Red Velvet Cookies from The Domestic Rebel

Levain Bakery-Style Red Velvet Cookies -made dough December 10, 2022 from The Domestic Rebel

1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons red liquid food coloring

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup cake flour

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups white chocolate chips

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and granulated sugar on low speed for 30 seconds. Increase speed to medium and beat for another 30 seconds, scraping paddle and bottom and sides of bowl. Increase speed to high and continue beating another 30 seconds or until mixture is light and fluffy, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and vanilla, mixing well after each addition. Beat in the red food coloring on low speed until uniformly incorporated. 
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, baking soda, cornstarch, salt, cake flour and all purpose flour. Add to butter mixture in three additions, mixing on low speed until just combined. Stir in white chocolate chips and semisweet chocolate chips.
4. Refrigerate for 20 minutes. 
5. Preheat oven to 410 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
6. Divide dough into 6-ounce portions. Form into thick discs and evenly space on prepared baking sheets, leaving 3 inches between cookies. Keep remaining discs refrigerated and bake one sheet at a time. Bake cookies 8-11 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw.
7. Remove from oven and let cookies rest on baking sheet for at least 30 minutes before serving.

If you haven't finished up your holiday baking by now and want a last-minute, quick, easy and tasty cookie, nothing says Christmas better than red velvet cookies. Okay, lots of things say Christmas and I listen to all of them but still, this is a great red velvet cookie to make any time of the year. And if you are done with your holiday baking, save this recipe for Valentine's Day.

I did not make (most of) them as big ad they're supposed to be. Mostly because I was going for quantity to make up more care packages and holiday gifts and, for holiday baking gifts, I tend to go small since I make several varieties and, as my culinary school classmate, Chris, liked to say about large cookies or big slices of cakes, "that's too much commitment".

However, I did make the lone taste test cookie larger than the rest of the cookie dough balls from this batch because when it comes to taste test cookies, I don't have commitment issues. I wanted to see if these would bake up thick.

The answer is yes and no. They didn't bake as thick as the ones shown on Domestic Rebel's blog as I still seem plagued by is-it-the-butter-making-my-cookies-spread issue but they still baked to a decent thickness, thanks to baking directly from frozen dough and mounding the dough ball taller than wider. Whatever works. It worked well in this cookie as this had a soft, chewy texture and good flavor. You'll notice it's a bit plain in that it isn't overloaded with white chocolate chips but that was a conscious decision on my part for the taste test cookie. If you're a white chocolate fan, tuck the chips inside the cookie dough ball and, as soon as they come out of the oven, press white chocolate chunks or chips (chunks are better) gently into the tops of the cookies. This way you get the plethora of white chocolate without them burning during baking if they're exposed on top.

Stamped Cookies #25 from Your Baking Bestie

Stamped Cookies #25 - made dough November 28, 2022 from Your Baking Bestie

1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, room temperature

1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 egg

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 cups (360 grams) all-purpose flour

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and granulated sugar until well combined, 2-3 minutes.
2. Beat in egg and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together baking powder, salt and flour. Add to wet ingredients in two additions, mixing on low speed after each addition until just combined and no floury streaks remain.
4. If using an embossed rolling pin, roll out dough between two sheets of parchment paper before chilling. If using cookie stamps, chill dough for 30 minutes before stamping.
5. For cookie stamps, roll dough into balls and roll in granulated sugar before stamping and cutting. For embossed rolling pin, brush pin lightly with a mixture of equal parts flour and powdered sugar and lightly dust rolled-out cookie dough with same mixture before rolling and cutting.
6. Lay stamped/embossed and cut out cookies on parchment lined baking sheets, cover and chill or freeze for several hours.
7. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and evenly space cookies, leaving 2 inches between cookies. Bake for 12-13 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheets for several minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.

I love anything Peanuts and Snoopy so I was delighted to find this set of cookie stamps at Williams Sonoma. I was less delighted to discover they're the spring-loaded plastic stamps instead of high-quality resin or wood stamps. I don't have good luck with the spring-loaded plastic stamps. They break too easily and don't hold up well. Depending on the design, if the location of the spring-loaded press handle isn't perfectly centered in the design, you may get uneven impressions, no matter how evenly or firmly you press on the stamp. See the Charlie Brown snowglobe design below; the handle to press down the design is just a bit far off from the top right of the design so it doesn't imprint as well. 

But I will compromise for all things Snoopy so I (over)paid for the stamp set so I could make these cute little cookies. I tried this recipe from Baking Bestie. The plus side is they taste good and aren't as hard/crisp as other stamped butter cookies. The down side is they don't hold the impression as clearly. 

They do better on a stamped design that wasn't so detailed as you can see from the other stamps I used below. Still, these were pretty tasty. The edges are crisp, the middles are chewy and the fresh butter flavor comes through (don’t overbake or they’ll be hard). You just need to excuse my rookie mistake of not having evenly rolled out dough so parts of some of the cookies came out thinner and baked/browned more quickly than others (Exhibit A: Snoopy above). D’oh! (Get it? Dough? D’oh? What?? I’m tired from all the holiday baking and make bad jokes, lol.)

Homemade Oreos

Homemade Oreos - made dough December 14, 2022 from Buzz Feed

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/4 cups black cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Cream Filling

1/2 cup butter, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, 2-3 minutes. Beat in eggs until just combined.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, black cocoa and baking soda. Add to butter mixture in 2 additions, mixing on low speed until just combined.
3. Turn out the dough onto a large piece of parchment paper. Cover with an equal-size parchment paper and roll into 1/4" thickness. Leaving between parchment, chill dough for 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
5. Remove dough from fridge and remove top piece of parchment. Cut into circles using cookie cutter. Evenly space on baking sheets, leaving 1/2" space between cookies.
6. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are set and middle no longer looks raw. Let rest on baking sheets for several minutes then transfer to wire rack to cool completely.
7. Make the filling: cream together butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Use filling to sandwich cookies together.

I had high hopes for these homemade Oreos but they were dashed after baking and tasting a cookie from the first batch. I (perhaps unfairly) had hoped they would keep their impressions after baking. They sort of did but not the smaller details and definitely not for the thicker cookies.

It's hard to make chocolate embossed dough cut cleanly without more flour than I want to use. I tried to temper the risk by combining equal parts flour, powdered sugar and black cocoa powder and brushing the top of the rolled out (and chilled) dough as well as the embossed rolling pin. It embossed well enough for the most part but you do have to imprint only on chilled dough. Otherwise, it's too soft and sticks to every nook and cranny in the rolling pin (yes, personal experience speaking).

Sadly though, the impressions didn't hold very well after baking. They also didn't really have an Oreo flavor. If I had been making soft dark chocolate sandwich cookies that weren't very sweet or rich, these would be great. I wasn't so I put these in the "okay" category.

It does do better with larger impression though and holds decently well. So this dough is better with cookie stamps with larger designs rather than an embossed rolling pin with finer details.

Cookies and Cream Cookies from Baking With Blondie

Cookies and Cream Cookies - made December 10, 2022 from Baking with Blondie 

1 cup unsalted butter, cold and cubed

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs, cold

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

1 cup chopped Hershey's cookies and cream candy bars

1 cup crushed Oreos

1. Preheat oven to 410 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter for 1 minute then add brown sugar and granulated sugar. Cream together for 3 minutes on high speed, scraping down sides and bottom of bowl to keep mixture even textured.
3. Add eggs and vanilla, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cornstarch, baking soda and salt. Add in two additions to the butter mixture on slow speed, mixing until just combined after each addition.
5. Reserve 1/8 cup of the add-ins, then add in the white chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips, Hersheys cookies and cream candy pieces and Oreo crumbles on lowest speed until just incorporated.
6. Divide dough into 8 equal portions, rolling into a ball. Hand press the reserved add-ins on each dough ball.
7. Bake for 9-10 minutes then remove from oven and let rest on pan on 5 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

This is an easy cookie to holiday-ize. I copied the Outrageous Cookies and Cream Cookies concept from Cookies and Cups where the cookie itself is the "filling" between two Oreo holiday cookie halves.

Normally, these would be giant-sized cookies like the other ones from Baking with Blondie but I wanted them to be proportional to the Oreos so I made them smaller.

The recipe calls for Hershey's cookies and cream chocolates to be chopped up and added to the batter but I don't buy those so I made do with chopped Oreos, white chocolate chips and semisweet chocolate chips. Close enough.

When making cookies this way, pry apart the Oreo cookies and put the half without the holiday design as the base of the cookie. If you've got mad skillz, try to keep the filling adhered to the top half. But if you can't, the important thing is to keep the Oreos as whole as possible. If any of them break, don't sweat it though (this is supposed to be fun, not stressful) and just put the broken half as the bottom of the cookie, regardless of the design on it.

Once you've got the Oreos pried apart, line the bottoms on the baking sheet and place each dough ball directly over the bottom Oreo. Bake, then as soon as you take the cookies out of the oven, press the top half of the Oreo over the center of each hot cookie and press gently. It's okay to squish the cookie a little; you just want the heat of the cookie to let the Oreo top half adhere to it.

These were delicious, in case I haven't mentioned that. I'm sure they'd be good "plain" without the Oreo embellishment because delicious is delicious. But the Oreo embellishment does give them the holiday look.

Red Velvet Seven Layer Bars from Sally's Baking Addiction

Red Velvet Seven Layer Bars - made December 10, 2022 from Sally's Baking Addiction

1 1/4 cups (156 grams) all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon (5 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (115 grams) unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup (150 grams) granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon liquid red food coloring

1 1/3 cups (120 grams) sweetened shredded coconut

1 cup (180 grams) semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup (90 grams) white chocolate chips

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup (130 grams) chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Add granulated sugar and beat until combined. Add egg and vanilla extract, beating until combined. Add food coloring and mix until uniformly colored. Add dry ingredients in two additions, mixing until just combined after each addition.
4. Press dough into an even layer into prepared pan. Bake for 8 minutes.
5. Remove pan from oven and sprinkle top evenly with coconut, semisweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips. Spread sweetened condensed milk evenly over top. Sprinkle with pecans.
6. Return pan to oven and bake until set, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool completely before cutting and serving.

I'm a little ambivalent about this recipe, which is unusual as I normally rave about anything from Sally's Baking Addiction.

First, I love Seven Layer Bars or Magic Cookie Bars or whatever you want to call them. And I like red velvet so it seemed like the perfect bar cookie to make for the holidays, both for care packages and holiday gifts. It was good, don't get me wrong. But I didn't love it.

Second, I think it's because I'm just too attached to the graham cracker crust in magic cookie bars and this didn't have that because of the red velvet/holiday twist. 

Third, I would recommend making this in a 9 x 9-inch pan rather than 9 x 13 so you have a thicker crust. I did like the red velvet base itself but it was a bit too thin for me. I think I just prefer a graham cracker crust to go with the topping and as a thicker base layer. Also, I recommend baking the crust longer than 8 minutes. If it's not baked enough and is still raw/too soft when you put on the topping, some of the unbaked crust bubbled through the top and mixed with the sweetened condensed milk to leave pink patches. 

Cookie Butter Cookies from Kroll's Korner

Cookie Butter Cookies - made dough November 19. 2022 from Kroll's Korner 

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup cake flour

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold, cut into cubes

1/2 cup creamy cookie butter

3/4 cup brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon cookie butter emulsion

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

10 Biscoff cookies, crushed (leave some chunks)

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together all-purpose flour, cake flour, cornstarch, baking soda, baking powder and salt.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter, cookie butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until well combined, 2-3 minutes, and no butter lumps remain. Add egg, egg yolk, cookie butter emulsion and vanilla extract, mixing until combined.
3. Add dry ingredients in two additions and mix on low speed after each addition until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips and crushed Biscoff cookies.
4. Portion dough into 8 large dough balls of equal size. Cover and chill for at least 30 minutes.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Break each dough ball in half and press the halves together with the jagged edges up. Evenly space on baking sheets. 
6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until edges are set and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and gently press Biscoff cookie chunks or halves on top if desired. Let rest on baking sheets for 15 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely. Drizzle with melted cookie butter if desired.

I've been wanting to make this recipe for awhile but first I didn't have cookie butter emulsion then I had to go get Biscoff cookies. The stars finally aligned and I got this together. It's similar to the cookies I've tried from Baking with Blondie in that they're meant to be huge, thick cookies and each recipe only makes a few of them. That works well for me.

For the taste test cookie, I drizzled warm, melted cookie butter over the cookie and stuffed half a Lotus Biscoff cookie into the top. So it's full-on cookie butter flavor. It bakes up as a dense cookie so it's not fluffy or cakey.

I'm not sure I like this one as much as the big, dense cookies from Baking with Blondie. It could just be this particular cookie or else I tried the taste test cookie when I was already over my sugar quota. It's good but I love cookie butter so much I think I just had high expectations.

Oh, and if you want to know where to get cookie butter emulsion, try Michaels. And don't forget to use one of their weekly coupons.