Vanilla Lime Bites - A New Favorite

These cookies were by far the favorite cookie I brought for Christmas with my In-Laws. Mr. Gooch couldn't keep his mitts off of them even before the party.

These are melt-in-your-mouth tasty. The lime flavor is subtle with a buttery finish.

I found the recipe on Oishii, a great food blog. You should check it out. Since I used the recipe exactly as written, I am linking you right back to the original post.

I can't wait for a reason to make these again.

Lemon Cut Out Cookies

I am still catching up on all my holiday posts. Bad, I know.

But I didn't want to skip highlighting these Lemon Cut Out Cookies. I found the recipe on the blog Cookies on Friday.

I needed to bring several desserts to my Mother-in-Law's house for Christmas dinner. I thought that the lemon flavor in these cookies would be a welcome change from the usual chocolate, mint and candies usually found in desserts around the holidays. Especially since we were all gathering on the 28th of December.

These cookies were a big hit and I recommend them to anyone looking for a citrus-y cookie.

One note, the dough is a bit dry so can be a bit difficult to roll out. Just be patient and use a well floured rolling pin.

Since I followed the recipe word for word and did not make any changes or substitutions, please click here to view the recipe.

Spicy Chai Biscotti

Spicy Chai Biscotti was the final recipe I made during my night of Biscotti Madness. I loved their spicy, gingery taste.

Again, I found the recipe on Joelen's Culinary Adventures. If you haven't checked out her site, please do. She (and her site) are amazing.

To find the spice, look in the spice aisle. I want to save you the time I spent too much time looking in the tea and coffee aisle. Whoops.

Spicy Chai Biscotti
(Source: Joelen's Culinary Adventures)
Ingredients
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup Chai spice powder

Directions
Preheat oven to 300 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a small bowl lightly beat the eggs and extracts together. Set aside.
In a bowl of your stand mixer (or with a hand mixer) combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and Chai spice powder.
Beat until blended (about 30 seconds).
Gradually add the egg mixture and beat until a dough forms. With floured hands divide dough in half.
On a lightly floured surface roll dough into a log about 10 inches long and 3 inches wide.
Transfer log to the prepared baking sheet and bake for 35-40 minutes, or until firm to the touch. The logs will spread during baking.
Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack for about 10 minutes.
Transfer log to a cutting board and using a serrated knife, cut log into slices 1/2 inch thick on the diagonal.
Arrange evenly on baking sheet. Bake 10 minutes, turn slices over, and bake another 10 minutes or until firm to the touch.
Remove from oven and let cool.

Coffee Flavored Chocolate Chip Biscotti

Another biscotti recipe I made during my night of biscotti madness was this recipe, found on Joelen's Culinary Adventures. I thought that the coffee flavoring would be a nice compliment to my usually skinny vanilla latte.

While Joelen's version calls for espresso coffee, I didn't have any on hand so I made a strong cup of instant coffee instead (I used about 3 to 4 times the amount of dried coffee to make it). It worked out quite well and the biscotti has a nice coffee flavor.
Coffee Flavored Chocolate Chip Biscotti
(Source: Joelen's Culinary Adventures)
3 C All Purpose Flour
1 C Granulated Sugar
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground Cloves
1/2 C plus 1 Tbsp strong Instant Coffee, cooled
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp Milk
1 Large Egg Yolk
1 tsp Vanilla
3/4 C Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Directions
Blend dry ingredients well. In small bowl whisk together espresso, milk, egg yolk, vanilla; add to dry flour mixture.

Combine until dough is formed (a very dry, thick dough.) Stir in nuts and chocolate chips if desired.

Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Knead several times and halve it. Roll dough into two (2) logs approximately 12 inches x 2 inches diameter Transfer to non-stick baking sheet and arrange 3 inches apart to allow for spreading. Flatten logs a bit with palms.

Bake 35 minutes at 350 degrees. Score (diagonally) and cool 10 minutes. I find that a serrated bread knife works well to cut the slices. Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees. Cut logs diagonally into 3/4 inches slices. Bake 5 minutes more on each side. Cool completely. Store in airtight container.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cranberry Biscotti

I love biscotti. Love it. I think it has to do with my love of the latte. It is so yummy to dip a biscotti into that afternoon latte. There is nothing better. To that end, I made several types of biscotti one evening.

This version, chocolate cranberry was inspired by this recipe I found on Stephanie Cooks.

They are in a word, amazing. I love the sweetness of the cookie, the slight bitterness of the semi-sweet chips and the tartness of the dried cranberries.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cranberry Biscotti
Ingredients:
2/3 cup (4 ounces) semisweet or dark chocolate chips (or chopped chocolate)
1/2 cup (1 stick/4 ounces) butter
2 eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 to 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup dried cranberries (I think I may have added a bit more than this)
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips


Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Melt the butter and chocolate together and set aside.

Beat the eggs and sugar until lightened.

Add vanilla and chocolate mixture.

Mix in the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt just until combined. You should have a soft, but not sticky, dough. Add the extra 1/4 cup of flour if dough is too sticky.

Add cranberries and chips at this point as well.

Divide the dough in half. On a lightly floured surface, form each half into a log that is 3-1/2 inches by 9 inches. Place logs on a large baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes or until tops are set.

Remove the cookies from the oven. While the biscotti are cooling, reduce the oven to 275 degrees. Let logs cool as long as you can (the cooler they are, the easier to cut), and then slice into 1/2-inch thick slices. I have found that using a serrated bread knife works perfectly to cut the logs into the smaller slices.

Arrange the slices on baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes. Remove from oven, carefully turn slices over, and bake for another 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight container or freeze.

A Taste of the Season - White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

I am so glad that the pumpkin season is almost over. That means it is time for the cranberry to shine in baking and cooking. And to start off the cranberry season, I made some of the tastiest white chocolate cranberry oatmeal cookies ever.

Using a recipe found on Fresh from Cate's Kitchen (click here to view Cate's blog), these cookies barely lasted 56 hours in our house.

If you are looking for an easy and incredibly tasting cookie, this is the one for you.

White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies
Ingredients
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (I used freshly grated nutmeg instead)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups quick-cooking oats (not instant)
3/4 cup dried cranberries
6 ounces white chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 and line two baking sheets with silpats or parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter with the sugars until fluffy.

Add egg and vanilla and mix well.

Stir in oats, flour mixture, white chocolate, and cranberries and mix until combined.

Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto cookie sheets and bake for about 10 minutes, until just beginning to get a little color.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies - A Husband Pleaser

Mr. Gooch loves the oatmeal raisin cookie. I, on the other hand, am indifferent. They are good, but I would not cross the street to get them.

However, as part of September Baking Madness, I decided to make Mr. Gooch (and his mom and grandma) his favorite cookie.

Not sure which recipe would be best, I went with the recipe developed by the people that make the oats. The Quaker Oats Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookie.

Mr. Gooch declared the cookies "delicious!" That is good enough for me to keep this in the recipe book for the next 50 years.

Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Ingredients
1/2 pound (2 sticks) margarine or butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt (optional) [I included the salt]
3 cups Quaker® Oats (quick or old fashioned, uncooked) [I used quick oats]
1 cup raisins [I used yellow raisins]

Directions
Heat oven to 350°F.

In large bowl, beat margarine and sugars until creamy.

Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.

Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well.

Add oats and raisins; mix well.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown.

Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; remove to wire rack.

Cool completely. Store tightly covered.

Tollhouse Cookies - Always a Favorite

Anther crowd pleaser in the cookie repertoire is the Tollhouse Cookie. Made even more famous (if that is possible) by the Friends episode where Phoebe is trying to figure out her family's chocolate chip recipe by Neslay Tolloouse. Makes me giggle each time I think about that episode.

Tollhouse Cookies

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels

Directions
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl.

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy.

Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Gradually beat in flour mixture.

Stir in morsels and nuts.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown.

Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely

Triple Ginger Cookies - A Hit!

I have a hit on my hands, thanks to the Triple Ginger Cookies from Cookies on Friday. After baking these and giving some to my Mother-in-Law and Grandmother-in-Law, I have been commanded to bring these cookies to all holiday gatherings. Having sampled them myself, I have to agree. These cookies will be a welcome addition to the dessert selections for years to come.

Just as she recommended, I used shortening as instructed by the recipe and made only one minor substitution. I used washed raw cane sugar instead of the orange sanding sugar called for in her version. I was able to use my mixer for the entire process but did listen for straining of the motor just in case.

I ended up baking only about 2 dozen cookies from this batch. I rolled, sugared and froze the rest for baking a few at a time in the future.

Triple Ginger Cookies

Ingredients
4-1/2 cups flour
4 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups shortening
2 cups sugar
½ cup molasses
¼ cup candied/crystallized ginger, finely diced
1 teaspoon gingerroot, grated on a microplane
¾ cup washed raw cane sugar

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt.

In the bowl of a mixer, mix the shortening until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add the eggs and the molasses, mixing until combined.

Stir in about half of the flour mixture and then mix in the candied ginger and the gingerroot.

Add the rest of the flour mixture. You may need to mix in the last bit of flour by hand, as the dough can be too much for most mixers.

Form the dough into 1 inch balls and roll in the cane sugar.

Bake for 11-12 minutes. Cookies will be puffy and perhaps look slightly undone.

Cool 2 minutes on the baking sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool.

TWD: Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

This is my first go around with Tuesdays with Dorie. And the recipe, chosen by Rachel at Confessions of a Tangerine Tart couldn't have been a more appropriate. I LOVE malted anything. As Mr. Gooch knows, I always have to get a malted shake whenever it is on the menu. Mmmmmm, malted shake.

Sorry, got sidetracked dreaming about the tasty chocolate malts at one of our local restaurants. Now back to the how the recipe came together.

This is an easy recipe to follow. The ingredients are easy to find and come together quickly and without much fuss. What makes this cookie so fabulous is the combination of malt, semi-sweet chocolate chunks and, of course, the malt ball. The texture is slightly cakey with the carmeliness (is that a word?) of the melted malt balls with just a bit of crunchiness from those malt pieces that didn't melt completely. Just writing about it makes me want to head over to the kitchen to get another one.

The batter is thick so I used a cookie scoop to place the batter on the parchment lines cookie sheet.

One note: I cut the whoppers in half versus chopping them into smaller pieces. I think this helped with keeping some of the pieces intact in the baking process.


The final product smells amazing and tastes the same.


The recipe makes about 30 cookies, which is way too many for just the two of us. So I made 1/2 the batch and froze the rest in cookie sized balls. The plan is to save them in the freezer so we can just pop them in the toaster oven whenever we need a chocolate cookie fix.

Can't wait for next week's recipe, chose by Claudia of Fool for Food, Chocolate Chunkers. Watch for an update next week.

Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Mr. Gooch loves peanut butter. I love cookies. So to combine both our loves last night I planned to make a batch of Peanut Butter Chip cookies. Mr. Gooch works nights so I thought it would be a nice treat in his lunch box.

I mixed the batter, placed it in the fridge and then tragedy struck. My oven stopped working. It wouldn't heat up. How totally craptastic! So I threw the dough into the freezer since I wasn't sure how long I would be ovenless.*

But as luck would have it, we would not be cookie-less for long. With the help of some of the ladies on The Nest "What's Cooking" board, I found today that baking them in our toaster oven was an option. The only changes I needed to make were to rotate the pan 180 degrees after 9 minutes and to bake the cookies for 18 minutes instead of 15.

These are so freaking good. I almost burned my tongue snarfing down one of the first cookies out of the toaster oven. After tasting the peanuty goodness of that cookies, I made the executive decision that any cookie that got broken when being removed from the baking sheet were fair game for eating. (Thank goodness it was only 1 more cookie!)


*At this time the oven is pulled out into the middle of our tiny kitchen waiting for Mr. Gooch to take a look to see if he can fix it. Thank goodness the previous owners left us the manual for all the appliances in the house.

Peanut Butter Cookies Recipe

Modified from a recipe found on Simply Recipes.

Ingredients
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup peanut butter [I used a little over a cup]
1 egg
1 1/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup peanut butter chips [I added these]

Directions

Cream the butter for 2 minutes.

Add the sugars, cream for 2 more minutes.

Mix in the peanut butter and egg.

Mix together the dry ingredients - flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

Stir into the sugar butter mixture.

Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate at least 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls. Place about 3 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten in crisscross pattern with a fork. Bake until light brown, 9 to 10 minutes. Cool on baking sheets for a minute; transfer to rack to cool completely.

For chewier cookies, bake at 300°F for 15 minutes.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies.