Spekulatius-Christmas Cookies-Nov./Dec. 2010

These cookies, called Spekulatius, are a traditional German Christmas Cookie.  Typically they have intricate designs and may be topped with slivered almonds.  As you can tell I have gone for the plain, less traditional cookie.  I feel like the tree and star ARE traditional for this time of year, and I believe fish is a common food item in parts Italy during Christmas.  I'm hopeful that the butterfly and manwithcowonhead will take off in years to come.  The recipe is simple:

18 oz Flour

7 oz Butter

2 Eggs

2 dr Almond Oil

1 ts Cinnamon

1/2ts Cloves,ground

1/2ts Cardamom ground

1 ts Vanilla

9 oz Sugar

2 ts Baking Powder

4 oz Ground Almonds

Chill for a little bit in the fridge.  Roll out to 1/4 inch and cut into desired shapes.  Bake on greased cookie sheet for 6-8 minutes.  For those who are wondering, I usually use parchment paper...but I wanted to make sure these cookies crisped up on the bottom and I thought the grease might help with that.

These cookies come out crispy and taste like a butter cookie that's been dipped in Chai.  Which is awesome and makes these Spekulatius...Spekulishous!

Spekulatius-Christmas Cookies-Nov./Dec. 2010

These cookies, called Spekulatius, are a traditional German Christmas Cookie.  Typically they have intricate designs and may be topped with slivered almonds.  As you can tell I have gone for the plain, less traditional cookie.  I feel like the tree and star ARE traditional for this time of year, and I believe fish is a common food item in parts Italy during Christmas.  I'm hopeful that the butterfly and manwithcowonhead will take off in years to come.  The recipe is simple:

18 oz Flour

7 oz Butter

2 Eggs

2 dr Almond Oil

1 ts Cinnamon

1/2ts Cloves,ground

1/2ts Cardamom ground

1 ts Vanilla

9 oz Sugar

2 ts Baking Powder

4 oz Ground Almonds

Chill for a little bit in the fridge.  Roll out to 1/4 inch and cut into desired shapes.  Bake on greased cookie sheet for 6-8 minutes.  For those who are wondering, I usually use parchment paper...but I wanted to make sure these cookies crisped up on the bottom and I thought the grease might help with that.

These cookies come out crispy and taste like a butter cookie that's been dipped in Chai.  Which is awesome and makes these Spekulatius...Spekulishous!

Cream cheese cutouts

I have many many favorite cookie recipes, but this one is at the top of my Christmas cookie list. My mom always made these and as kids my siblings and I would frost them. My sister now makes the best cream cheese cutouts and her cute girls frost them. This year I am not joining my family in South Dakota but instead staying in Toronto, Ontario therefore I am making the cookies to get me out of my scrooge-like holiday bah humbug spirit. Lucky for me, Devin's sister and her fiance joined us this weekend and we all made cookies together!

Cream cheese cutout cookies
Ingredients
1 C butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder

Directions:
Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add sugar, egg, vanilla, and almond; beat until smooth. Stir together flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Mix flour mixture into cream cheese mixture until a dough forms. If you have a great KitchenAid stand mixer this will be very easy. If you are me and only have a hand held mixer, the motor will start to smell so I am forced to use arm muscles and a big spoon to finish the dough. Chill dough in the fridge for 2 hours before rolling. Don't roll the dough too thin or it will brown too quickly.
Cut out cookies using different shaped cookie cutters and bake for 8-10 minutes just until the bottoms are nicely browned in a preheated 375 degree oven.

In the meantime, whip together cream cheese frosting:
1 4 0z package of cream cheese, softened
1/4 C butter
1 tsp. almond extract
2 1/2 to 3 C powdered sugar
milk to thin, if needed
Beat cream cheese, butter, and almond extract with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating well. Thin with milk to reach consistency you desire.
Add food coloring and frost the cookies!

We tended to eat 1 cookie, frost 1 cookie, eat 1 cookie and so on until our bellies ached and still finished with a couple dozen cookies!






Happy Holidays everyone!

Cream cheese cutouts

I have many many favorite cookie recipes, but this one is at the top of my Christmas cookie list. My mom always made these and as kids my siblings and I would frost them. My sister now makes the best cream cheese cutouts and her cute girls frost them. This year I am not joining my family in South Dakota but instead staying in Toronto, Ontario therefore I am making the cookies to get me out of my scrooge-like holiday bah humbug spirit. Lucky for me, Devin's sister and her fiance joined us this weekend and we all made cookies together!

Cream cheese cutout cookies
Ingredients
1 C butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
3 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking powder

Directions:
Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Add sugar, egg, vanilla, and almond; beat until smooth. Stir together flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Mix flour mixture into cream cheese mixture until a dough forms. If you have a great KitchenAid stand mixer this will be very easy. If you are me and only have a hand held mixer, the motor will start to smell so I am forced to use arm muscles and a big spoon to finish the dough. Chill dough in the fridge for 2 hours before rolling. Don't roll the dough too thin or it will brown too quickly.
Cut out cookies using different shaped cookie cutters and bake for 8-10 minutes just until the bottoms are nicely browned in a preheated 375 degree oven.

In the meantime, whip together cream cheese frosting:
1 4 0z package of cream cheese, softened
1/4 C butter
1 tsp. almond extract
2 1/2 to 3 C powdered sugar
milk to thin, if needed
Beat cream cheese, butter, and almond extract with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating well. Thin with milk to reach consistency you desire.
Add food coloring and frost the cookies!

We tended to eat 1 cookie, frost 1 cookie, eat 1 cookie and so on until our bellies ached and still finished with a couple dozen cookies!






Happy Holidays everyone!

Single cup of cocoa seeks level-headed mate for an all-consuming adventure

I snagged a box of mint hot chocolate from Aldi last week. I drink a cup most every day. I've wanted a cookie to go with it. I hate biscotti because it's too hard to seem edible (hardly edible?) if you don't dip it in your drink. And if you DO dip, it becomes the consistency of the cereal you find still sitting in its milk when you clear the table for lunch. Yuck. So I've been looking for something to go with my hot chocolate.

I'd been feeling pretty inspired by a picture of some mint chocolate cookies I saw online. I tried my hand at those, and I'm eating them these days, but they aren't the best. I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world (I've been told) and I used that basic recipe (but I'm not telling you what it is) plus Andes baking chunks and green food coloring. It didn't turn out so well -- mostly because it's so difficult to tell when something so green starts to "brown," because if it actually does, it's too late.

I think it's time I ventured out from chocolate cookies. I have a problem in that, when I think I've found the best of something, I stop trying other things. My motto the last few years has been, "Why bother with a cookie if it doesn't have chocolate in it?" But I am getting older and have learned that there is such a thing as "too sweet" or "too much sweet" and hot chocolate plus chocolate cookies is just too much.

We happened upon these promising cookies on the Better Homes and Gardens website. I used their chocolate chip cookie recipe as a guideline for my own, so I figured it was a good place to start.

(This is their picture.)

This is their ingredient list.

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 3-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour (their site has a typo here, but I've fixed it for ya here.)
  
• 3/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted and chopped
• 2/3 cup sliced almonds, chopped

I was TOTALLY pumped that I had (accidentally) purchased all the needed ingredients from Aldi! That's right. You can get everything you need to make these cookies right now at Aldi. That gives this recipe an extra 100 points from me. And it gives Aldi an extra 100 points, too.


We set to work with Pat and Israel mixing the dough. About the time I took the first picture of the process, I realized we had to toast the almond slivers. No problem. We opted for the stove-top method, since the kids and I prefer to be able to observe the toasting process rather than just trusting it to the oven. It worked just fine with some almonds, a pan, and some heat. (And a watchful, very careful, very supervised 3 year old. He's going to be a natural.)


We were having fun in the kitchen. These cookies are very hands-on. Eden was inspired to go make her own "cookies" in her little kitchen area, too. Bonus.


We came to the step of rolling the dough into a snake and I had been pretty excited about letting the Iz help out with this step, but the dough didn't want to stay together as well as playdough might, so it ended up being primarily an adult job. The next step said to roll the dough in the almond slices. It didn't stick as easily as one might hope, but Israel gave a valiant effort in getting as many pieces on each roll as possible.

Eden didn't mind not being able to help with this part after we gave her the first taste-test. She gave her lick of approval to the dough. This was as close as we got to eating cookies this night, though, because the rolls have to chill for 6 hours.


But our dough chilled out for something like 46 hours, because we didn't have time to get back to the cookies until 2 days later. It was all good, though. The rolls were easy to slice with our chef's knife. We also tried our cheese slicer for uniformity, but it was more difficult and we ditched it.


The recipe said to bake the cookies on parchment paper. We don't have parchment paper. I did some online research to see about a substitute for parchment paper, but basically everything said there are no good substitutes for it. One site said something about how back in the day people used to use cooking spray or butter and flour to prevent sticking, so maybe that would work. Wow. I had no idea I'd been living in the dark ages! So I used my Aldi cooking spray, even though other sites had pointed out that this method often encourages cookies to spread. Not about to go out in the cold looking for hoity-toity parchment, we gambled it. I was afraid because the recipe said to put the cookies an inch apart. And I was fearful they would really spread and lose that cool, almond-crusted edge in the picture.


So, after Israel put them on the baking sheet, I re- put them on the baking sheet, far apart and atop a bed of cooking spray. I took a deep breath and put them in the 375 degree oven.

And they were fine! They didn't spread at all. They didn't look substantially different coming out of the oven than they did going in. They just got a little brown on the bottom. But that's pretty. They are pretty good little cookies, too! A brief description:

(This is my picture.)

Pat says they are kind of like sugar cookies, but, "You know how sugar cookies can get all hard sometimes and not taste much? I don't know what it is, but something about these makes them better than that." I say it's the cream cheese. It's a nice flavor in these cookies. The almond flavor is good, too, though I think I might go a little stronger on it next time. They are not too sweet, but my kids like them. They are not gooey at all, but have a nice texture. Pat says they're like shortbread. I say the way they break reminds me of pudding pops. Pat says they're not just dry, but there's also a sort of chewy element to them. I say I would definitely serve these to guests and/or put them in my goody bags for neighbors this year. And maybe I'll attach a bag of cocoa mix, because they go together just perfectly!

Selling points:
- kids are entertained making them
- prep time is 30 minutes (Okay, more if you have helpers...)
- they have a cool crust around them
- they're better than sugar cookies
- you don't have to drive all around town looking for the ingredients
- they're simple to make
- they're a perfect companion for warm beverages

Single cup of cocoa seeks level-headed mate for an all-consuming adventure

I snagged a box of mint hot chocolate from Aldi last week. I drink a cup most every day. I've wanted a cookie to go with it. I hate biscotti because it's too hard to seem edible (hardly edible?) if you don't dip it in your drink. And if you DO dip, it becomes the consistency of the cereal you find still sitting in its milk when you clear the table for lunch. Yuck. So I've been looking for something to go with my hot chocolate.

I'd been feeling pretty inspired by a picture of some mint chocolate cookies I saw online. I tried my hand at those, and I'm eating them these days, but they aren't the best. I make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world (I've been told) and I used that basic recipe (but I'm not telling you what it is) plus Andes baking chunks and green food coloring. It didn't turn out so well -- mostly because it's so difficult to tell when something so green starts to "brown," because if it actually does, it's too late.

I think it's time I ventured out from chocolate cookies. I have a problem in that, when I think I've found the best of something, I stop trying other things. My motto the last few years has been, "Why bother with a cookie if it doesn't have chocolate in it?" But I am getting older and have learned that there is such a thing as "too sweet" or "too much sweet" and hot chocolate plus chocolate cookies is just too much.

We happened upon these promising cookies on the Better Homes and Gardens website. I used their chocolate chip cookie recipe as a guideline for my own, so I figured it was a good place to start.

(This is their picture.)

This is their ingredient list.

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 3-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour (their site has a typo here, but I've fixed it for ya here.)
  
• 3/4 cup slivered almonds, toasted and chopped
• 2/3 cup sliced almonds, chopped

I was TOTALLY pumped that I had (accidentally) purchased all the needed ingredients from Aldi! That's right. You can get everything you need to make these cookies right now at Aldi. That gives this recipe an extra 100 points from me. And it gives Aldi an extra 100 points, too.


We set to work with Pat and Israel mixing the dough. About the time I took the first picture of the process, I realized we had to toast the almond slivers. No problem. We opted for the stove-top method, since the kids and I prefer to be able to observe the toasting process rather than just trusting it to the oven. It worked just fine with some almonds, a pan, and some heat. (And a watchful, very careful, very supervised 3 year old. He's going to be a natural.)


We were having fun in the kitchen. These cookies are very hands-on. Eden was inspired to go make her own "cookies" in her little kitchen area, too. Bonus.


We came to the step of rolling the dough into a snake and I had been pretty excited about letting the Iz help out with this step, but the dough didn't want to stay together as well as playdough might, so it ended up being primarily an adult job. The next step said to roll the dough in the almond slices. It didn't stick as easily as one might hope, but Israel gave a valiant effort in getting as many pieces on each roll as possible.

Eden didn't mind not being able to help with this part after we gave her the first taste-test. She gave her lick of approval to the dough. This was as close as we got to eating cookies this night, though, because the rolls have to chill for 6 hours.


But our dough chilled out for something like 46 hours, because we didn't have time to get back to the cookies until 2 days later. It was all good, though. The rolls were easy to slice with our chef's knife. We also tried our cheese slicer for uniformity, but it was more difficult and we ditched it.


The recipe said to bake the cookies on parchment paper. We don't have parchment paper. I did some online research to see about a substitute for parchment paper, but basically everything said there are no good substitutes for it. One site said something about how back in the day people used to use cooking spray or butter and flour to prevent sticking, so maybe that would work. Wow. I had no idea I'd been living in the dark ages! So I used my Aldi cooking spray, even though other sites had pointed out that this method often encourages cookies to spread. Not about to go out in the cold looking for hoity-toity parchment, we gambled it. I was afraid because the recipe said to put the cookies an inch apart. And I was fearful they would really spread and lose that cool, almond-crusted edge in the picture.


So, after Israel put them on the baking sheet, I re- put them on the baking sheet, far apart and atop a bed of cooking spray. I took a deep breath and put them in the 375 degree oven.

And they were fine! They didn't spread at all. They didn't look substantially different coming out of the oven than they did going in. They just got a little brown on the bottom. But that's pretty. They are pretty good little cookies, too! A brief description:

(This is my picture.)

Pat says they are kind of like sugar cookies, but, "You know how sugar cookies can get all hard sometimes and not taste much? I don't know what it is, but something about these makes them better than that." I say it's the cream cheese. It's a nice flavor in these cookies. The almond flavor is good, too, though I think I might go a little stronger on it next time. They are not too sweet, but my kids like them. They are not gooey at all, but have a nice texture. Pat says they're like shortbread. I say the way they break reminds me of pudding pops. Pat says they're not just dry, but there's also a sort of chewy element to them. I say I would definitely serve these to guests and/or put them in my goody bags for neighbors this year. And maybe I'll attach a bag of cocoa mix, because they go together just perfectly!

Selling points:
- kids are entertained making them
- prep time is 30 minutes (Okay, more if you have helpers...)
- they have a cool crust around them
- they're better than sugar cookies
- you don't have to drive all around town looking for the ingredients
- they're simple to make
- they're a perfect companion for warm beverages

Salted Chocolate Cookies: Holiday Edition

Ok, so this is my first Cooking Challenge posting.  Forgive me if I screw up. I got this recipe from my stepmom, who makes all sorts of awesome cookies.

These cookies hold no special holiday connection for me save the fact that I love them so much I could quite possibly punch Santa in the face for a plate of them.  The batch I make is a double recipe because a single batch makes about 36 cookies or so...which is never enough.  Ever.

So, first it's time for the "not at all bad for you" ingredient list.  Remember, this is the double batch ingredient list.

12 oz semisweet chocolate
12 T unsalted butter
3 C flour
1 C cocoa
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
8 eggs
3 C sugar
2 t vanilla
1 C powdered sugar
dark chocolate kisses
coarse salt

Awesomeness comes at a price.  The price of these cookies (aside from the size of your butt) is that this is a two day process.  I've tried making them in one day, and it really just doesn't work.

Day One (about 20 minutes)

A ridiculous amount of butter

Begin by melting the butter in a double boiler--or if you're cheap like me, a bowl in a pan.  Add the semisweet chocolate.  I like the chips because they melt faster.

mmmmm melty chocolate goodness

Beat the eggs, sugar, and vanilla on medium high for 1 minute.

Ainsley was helping me...mostly by bossing me around and saying "I want that."  She is asserting her tiny Napoleon-like demands above.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.  Be sure to lift the whisk out of the dry ingredients and spray the dry ingredients all over your jammies.

Trippy

Pour the chocolate/butter into the egg/sugar/vanilla mixture.  Curse that there are 3 bowls in this recipe and you can't just say wet or dry ingredients.  Be sure to take some time to marvel at the pretty swirly patterns that happen when you mix in the chocolate.  Pointing and saying, "ooh pretty" is appropriate.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.  If your hand mixer is as old as your first college apartment, it will whine and possibly smoke.  This does not affect the quality of the cookie's taste.

Refrigerate the giant bowl of goodness overnight

Day Two (about an hour or two--depending on how many cookies you cook at once)

In an effort to make these cookies more holiday-esque, I ran to Country Kitchen to buy some green and red petal dust to tint the powdered sugar.  If you're ever in Fort Wayne, you must come to Country Kitchen.  It's like crack.

 My recipe says to roll 1 T of the batter into 1" balls.  I deem those cookies ridiculously too small and just eyeball it.  Roll the balls (heh) in the tinted powdered sugar.  Put them on parchment paper on cookie sheets.

Prebaking

Post baking

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

Place kisses in the center of each cookie.  Then return the cookies to the oven for 5-15 seconds.  The kisses should look shiny but not melty.  This is a pain in the butt to get right.  I've learned that if you do them too long or not long enough, the salt doesn't stick.  I'm sure someone with more culinary chops could get this right faster than I did.

Sprinkle the cookies generously with salt.  I like to use kosher salt because it's larger.  I'm also superfly impatient, so after I've sprinkled the cookies with salt, I put them on a plate in the freezer to reset the kisses.  If you don't, they'll be soft and squishy for a while.  Then when you're clumsy, you'll bump them and squish the kisses.  This is acceptable if your want your salted crinkle cookies to look like boobs with strange, pointy nipples.  However, that may not be appropriate for your cookie clientele.

 So, this is the first time I tried to gussy these cookies up with color and non-salt sprinkles.  It worked and they were very festive.  I found they appeared more festive when they are placed on a Santa platter and held next to a Christmas tree.

I also geeked out at the petal dust implications of this recipe--pastels for Easter parties; red, white, and blue for 4th of July; orange and black for Halloween.  The possibilities are endless.  ENDLESS I tell you!

Adrienne called me names for making the cookies.

Be sure to take the cookies to a gathering.  Then  marvel as your friends and family enjoy the cookies, then hoard them from one another, then yell at you for their being so good that they ate 10 of them.

Note the look of deliciousness on Aunt Sarah's face.  Xander isn't old enough to love the cookies.  More for us!