe. They already have an “Indian” level of spice. You’ve been warned. ^^

NOTE3: These are really delicious, amazing cookies.

NOTE4: The icing tastes a lot like New Orleans pralines. Yum yum.

Chocolate Rye Cookies

Chocolate Rye Cookies

Makes: 24 cookies
Takes: 10 minutes
Bakes: 13 minutes

100g unsalted butter
100g brown sugar
75g white sugar
1 large egg
175g rye flour (Hodgson’s)
150g chocolate chips (Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips)
100g chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 tsp salt (Kosher)

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Cream butter and sugars in kitchenaid.
3. Add egg. Mix.
4. Add flour and salt. Mix.
5. Add chocolate and nuts. Mix.
6. Use 1.5 in cookie scoop to make balls. Place on cookie sheet lined with silpat. I got a dozen cookies on the cookie sheet.
7. Bake for 13 minutes, the sides of the cookie will be brown, the tops lightly golden, but they will NOT looked cooked. These cookies do NOT spread. When you take them out of the oven, they will look EXACTLY the way they did (shape-wise) as when you put them in. All in all, these are very ugly cookies. But, they taste great!
8. Right out of the oven, let the cookies rest on the silpat for a minute. Then just pick up the silpat and set it on a cooling rack to cool all the rest of the way.
9. For the second batch, I use a second silpat.
10. Enjoy with a tall glass of milk!

NOTE: Using a kitchen scale, this is a one bowl recipe. Yay, no clean up! 🙂

Surprise Cookies

Martha Stewart Recipe

COOKIE INGREDIENTS:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 12 large marshmallows, cut in half horizontally

COOKIE DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add egg, milk, and vanilla, and beat until well combined. Add reserved flour mixture; mix on low speed until combined.

3. Using a tablespoon or 1 3/4-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto ungreased baking sheets, about 2 inches apart. (12 fit on a full sized sheet pan; the cookies don’t spread much). Bake until cookies begin to spread and become firm, 9 minutes.

4. Remove baking sheets from oven, and place a marshmallow, cut-side down, in the center of each cookie, pressing down slightly. Return to oven, and continue baking until marshmallows begin to melt, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

5. Spread about 1 tablespoon of frosting over each marshmallow, starting in the center and continuing outward until marshmallow is covered.

FROSTING INGREDIENTS:

9 oz chocolate (bittersweet or semisweet, chopped)
1 c heavy cream
1 tsp dark rum (optional)

FROSTING DIRECTIONS:

1. Place the chocolate into a medium bowl. Heat the cream in a small sauce pan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil, watching very carefully because if it boils for a few seconds, it will boil out of the pot. When the cream has come to a boil, pour over the chopped chocolate, and whisk until smooth. (Whip in kitchenaid for 5 min, let color turn from dark brown to light brown – if you don’t whip it, it will be more like a ganache than a frosting). Stir in the rum if desired.
2. TO USE AS GANACHE: Allow the ganache to cool slightly before pouring over a cake. Start at the center of the cake and work outward.
3. TO USE AS A FROSTING: For a fluffy frosting or chocolate filling, allow it to cool until thick, then whip with a whisk until light and fluffy.

BROWNIE COOKIES SHORTCUT:

Make your life simple, sub in a brownie mix. I use Ghirardelli brownie mix from Costco. It’s awesome. You’re welcome.

1 box brownie mix (18.4 oz)
1/2 c butter, melted and cooled
1 egg
1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips
3 tbsp powdered sugar

DIRECTIONS FOR BROWNIE COOKIES:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Line cookie sheet with cooking parchment paper. Open box of brownie mix, and set chocolate pouch aside.
2. In large bowl, beat sifted brownie mix, melted butter and egg until batter is smooth. Stir in peppermint crunch baking chips and semisweet chocolate chips.
3. Shape dough into tablespoon-size balls. Place on cookie sheet.
4. FOR BROWNIE COOKIES: Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are puffed and cracked, but still appear a little shiny. Cool completely.
5. FOR SURPRISE COOKIES: Go back to the top of this post and follow on from Cookie Directions #3.

NO BUTTER BROWNIE MIX COOKIES INGREDIENTS:

1 box brownie mix
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 egg
1 tbsp water

NO BUTTER BROWNIE MIX COOKIES DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Mix all ingredients well and follow from Cookie Directions #3 above.

Embossed Sugar Cookies

From Poland 🙂 Must try to see if it works with the embossing rolling pin I bought.

INGREDIENTS:

230 g room temperature butter
175 g confectioner’s sugar
1 room temperature egg
1.5-3 tsp extract
1 tsp salt
400-425 g all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs and extract.
3. Mix well.
4. In second bowl, sift together dry ingredients.
5. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients.
6. Roll, emboss and cut cookies into desired shapes, dusting with flour as necessary.
7. Bake at 200 C / 400 F for 7 – 8 min until tops appear dry rather than shiny.

NOTE: To emboss, don’t use leavener in your recipe or the design will disappear after baking.

NOTE: flour rolling pin before use for best results.

Jules Destrooper Almond Thins

Danish name: Brunkager

INGREDIENTS:

250 g butter
250 g brown sugar
125 g light syrup (made from cane sugar or palm sugar or golden syrup)
500 g all purpose flour
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp allspice
150 g whole almonds
25 g pistachios (unsalted)
2 tsp baker’s ammonia (this is what makes the cookies crunchy)(King Arthur Flour sells it)
1 tbsp cold water

DIRECTIONS:

1. In sauce pan over medium heat, add butter, syrup and brown sugar. Heat until 70 C (160 F). Set aside.
2. In large bowl, mix spices and flour. Add almonds and pistachios.
3. In small bowl, dissolve ammonia into cold water.
4. Pour butter mix and ammonia mix into bowl with flour mix.
5. Pour batter into 8 x 8 brownie pan (pyrex) lined with parchment paper.
6. Cover pan with parchment paper.
7. Leave the pan, with the batter, on your kitchen table for the next day. (Remember, Denmark is a cold country, so doing this in a hot or humid climate might not work so well – in that case, leave it in an unheated oven).
8. The batter should the next day be a solid dough. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into 5-6 logs and then into thin slices.
9. Bake at 180 C (360 F) for 8 – 12 min.
10. Let cookies cool completely.
11. Store in airtight jar.
12. Enjoy!

Bourbon Biscuits

My mom loves these biscuits, she used to eat them growing up in India. They are not very available here in the U.S. I hope this recipe is close to her memory of the cookies.

From: Nic Cooks

Homemade Bourbon Biscuits (makes 40 ish)

Biscuit:

300g plain flour
75g cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch salt
125g unsalted butter
150 raw caster sugar plus extra for dusting (blended white sugar)
1 egg
50g golden syrup (or palm syrup)

Chocolate Filing:

200g dark chocolate
100g cooking cream (whipping cream)

DIRECTIONS:

BISCUIT:

1. Preheat the oven to 170C (325F).
2. Put the flour, cocoa powder bicarbonate soda and salt into a food processor and whiz to combine.
3. Add the butter and continue to blend until combined. It will start to look like fine breadcrumbs.
4. Add the sugar and whiz again.
5. In a separate bowl, lightly beat the egg then add the golden syrup and continue to beat until mixed.
6. Add the egg mixture to the food processor and whiz until the mixture starts to form a dough.
7. Tip the mixture out onto a clean surface and knead briefly to form a dough. place in the fridge to rest for at least an hour.
8. Roll the dough between two pieces of baking paper or cling wrap/film until it is about 2-3 mm thick. The dough is fairly delicate so this has to be done carefully but the thinner they are the crispier the biscuit will be.
9. Using a 30cm ruler, cut out lengths of dough to the width of the ruler. Then cut into rectangles about 7cm long. This sounds like an arduous job but if the biscuits are not the same size they won’t look very good when they are sandwiched together
10. Lay the rectangles on a non-stick baking tray or silicone mat. Using a skewer, prick ten holes (five each side) along the long edges of each biscuit to give that authentic bourbon look. The real biscuits also have the name written on them but my skills didn’t stretch to that.
11. Re-roll any dough scraps and continue until all dough has been used up. This amount of dough makes about 40 biscuits so you will probably have to bake in batches.
12. Bake for 12 minutes at 170C (325F). Once cooked remove from the tray immediately and lay on a sheet of baking paper on a hard, flat surface to cool. This will ensure that any biscuits that have curled during baking cool flat. While they are still warm sprinkle with a little of the leftover caster sugar.

FILLING:

1. While the biscuits are cooling make the filling.
2. Melt the chocolate then stir in the cream, place in a piping bag to cool slightly or do what I did and use a sandwich bag and snip a tiny bit off the corner.
3. Match the biscuits into evenly sized pairs. Pipe the chocolate onto the bottom of one biscuit then top with a second biscuit. Push down gently so they stick but not too hard so the filling doesn’t burst out of the edges.
4. Allow to cool then eat. They taste better the following day.

 

Alternate Recipe here: http://www.thelittleloaf.com/2012/05/07/real-bourbon-biscuits/

And here: http://theenglishkitchen.blogspot.com/2012/08/real-bourbon-biscuits.html

And here: http://www.mrsbishopsbakesandbanter.co.uk/2015/06/homemade-bourbon-biscuits-recipe.html

 

Snickerdoodles with Coconut Flour

NOTE: I bought a bag of coconut flour, and I need to use it up before it expires. So…

Makes 18 cookies (two sheets)

INGREDIENTS:

1 c all purpose flour
1/3 c coconut flour
1/3 c milk or water (I used water)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter
3/4 c sugar
1 egg

 

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Cream butter and sugar in kitchenaid. Add eggs. Add dry ingredients. Roll into 2 in balls.
4. Mix topping ingredients together in separate bowl.
5. Roll cookie dough balls in topping mixture. Place on silpat lined cookie sheets.
6. Bake 14 min.
7. Enjoy!

NOTE: The dough tastes AMAZING!! Just like kopra pak (the Indian coconut dessert). The cookies came out pretty well. I think I like the plain Snickerdoodles better, but these were really good too.

NOTE2: The coconut flour is so small, but it screws up so much. Regular Snickerdoodles melt in your mouth. These are a horrible hard chewy texture. Even with the extra fluid, they are so dry. Yuck and yuck and yuck. I also did not use King Arthur Flour in this recipe. Makes a BIG difference to how the baking turns out. If anyone in your family has a cold, cooking with coconut flour will almost kill them, because the cookies stick in your throat in a most unpleasant way. This is the end of my cooking with coconut flour expedition. And my cooking without King Arthur Flour expedition. I learned the hard way and with great expense so you don’t have to. Vaya con dios.

Snickerdoodle (Half Recipe)

If you’re not familiar with these, they are basically sugar cookies with an attractive cinnamon sugar crackle coating.

This is a Martha Stewart recipe.

Makes 9 cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/3 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick butter
3/4 c sugar
1 egg

TOPPING:

1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Cream butter and sugar in kitchenaid. Add eggs. Add dry ingredients. Roll into 2 in balls.
4. Mix topping ingredients together in separate bowl.
5. Roll cookie dough balls in topping mixture. Place on silpat lined cookie sheets.
6. Bake 14 min.
7. Enjoy!

Coconut Flour Anzacs

Adapted from Martha Stewart

YIELD: 2.5 dozen cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1 c all purpose flour
2 c coconut flour
1 c oats
3/4 c desiccated coconut
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter
1 tsp ginger powder
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsps golden syrup or palm syrup
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 c 6 tbsp boiling water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix dry ingredients except baking soda.
3. In saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and syrup. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water, and add to syrup mixture. It’s supposed to bubble up, but it didn’t for me.
4. Add butter mixture to flour mixture.
5. Make 1.5 in balls, place on cookie sheet 2 in apart, smoosh down evenly into pancake like discs.
6. Bake 18 min.

These cookies should last a pretty long time without spoiling; they used to be given to soldiers in Australia and New Zealand. Martha Stewart says they last like a week. If they get hard, just dip them in tea and enjoy.

Snickerdoodles

If you’re not familiar with these, they are basically sugar cookies with an attractive cinnamon sugar crackle coating.

This is a Martha Stewart recipe.

Makes 18 cookies

INGREDIENTS:

2 3/4 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs

TOPPING:

2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Mix dry ingredients together.
3. Cream butter and sugar in kitchenaid. Add eggs. Add dry ingredients. Roll into 2 in balls.
4. Mix topping ingredients together in separate bowl.
5. Roll cookie dough balls in topping mixture. Place on silpat lined cookie sheets.
6. Bake 14 min.
7. Enjoy!