Stamped Cookies #33 Buttery Shortbread Cookies from Weekend at the Cottage

Stamped Cookies #33 Buttery Shortbread Cookies - made dough October 27, 2023, modified from Weekend at the Cottage

3/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/8 cups (17 tablespoons) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 18 tablespoons

1 egg white (if dough is too dry or floury)

1 teaspoon vanilla butter emulsion (if dough is too dry or floury)

granulated or icing sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Pulse oats in food processor until finely chopped. Transfer to mixing bowl and add flour, cornstarch, sugar and salt.
3. Transfer back to food processor and add butter pieces. Run on low setting until shortbread dough forms
4. Turn out dough onto workspace and divide in half. Wrap one half in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator. Roll out second half into desired thickness and cut or stamp out cookies. Transfer stamped cookies to lined baking sheet and chill or freeze while you roll out and stamp the second half of the dough.
5. Bake cookies, one sheet at a time, for 10 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for several minutes before transferring cookies to wire rack to cool completely. Sprinkle with granulated or icing sugar if desired.

New cookie stamp alert! This time, this set of silicone Disney cookie stamps. They're available from Williams Sonoma as of this writing. After Snoopy and Hello Kitty (and friends), I can't resist a good Disney stamp.

You can see this recipe held the stamped impressions beautifully. The dough was a little hard to work with as it was rather dry. I had to switch from using my food processor to my Kitchen Aid stand mixer and I had to add a teaspoon of vanilla butter emulsion and an egg white before the dough came together. Otherwise it was just a floury mixture that didn't bind together. I suggest trying to make the recipe without the emulsion and the egg white and only adding one or both of those if your dough won't come together without it.

The upside is the impressions held so well after baking. The downside? This doesn't have a lot of flavor. That's the challenge of some of the stamped cookie recipes. You can get around it a couple of ways. One is to make the cookies thinner and then sandwich them with nutella or cookie butter to amp the flavor of the whole cookie. The other is to use a flavored oil or extract to add more flavor. I made mine too thick so next time I'm going to roll out the dough much thinner and make these as sandwich cookies.

Kit Kat Cookies from Imperial Sugar

Kit Kat Cookies - made dough November 1, 2023 from Imperial Sugar

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup extra fine granulated sugar

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups (8 ounces) Kit Kat bars, coarsely chopped, plus more for garnish

3/4 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips, melted and slightly cooled but still liquid (I used Nutella)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar on medium speed for 2 minutes.
3. Add egg, egg yolk, vanilla, baking soda and salt; mix for 1 minute until combined, scraping down the sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
4. Add flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition until just combined. Do not overmix. Fold in chopped Kit Kat bars, disbursing evenly.
5. Remove bowl from mixer and drizzle in melted chocolate. Using the back of a wooden spoon, swirl melted chocolate throughout cookie dough, leaving ribbons of chocolate. Alternatively, dollop Nutella on top of dough before scooping. 
6. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls and evenly space on baking sheets. Bake for 9-10 minutes until edges are lightly golden.
7. If desired, immediately press extra chopped Kit Kat bars onto tops of warm cookies. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

I'll be incorporating candy bars into my baking for awhile. In fact, while I was waiting for trick or treaters to show up on Halloween night, I was already surfing Pinterest for recipes on how to use up the specific candy I had bought. 

I figured it would be easy enough to add Baby Ruths and Snickers to brownies but I wanted something different for Kit Kats. I like Kit Kats well enough but rarely eat them. Okay, I rarely eat "grocery store chocolate" in general but when I do, I prefer something with caramel like $100,000 bars.

But I have nothing against Kit Kats and was glad to try out this recipe. It turned out really well, like a really good milk chocolate chip cookie but with Kit Kats instead of chocolate chips.

The original recipe called for melting chocolate chips and swirling them into the cookie dough before scooping. I made it easy on myself and just dolloped Nutella on top of the cookie dough, scooped out dough balls, dolloped more Nutella on top of the remaining dough and scooped some more. That way I ended up with generous pockets of Nutella in each dough ball.

Chop the Kit Kats coarsely and fold in by hand after you've finished mixing the dough and before dolloping the Nutella on top. You don't want the Kit Kats to be crushed or crumbled too much. Reserve a handful of the chopped Kit Kats to press onto the newly baked cookies as soon as you take them out of the oven. 

This was delicious. Stayed thick, had crisp edges and the Kit Kats added both the sweetness of milk chocolate and a slight crunch from the wafers inside. And you can never go wrong with pockets of Nutella in the cookie.

Peanut Butter Butterfinger Cookies from The Food Charlatan

Peanut Butter Butterfinger Cookies - made dough November 1, 2023 from The Food Charlatan 

3/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 cup peanut butter (not natural peanut butter)

1 large egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

16 ounces Butterfingers, coarsely chopped

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until smooth and creamy. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar, beating for 2 minutes until fluffy. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
2. Add peanut butter and mix to combine. Add egg and vanilla, beating until just combined.
3. Add flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt, mixing on low speed until just combined.
4. Fold in chopped Butterfingers until evenly disbursed. Portion dough into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover and chill for 15-60 minutes.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space chilled dough balls. 
6. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

It's National Candy Day (November 4). I don't know where these food holidays come from but I assume this particular one coming so close on the heels of Halloween had some kind of purpose. Like to remind people to use up their leftover Halloween candy in some way?

Okay, maybe not but that's what I'm going with. I had moved to a new neighborhood earlier this year so I didn't know what to expect in terms of trick or treating. Last year in Las Vegas, I had literally no kids show up at the door. The year before, in my old house in Reno, I had so many kids I ran out of candy. Eeek.

I'm not into the costume part of Halloween for myself but I am all about the candy. And for the past few years, I've been buying the full-size candy bars from Costco. Because candy and kids, right? It's once a year so why not be that house that gives out the full-size bars? 

Not wanting to risk running out, I stocked up on 4 boxes of candy bars. Which means I had 100 bars to give out. Then, come Halloween night, I had 25 kids trick or treat at my door. Oops, overshot that estimate by 3 miles.

But it does mean I have plenty of candy bars to incorporate into my future baking. So here we are. I'm not a big Butterfinger fan (what's with all those flakes?) so I had to look up recipes on how to use up Butterfingers on pinterest and found this recipe.

Chop up Butterfinger bars, which was not easy as the layers crumbled into, well, crumbs. Then add to the dough. When you bake anything that has a caramel-ish component, prepare for leakage in the cookies. Which means the cookies can come out misshapen. This is where using the swirl trick comes in handy. Take a round cookie cutter larger than the cookies and swirl each cookie around it as soon as they come out of the oven while they're still hot. All the cookies you see pictured were misshapen out of the oven but I swirled them to neat roundness as soon as I could.

I have to confess, much as I don't like Butterfinger candy bars, this was an excellent cookie. Didn't spread much, swirled nicely round, great texture and good flavor. Let the cookies cool completely before trying them so the Butterfingers will add a little crunch rather than be melty-chewy. This might be the only way I'll eat a Butterfinger. This one's definitely for both peanut butter lovers and Butterfinger lovers. But even if you're not either, this was really good. 

Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies from Stephanie's Sweets

Oreo Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough October 14, 2023 from Stephanie's Sweets 

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup Oreo crumbs (5 cookies crushed until fine)

3/4 cup Oreo pieces (6 cookies broken into small and medium pieces)

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. 
2. Blend the 5 Oreos into fine crumbs using a blender. Measure off ½ a cup, save the rest to top the cookies. Use the blender to pulse the 6 Oreo cookies into pieces.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar. Beat on high until light and fluffy. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl. 
4. Add in vanilla, egg, and egg yolk. Mix until just combined.
5. Slowly add in the dry ingredients on low speed until just combined. Add in chocolate chips, Oreo crumbs, and Oreo pieces. Chill for 40 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop the cookies using a large 3 oz cookie scoop. Place 6 cookie dough balls on a baking sheet and freeze until the oven is preheated. Scoop the rest of the dough on the other cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator while the others bake.
7. Bake the cookies for 13-15 minutes. The edges will be lightly golden brown and the middle with be slightly underdone. Let the cookies sit on the pan for 4 minutes. Use a biscuit cutter to scoot the cookies in a circular motion until round. Top with Oreo pieces and extra chocolate chips. Sprinkle Oreo crumbs on top. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

I hadn't used up all the Oreos in the package for the Gideon's Bakehouse Cookies and Cream copycat so I tried out this recipe that's been on my pinterest board for awhile.

This one isn't meant to be all covered in Oreos like the Gideon's Bakehouse recipe but still has the same elements. It's also not meant to be as big either but I still made them fairly large. They didn't spread much so stayed nicely thick.

I liked these cookies, maybe even a trifle more than the Gideon's Bakehouse one. It's slightly more sweet but not too sweet and the Oreo chunks added a nice crunch without overwhelming the cookie.

Plus the texture was on point. Underbake it a tad so you get the moist "fudgy" texture. These were also sturdy enough to make for good candidates to mail in a care package. Which is exactly what I did with them.

Pecan Shortbread from Pudge Factor

Pecan Shortbread - made dough October 16, 2023 from Pudge Factor

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3/4 cup (3 ounces) powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

2 cups (10 ounces) all-purpose flour

1 cup (4 ounces) pecans, toasted and roughly chopped

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, powdered sugar and vanilla on medium speed until well combined and smooth, about 1 minute.
2. Add flour and mix on low speed until just combined, about 1 minute. Fold in toasted pecans with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula.
3. Transfer dough to a gallon-size Ziploc bag and place on a flat surface. Leaving the bag unsealed, roll the dough into a 1/4" thick rectangle that completely fills the bag. As you roll, turn the bag occasionally and lift the plastic from the dough to avoid creases. Seal the bag and chill in the refrigerator or freezer for 2 hours or up to 2 days.
4. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Place the chilled ziploc bag on a cutting board and slit open. Discard the plastic bag. Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, cut into squares. Transfer squares to lined baking sheets, spacing evenly. Prick each square with a fork. 
6. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating baking sheet halfway through. until edges are set. Remove from oven and let rest for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely. Dust lightly with powdered sugar if desired.

Can you tell I'm working my way through a Costco-sized bag of pecans? Hence why I keep baking cookies with nuts in them.

Shortbread is one of the few cookies where I'm good with pecans in them or almonds or macadamias. Shortbread is usually flavored most by the butter but when you add nuts, it takes on the additional flavor profile of the nuts you use. I always, always recommend toasting whichever nuts you're using before adding them to the dough. Trust me, the flavor will be much better.

Shortbread is also one of the rare cookies where I don't recommend underbaking. You want to bake the shortbread long enough for the bottoms and edges to turn golden and the middles to start looking "dry" or very definitely not looking soft or shiny or wet. If you don't bake it long enough, you won't get the crisp snap of a good shortbread and the texture will be somewhere in texture purgatory of chewy but not crisp. Chewy is for other cookies. Shortbread should have a good snap.

I liked these cookies. I love shortbread anyway and these cookies delivered on that buttery flavor amped up by toasted pecans and a good snap and crunch in the texture. These are good for care packages as well as sharing at holiday parties. The visible presence of the pecans can also easily signal away anyone with nut allergies.

Grandma Lilly's Brownies from Lisa Yockelson

Grandma Lilly's Brownies - made October 22, 2023, modified from Brownies and Blondies by Lisa Yockelson

1 1/2 cups unsifted cake flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped black walnuts, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 9-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together cake flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot water, melt butter and unsweetened chocolate, whisking until completely melted and smooth.
4. Beat sugar into melted butter-chocolate mixture. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing until combined. Add vanilla extract and mix to combine.
5. Add dry ingredients and beat until combined. Do not overmix.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth into an even layer. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

Back to my baking books for this one. I'm either trying to get the number of "recipes need to try" down on my pinterest boards or getting more use out of my baking books. This is from my cookbook library and a very old slim book I bought long ago in a used bookstore. Lisa Yockelson is one of the premier cookbook authors who offers a plethora of reliably good brownie recipes.

I will confess though that my palate isn't discerning enough to tell the difference between all the different recipes she has for brownies. Whether it contains more or less flour, cocoa, unsweetened chocolate, sugar, eggs or whatever. I just know they're typically going to be fudgy and good.

This was as well, although I made the recipe in a 9 x 9-inch baking pan, not the 9 x 13 one that the original recipe called for. Baking in the larger pan would've made the brownies too thin for my liking. 

The two drawbacks to this one though is it made a crust and it was more sweet than chocolatey. Some people like a crust on their brownies but not me. I also prefer more of a chocolate flavor than a sweet one. This is still a good fudgy brownie so it was worth trying. I have more brownie recipes from her books to try and will be testing those out, mostly just to do something different than my usual go to brownie recipe.