Tag Archives: Cookies

September 18, 2012 · 2:30 am

Molasses Crinkle Cookies


Well, it finally happened. I didn’t see it coming, but I can’t say I’m surprised. The BF told me he’s tired of chocolate chip cookies. While some women might be offended, I was relieved. We were contemplating buying stock in butter, I was making so many chocolate chip cookies. But just because we put a moratorium on America’s Favorite doesn’t mean we’re done with sweets all together. Oh no, friends. There must be sweets at all times in the Miller/Accardo household.

So this week I bring you something new and different! Something from the Applehood and Motherpie Cookbook, a staple in my home growing up. These cookies are my favorite type: soft and chewy. Amen.

On the menu:
Molasses crinkle cookies
Makes 5 dozen cookies

3/4 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 cup granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer. Add egg and molasses* and beat well. Add flour, baking soda, salt, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger and stir together with a big spoon. Shape dough into 1-inch balls with your hands. Put granulated sugar in a shallow dish and roll dough balls until coated in sugar.

Place dough balls 2 inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 – 11 minutes or until the edges are slightly darker brown. Let cool on the baking sheet for at least 10 minutes before removing and cooling on a cooling rack.

*A neat tip on measuring molasses is to spray cooking spray in the measuring cup before you pour the molasses in to measure. When you pour it in the bowl, it’ll slide right out of the cup.

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September 10, 2012 · 2:30 am

Online Charity Bake Sale

Do you like to eat delicious sweets? Do you like to occasionally donate money to charity? Do you spend time on the interwebz? Then have I got the event for you! I’m participating in an online charity bake sale running from September 10 (that’s today!) through September 16. Five food bloggers (including myself) are auctioning off some super special baked goods over at My Love for Cooking and all proceeds go to Pillwillop Therapuetic Farm.

Would you like to taste THESE beauties…

Giant Rainbow Cookies

… hmm? Then go ahead and bid. I’ll be donating a dozen giant rainbow cookies (yes, complete with rainbow jimmies and M&Ms) and they’ll be delivered, by me, with a personalized note directly to your door. Please don’t let me be the only loser without a bid.

To make it super easy, CLICK HERE TO BID: Online Charity Bake Sale

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August 29, 2012 · 2:30 am

Butter Cookies


If you know me at all, you know I hate crispy cookies. Sure, they have their place and time (a thin wafer tucked in a scoop of ice cream or a biscotti alongside a cup of coffee on a Sunday, for example) but in general I love me a giant, soft, chewy cookie. It’s a running source of debate in my family whether the chocolate chip cookies should be baked soft or crispy – dad likes them crispy, I like them soft. We’re like the Hatfields and the McCoys over here.

So needless to say when The BF requested cookies that resembled “the cookies that come in the blue tin!” I rolled my eyes. CRISPY COOKIES?! IN MY HOUSE?! But I kinda like him so I caved. Here’s my secret: I under-baked them so they’re still a TINY bit soft on the inside. He still loves them because they taste kinda like Danish butter cookies, and I love them because they’re still the tiniest bit soft. Win win.

On the menu:
Butter cookies
Makes 24 cookies

1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 2/3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until combined. Add the egg and blend for around 3 minutes until the mixture is lighter in color and texture. By hand, stir in the flour and salt, then the vanilla.

If you are going to use a cookie press: you can use the dough now and skip to the next step. If you’re going to cut these cookies into rounds like I did, you’ll need to form a log with the dough and chill it for about an hour in the refrigerator. After the dough is chilled, cut 1/4 inch thick slices* with a sharp knife. Place on cookie sheet. Press M&Ms into the dough if desired.

Bake cookies for 8 – 10 minutes or until the edges are brown. Remove and let cool on wire racks.

*These cookies would be completely crispy if you sliced them just a bit thinner. Just adjust your bake time accordingly so they don’t burn.

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January 30, 2012 · 10:38 am

Pucker Up


I have a confession to make: every once in awhile, I totally flub a recipe. I muck it up. Ruined from start to finish. Saturday night as I was tending to The (sickly) BF, I got the urge to bake cookies. “Chocolate chip?!” he asked eagerly. “No chocolate chips,” I told him. “That’s okay, I like the batter even without the chips! The vanilla, the brown sugar…” And that gave me an idea. Brown sugar cookies. I searched for a recipe, found an easy one, and went to work. The problem? Frozen butter. ‘No matter!’ thought I. ‘I will nuke it!’ Wrong. Oh, so wrong. What I got was a melty bowl of the most delicious smelling batter you’ve ever smelt. Yes. Smelt. But when I went to bake them, what did I get? Crispy, crunchy, flat, greasy disks that had the consistency of peanut brittle with burnt edges. Do you have any idea how disappointing it is to have your whole apartment smelling of delicious buttery brown sugar and nothing to show for it? Nothing in your belly to satisfy that tantalizing scent? Okay, so we ate some of those greasy, sugary disks anyway. WE PRACTICALLY HAD TO.

Which brings me to the next piece of the story. Lemon cookies. I’ve had this recipe chilling in my “recipes” folder in Gmail for some time, and figured I would follow the recipe to the T, let the butter soften, measure each ingredient accurately, and give the recipe the respect it deserved. And what happened? Imagine that. Incredible cookies.

On the menu:
Lemon Crinkle Cookies
Makes around 3 dozen cookies
Adapted from WhipperBerry.com

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 Tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp fresh lemon zest
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

Cream butter and granulated sugar together until blended. Add egg, vanilla, lemon juice, and zest and blend until totally combined. Add salt, baking soda, and flour and mix with a spoon until combined.

Put powdered sugar in a shallow bowl. Scoop up batter by heaping teaspoons, roll into a ball, and roll in powdered sugar until lightly coated. Place on baking sheet 1 1/2 inches apart and bake for 12 – 14 minutes, or until the bottom edges are brown and the tops look matte (not shiny). Let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rake to cool completely.

Note: Because I am always interested in whether or not a cookie comes out chewy or crispy, these are the chewiest of the chewy! Soft in the center, crisp at the edges. In other words, perfection.

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December 12, 2011 · 3:00 am

Sweet Pumpkin Dip and Vanilla Wafers

Happy Monday! Oh, who are we kidding, Monday sucks. Bake these tonight and tomorrow will be a little bit sweeter.

On the menu:
Sweet pumpkin dip
Makes 5 cups, 32 servings [aka a LOT of dip!]

8 oz. package of cream cheese, softened to room temperature
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 15-oz. can of solid packed pumpkin
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp all spice

In a medium bowl, blend cream cheese and confectioner’s sugar until smooth. Gradually mix in the pumpkin. Stir in the spices until smooth and blended. Chill until serving.

Vanilla Wafers
Adapted from this recipe at Ezra Poundcake
Makes about 65 cookies

1 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 large egg yolks
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour

Preheat oven to 350. Blend sugar, salt and butter together until smooth with an electric mixer. Add egg yolks and vanilla and blend until smooth. Add flour. Divide dough into 4 portions and roll each into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap each log in saran wrap and chill in the refrigerator at least an hour.

Once chilled, slice each roll into slices 1/4 inch thick. Place slices on cookie sheet [NOTE: these don’t spread so you can place them pretty close together]. Bake for 12 – 15 minutes or until the bottoms are golden brown. Let cool and then dip them into your delicious pumpkin dip.

Note: These cookies are not your traditional in-the-box vanilla wafers. They are definitely a cookie, and they’re sweeter than the boxed kind. However, the dip plus the cookie is not overly sweet so don’t worry about a sugar overload. Not that I ever do anyway.

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January 3, 2011 · 2:00 am

Kind of Amazing

Happy New Year! Have you seen this? I love it. And it makes me want to bake inappropriate cookies.

image by Christoph Niemann

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December 9, 2010 · 10:30 am

Why, I think it would be simply charming!

Merry Christmas, friends! I know, I’m early. Whatever. Last night I helped The Boyfriend and his roommates put up their Christmas tree while Christmas music blared from the speakers and many glasses of wine were consumed. I’d go on and on about how the scent of fresh pine makes my little heart swell and my eyes tear up, but for the sake of your gag reflexes and my dignity, I’ll stop here.

In any case, I have a new project on the horizon! It’s very exciting, and I can fill you all in next week but for now it’s taking up some of my free time. Time that would otherwise be spent blogging. I did carve out a couple hours to make these again for my parents, so if you forgot how epic that recipe is, go ahead and remind yourselves.

Tonight I will be taking an evening alone to totally indulge myself. And in honor of self indulgence, these images make me happy.

A fried egg and cookies for breakfast, the abridged A Christmas Carol, and sparkly packages. Is there anything better?

"Faith is believeing in something, even when common sense tells you not to." Miracle on 34th Street

Our (blurry) Christmas tree

(Top image: Jennifer Rakowski)

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