I presume this is the same with the CUPCAKES book, but I’m not sure; I haven’t yet purchased this book.  I probably will eventually though!

But back to the COOKIES book, one of the pictures and recipes that I kept coming back to were the giant chocolate sugar cookies.  I put off making them for so long because I thought sugar cookies were supposed to be soft; the chocolate sugar cookies were supposed to be a little more sandy in texture, I believe.  I didn’t think I’d like that in a sugar cookie.

Well, after a couple of weeks without a chocolate fix, I decided to go ahead and try out the giant chocolate sugar cookies.  I’ve seen a few photos of these cookies on other blogs and they all turn out sort of different; I’ve never seen any as amazing as what is in the book, though.

The recipe gives the baker a choice between using melted shortening or melted butter as one of the ingredients.  Even though I am not shortening’s biggest fan, I chose this because I had read somewhere (can’t remember where) that shortening would produce a puffier, chewier cookie, whereas using the butter would result in a flatter, crispier cookie.  I don’t like crispy cookies, so I used the shortening.

And I absolutely loved them!  They were chewy and puffier than most of the ones I have seen on other food blogs.  They were, however, crispier on the next day.  I’m totally sorry I had put off making these for so long.  This is a recipe that I will definitely be making again whenever I need a super chocolatey fix!

This is one of those recipes in the COOKIES book that can also be found online at marthastewart.com here.

They were really amazing – gooey and gingery!  I don’t think you could make these without the fresh ginger and still have them taste just as great – so don’t try to substitute the fresh ginger with more ground dry ginger, use fresh!

I will note that these seemed to taste better fresh from the oven.  They seemed to become stale and hard really quickly.  I’d definitely recommend eating all these up  on the same day that you bake them.  If not, put a square of brownie in the microwave for about 10 seconds to warm it back up.

The original recipe used regular marshmallows, but as you can see, these are pink strawberry marshmallows.

These are very chocolatey.  The strawberry taste of the marshmallow is subtle; I’d probably prefer to use regular marshmallows next time.  The cookie itself is cake-like and soft.

My opinion is that I most likely wouldn’t make them again, as I didn’t think they were that great.  The photos of them, especially the photo on Martha’s website, look great, but I personally didn’t care much for them.  My daughter didn’t like them at all, but my 2-year-old son did!

They’re barely even two-bite size and so cute!  You can find the recipe here on Martha Stewart’s website (although the recipe is doubled in her COOKIES book).

I didn’t have a 10″ fluted tart pan, or any 10″ pan whatsoever, so I did something a little different; I lightly pressed the dough into the bottoms of my mini bundt cake pan.  The pan has 12 mini bundt cake molds in it.

They turned out pretty cute!  They’re very delicate and very buttery.  With the first batch to go in the bundt pan, I forgot to refrigerate the dough.  When I tasted a cookie from that batch after I took them out of the oven, I didn’t like it one bit.  I was quite disappointed, but the rest of the batches I kept the dough refrigerated.  Oddly enough, I liked the cookies with the refrigerated dough.  I don’t know what the refrigeration changed about the taste of the cookie, but I’d just like to remind everyone, don’t forget to refrigerate the dough!

Classic Shortbread
View printable PDF recipe
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s COOKIES book
makes 8 wedges

2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature, plus more for the pan
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

Preheat oven to 300 degrees, with rack in upper third of oven. Sift flour and salt into a bowl; set aside. Put butter into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until light and fluffy – 3 to 5 minutes. Gradually add sugar; beat until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes.

Reduce speed to low. Add flour to mixture all at once; mix until just combined.

Butter a 10 inch round springform pan or cake pan. Using plastic wrap, press dough evenly into pan. With plastic on dough, refrigerate 20 minutes.

Cut dough into 8 wedges with a paring knife. Using a wooden skewer, prick all over at 1/4 inch intervals.

Bake until golden brown and firm in center, about 1 hour. Transfer pan to a wire rack. Re-cut shortbread into wedges; let cool completely in pan.

I wanted to make How To Eat A Cupcake’s version, which she got from allrecipes.com, but I didn’t have any shortening on hand. However, there was a snickerdoodle recipe in Martha Stewart’s Cookies book for which I had all the ingredients.

And did they measure up? They sure did; they may be the best snickerdoodle recipe I’ve tried to date. They are perfect. I didn’t make my cookies as large as recommended in the cookbook; I made mine slightly smaller and ended up with exactly 37 cookies of the perfect size for me. My daughter helped to roll the dough in the cinnamon and sugar, which she was really proud of. She’s calling them “snickerpanoodles”!

Martha Stewart’s Cookies book does not say that no part of the book may be reproduced, so I feel comfortable with posting the recipe here. This recipe is not on the Martha Stewart website.

Snickerdoodles
Makes 1 1/2 dozen cookies

Ingredients
* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt (I used 1/4 teaspoon table salt)
* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
* 1 1/2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Put butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture.

Stir together cinnamon and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl. Shape dough into twenty 1 3/4-inch balls; roll in cinnamon sugar. Space 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden brown, 12-15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment paper in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Since I made my cookies smaller, I baked for a slightly shorter time. I timed the oven for 5 minutes, then rotated my cookie sheet (because things facing the back of my oven brown quicker) and baked for another 5 minutes. They were perfect with each batch; I have to keep remembering what Alton Brown said during his chocolate chip cookie show; that if the cookies look done in the oven, then they are too done, so you should take your cookies out before they look done!

It was more hot on the brownies than on the cupcakes; I presume that all that sweet frosting on the cupcakes took some of the chili sting out. But the brownies just weren’t sweet enough to cover up the chili that much! But, overall, this was a very tasty dessert.