Classic Peanut Butter Cookies

Classic Peanut Butter Cookies - made dough December 19, 2015 from Sally's Baking Addiction

You’ve heard me say repeatedly that I’m indifferent to peanut butter. And that’s really true. Even when I add chocolate chips to peanut butter baked goods, I still can take them or leave them. I have 2 big Costco-sized jars of peanut butter in my pantry which are still unopened and it’s unlikely I’ll be able to make enough peanut butter baked goods to use even one of them. So they’re both going to the donation bin at my local library to be distributed to a local food pantry. But that still left me with the already-opened jar of peanut butter, also Costco-sized, since I’m incapable of shopping elsewhere if it’s available at Costco.

The main, okay, the “only” reason I make peanut butter cookies is to have an excuse to use the pointy side of my meat mallet to make the crosshatches with instead of a fork. Seriously, that’s why I make peanut butter cookies. My meat mallet has yet to ever touch a piece of meat to tenderize it. But it knows its way around peanut butter cookie dough balls. I give full credit to my friend Annie the Baker for teaching me that trick.

Unfortunately, it’s harder to tell with these cookies since they spread enough that you couldn’t see the pointy indents. Bummer. I also didn’t want to press down too hard to make the indents since I didn’t want to flatten the cookie dough balls too much as I still had hopes for a thick cookie. Which I got but there was enough spread to almost bake out the indents. This cookie has only butter and no shortening so it won’t be as crisp or “dry” as other traditional peanut butter cookies and that’s fine with me. I despise the dry mouthfeel from those types of peanut butter cookies and prefer something more moist. I added both peanut butter chips and mini chocolate chips to these cookies to make them a little more interesting. Given my peanut butter indifference, can’t say I’d rave about these but that’s literally just me. I gave some to a coworker who loves peanut butter cookies and she did the raving for me so I guess they’re pretty good.

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups + 2 tablespoons (391 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup granulated sugar, for rolling (optional)

1. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugars together on medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs and mix on high until combined, about 1 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed. Add the vanilla and peanut butter; mix on high until combined. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, toss the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Add to the wet ingredients and mix on low until combined. Cover dough tightly and chill for at least 3 hours. Or portion into golf-size dough balls, and, using the pointy side of a meat mallet dipped in granulated sugar, press indents into dough balls, flattening into thick discs. Cover and freeze until firm.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space cookie dough discs and bake for 11 minutes or until very lightly browned on the sides. Remove from oven and let cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Toffee Butter Icebox Cookies

Toffee Butter Icebox Cookies - made dough December 13, 2015 from Mom on Timeout

I’ve confessed before that I’m a hoarder of baking ingredients, right? I can declutter clothes, shoes and dust-catching knickknacks with the best of them but when it comes to baking ingredients, I buy extras like Armageddon is coming and all the survivors are going to gather at my house for a baking marathon before the world ends. Why else would I have 4 ½ packages of Heath toffee baking bits? Although, in my defense, the plain toffee baking bits, as opposed to the milk chocolate toffee baking bits, are harder to come by so a friend gave me two and when I was in a grocery store I don’t normally go to and found them there, I bought a few more. And we should ignore the fact that I haven’t used them since.

Until now. Normally I buy the harder-to-find ingredients because I have a recipe that uses them and I go seeking them out. Then after all that trouble, I try to pick them up so I don’t have to search for them again next time I need them for another recipe. Sadly, for the toffee bits, I haven’t had cause to use them for any particular recipe. Fortunately, there’s pinterest and you can go seeking for recipes that use the ingredient(s) you want to use. Which is how I found this recipe for Toffee Butter Cookies.

What I love about this recipe is the simplicity. The dough is easy to mix together and handles easily, meaning not too sticky or soft and also not hard or crumbly. It obligingly pats into a log which make it easy to roll up in wax paper and stick in the freezer. When you’re ready to bake them, let the dough logs thaw for about 10-15 minutes before slicing them. You don’t want to cut them when they’re frozen solid as that’s when they might crumble but you also don’t want the dough to soften to room temperature as it’s harder to cut cleanly and keep their shape.

This is not a soft and chewy cookie and, for once, I don’t recommend underbaking. You’ll know you’ve underbaked it when it doesn’t have the “snap” like a good shortbread and instead of chewy but not a good chewy. Bake until the edges are golden brown and the tops also have browned slightly. You don’t want to overbake it either or the toffee will burn. This also defies my normal cookie-eating recommendation of eating while warm or lukewarm. Instead, I recommend you let it cool completely before taking a bite. When baked and cooled properly, this is a nicely crisp butter cookie with the added sweetness and crunch from the toffee.

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup Heath toffee bits

1. Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add in the egg and vanilla extract; mix until well combined.
3. Stir in flour, mixing just until incorporated.
4. Fold in Heath toffee bits.
5. Divide dough in half and place on top of a sheet of plastic wrap. Form the dough into a log about 6" long and 1.5" in diameter. Wrap each log with the plastic wrap and refrigerate dough logs for 1-2 hours or until firm.
6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.
7. Remove plastic wrap from rolls and cut into 1/4" slices. Place slices about 2" apart on baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Oreo Cookies and Cream Cookies

Oreo Cookies and Cream Cookies - made dough December 19, 2015 from My Kitchen Escapades

The main impetus for trying out this recipe is I wanted to use up the cookies and cream instant pudding mix I had bought in a pack of 4 from the last time I made a similar recipe. They don’t sell this flavor in my local stores so I had to buy the 4-pack from amazon because that’s the only size they came in. I also wanted to use up my snack packs of mini Oreos that I had bought to try out another earlier recipe. You see the pattern here? I’m on this revolving cycle of buying ingredients to try out certain recipes then trying out more recipes to use up the rest of the ingredients I had bought for the previous recipes.

Which would be all well and good if the cycle was perpetual as my baking has in the past. But since I was trying to end date my baking spurts for awhile, I had to keep using them up without replenishing them. It’s harder than you think. Fortunately, making this cookie dough was easy. Unfortunately I got a little lazy with chopping up the mini Oreos which would entail washing another knife and chopping board. After making 5 cookie doughs in a row, I didn’t have it in me to take what I deemed unnecessary steps. That might’ve been a mistake because it did make for some serious chunkiness in the cookies since the mini Oreos were mostly whole. But that was okay as they did provide a nice crunch when you bit into the cookie without needing nuts for crunchiness.

If you’re a cookies and cream fan, these are good cookies. I added both semisweet and white chocolate chips as well as the mini Oreos so these cookies have a lot going on. But the flavors all complement each other and make the cookie a little more fun. I was packaging them up in for foodie gifts to give out at work and wanted something a little different. Keep an eye on these when you’re baking them. The edges appear to brown fairly quickly but the middles still looked raw and shiny. You know I despise an overbaked cookie so I erred on the side of taking them out sooner rather than later. If I hadn’t, I think these would have a more cakey texture. And I simply don’t do cakey when it comes to cookies.

1 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
4.2-ounce package instant Oreo pudding mix
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup mini Oreos, roughly chopped

1. Cream together the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the dry pudding mix until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the vanilla and mix to combine.
2. Add the salt, flour and baking soda; mix until combined. Add the chocolate chips and Oreo pieces until combined. Portion into golf-ball-sized dough balls, cover and chill or freeze until firm, several hours or overnight.
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space frozen dough balls on baking sheets and bake cookies 9-10 minutes until just set. Do not overbake. Remove to wire cooling rack to cool completely.

Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

Brown Butter White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies - made dough December 19, 2015 from Mom on Timeout

I have a whole host of cookie recipes to post and I’m trying to get them up before the new year when everyone goes on a diet and stops baking. Oh wait, is that just me? In any case, remember how I said I don’t usually try out new recipes during the holiday season because I can’t afford to have baking failures with all the baked gifts I need to make? And also remember how I was cutting back on baking? Well, those two mantras collided the weekend before Christmas.

It’s true that I’ve cut back drastically on baking in recent months. A year ago I was having a baking marathon every weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas – I baked for dessert parties, coworkers, get togethers with friends, church folks, care packages and so on. By the time Christmas rolled around, I was ready to pick up a cake from my favorite bakery and call it Christmas dessert because I was so burned out on baking.

This year is a little different. For one thing, I didn’t host a dessert party this year so no day off from work to bake all day. I was down with a cold for the first half of December so I skipped out on a lot of parties and get togethers. The days went by too fast for me to catch all of my coworkers before they left for year-end holidays. Oops. But I did have enough need for baked goods gifts to do one marathon baking session this past weekend. And because I hadn’t really been baking much, I decided to take a risk and explore all new recipes for them.

Of course, it was a very calculated risk since I wasn’t stupid and knew there still wasn’t a lot of margin for error in baking failures. So I went with recipes that I could tell at a glance and from the pictures on their original blog posts that they had a high likelihood of turning out. And I stayed with some traditional flavors since now was not the time to do a lot of risky experiments.

Case in point, the  classic white chocolate and macadamia combination for these cookies. The main difference from some of the other recipes I’ve tried was the browned butter element. But browned butter is an almost no-fail option when it comes to cookies. Seriously. I also chose this recipe because it would use up the last of my macadamia nuts in the freezer and the last bag of white chocolate chips in my pantry. If I was going on baking hiatus in January, it was best to clear out my remaining baking ingredients. This turned out to be a good choice as I liked this recipe. It’s a classic combination, the cookies didn’t spread too much and I love the brown sugar overtones of the cookie that paired so well with the white chocolate chips and the macadamia nuts.  Yum.

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup chopped macadamia nuts

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring occasionally as butter foams then starts browning. When you can smell the nutty aroma and see the browned particles, it's done. Remove from heat and cool for 15 minutes.
2. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add vanilla extract and eggs, mixing until combined.
3. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, salt and baking soda in medium bowl. Gradually add to butter mixture, mixing until just combined,
4. Fold in white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover, and chill or freeze for several hours until firm.
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and evenly space out the frozen dough balls.
6. Bake for 11-13 minutes or until edges are golden brown and middles no longer look raw. Let sit on hot cookie sheet for 10 minutes before transferring to cooling rack to cool completely.

Fudgy Toffee Brownies

Fudgy Toffee Brownies - made December 13, 2015 from Handle the Heat

This was the second thing I made for the bake sale fundraiser. I was sitting on my couch last Sunday, lazing away when I received an email from my cousin. Her son's school was holding a bake sale and the proceeds would be donated for relief efforts for the flood victims in Chennai.

I already had the M&M cookie dough in my freezer which I baked off but wanted to add more so I checked my pinterest board for a brownie recipe I stilll needed to try and came up with this one.

Easiest thing to mix together while the cookies were baking and it conveniently used some of the toffee bits I was trying to clear out of my pantry. Actually I'm trying to clear out a lot of baking ingredients from my pantry in anticipation of my drastic cutback in baking in January. Better to use now when they can do some good.

I only had the barest taste test of these brownies since I needed the whole thing for the bake sale. But it was enough of a sliver from the edge to assure you that the brownies were as moist and fudgy as they look in these pictures. I love when my brownies turn out like this - all chewy, fudgy goodness that says "here's what baked fudge tastes like; give 'em a try." No cakey brownies here.

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup toffee bits (such as Heath)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8" baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the top half of a double boiler set over hot, barely simmering water, combine the chocolate chips, butter and unsweetened chocolate. Whisk until melted and smooth. Cool slightly.
3. Stir in the sugar. Stir in the eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated. Add flour, mixing until just combined. Add toffee bits and stir to combine.
4. Pour batter into prepared baking pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out with moist crumbs, not raw batter. Do not overbake. Let cool completely before cutting.

Secret Ingredient Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies

Secret Ingredient Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Cookies - made dough December 12, 2015 from Chelsea's Messy Apron

These cookies almost look the same as the ones I just posted but that's mostly because I used the red and green M&M baking bits again to make them seasonally representative. But they're a different chocolate chip cookie - they're made bigger, spread a bit more (but still stay reasonably thick) and have a bit more crunch at the edges to them.

I'm always intrigued by trying out new variations in chocolate chip cookies to see what would really make a difference. This one called for beating the egg white separately with the cream of tartar and, similar to other recipes I've tried, includes cornstarch to help make the cookies chewy.

I've known about and used the cornstarch trick before but not the egg white-cream of tartar thing. I'm not sure if it added anything different to the cookie, maybe a bit more crispness? But I couldn't tell you why,

Still this was a good cookie and so easy to make. I'd had these in my freezer for the next time I needed cookies, figuring I could bake them off for gifts but then my cousin let me know about a bake sale at her son's school with the proceeds going to help the flood victims of Chennai and I thought that was a better purpose for them. They turned out pretty well. One baking tip: to make them festive, reserve some of the baking bits for pressing on the outside of the cookie dough balls before you bake them. Otherwise, if you mix them all into the dough, not that many baking bits will appear and you want them flaunting their holiday glory after they're baked.

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 large egg white
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons oat flour (grind oats finely in a blender then measure out 2 tablespoons)
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips or chocolate chunks
1/2 cup M&Ms

1. In a large bowl, beat together butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
2. Beat the egg yolks into the sugar-butter mixture. 
3. In a separate bowl, beat 1 egg white with the cream of tartar for several minutes.
4. Beat the vanilla extract and then the egg white mixture into the butter-sugar mixture.
5. In another bowl, mix together the salt, baking soda, flour and oat flour. Stir until combined.
6. Combine the dry and wet ingredients and stir just until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips and M&Ms. 
7. Portion into golf-ball-size dough balls, cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight until firm.
8. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space frozen dough balls on baking sheets.
9. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and the middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let cool on cookie sheets for several minutes before transferring cookies to wire racks and cool completely.

"The Best" M&M Cookies

M&M Cookies - made dough December 6, 2015 from Cookies and Cups

It's no secret that I love chocolate chip cookies and make them pretty much year round. Although this is the season of fancy holiday cookies, I'll take a good chocolate chip cookie over the fancy every time.

But you can also dress up your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and make them holiday appropriate by adding red and green M&Ms if you celebrate Christmas or, if you have the patience, pick out the blue and white ones from a 4th of July M&M bag if you want to align them more with Hanukkah. Either way, these will taste great.

I like using the mini M&M baking bits rather than the full size M&Ms as I made these cookies small and chubby. The regular size M&Ms might've taken over the cookies but the baking bits were just the right size, especially paired with mini chocolate chips like I did with these.

Similar to other cookie recipes that use vanilla pudding mix, these have a wonderfully chewy texture when they're just slightly underbaked with crisp edges. The M&M bits add a nice crunch and chocolate punch along with the mini chocolate chips. They don't spread much so you don't have to worry about thin cookies but I still recommend portioning into dough balls and freezing first before baking.

¾ cup butter, room temperature
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (3.4 oz) box instant vanilla pudding mix
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1½ cup Mini M&Ms, plus ¼ cup more for garnish

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine butter and brown sugar, beating until combined.
2. Add in egg and vanilla; continue mixing until smooth, scraping sides as necessary. Mix in vanilla pudding mix, baking soda and salt.
3. Add in the flour and beat just until combined. Stir in the M&Ms with a wooden spoon,
4. Portion dough into golf-ball-sized balls, cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight until firm.
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and space frozen dough balls evenly on each sheet.
6. Bake for 9-11 minutes until edges are golden and middles no longer look raw. Cook for 3-4 minutes on baking sheet, remove to wire cooling racks and let cool completely.