Tag Archives: Cookies

Homemade Oreos

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Last weekend we all drove to my parents’ house for a visit and also to celebrate my grandmother’s birthday.  Because I always talk about baking all kinds of sweet treats I thought I’d make something to take along for them to sample – I don’t see them often, so they very rarely get to try anything I’ve made.

I decided that cookies would be easiest to travel with, so I tried Smitten Kitchen’s homemade Oreos recipe.

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There has been a bit of a debate in Smitten Kitchen’s homemade Oreos comments about whether or not it is okay to use regular (not Dutch-processed) cocoa powder for these cookies.  Well, I was out of Dutch-processed cocoa and used regular unsweetened Hershey’s cocoa powder to make these.  They turned out just fine, and puffier, than the photos I have seen where people used Dutch-processed.

I thought they tasted similar to the good old Oreo cookie, but not quite.  I actually did not like the taste of the homemade Oreos dunked in milk, but I love the store-bought Oreos dunked in milk.

The filling itself does taste very similar to the original.  I probably double-stuffed my Oreos, as you can tell by the photo!

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I packaged up the cookies individually in mini treat bags and tied them with a silver twist tie to give to everyone, and everyone enjoyed them.

Surprise Cookies

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I have a backlog of recipes and photos waiting to make their appearance on The Sweetest Kitchen.  You can see photos of what’s in the queue in the sidebar, under My Food Photos.  Today I’m posting about Surprise Cookies, which is a recipe from Martha Stewart’s COOKIES book.  The recipe can be found here.

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

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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!

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

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I’ve been wanting to make these for quite a while now; they kept tempting me every time I opened Martha Stewart’s COOKIES book!  Finally this past week I made a batch of them, and the whole family loved them.

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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).

Peanut Butter Toffee Cookies

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This recipe for peanut butter toffee cookies was recently a Cookie of the Day at the Martha Stewart website.  I’ve been interested in toffee lately, so I thought that this recipe might be a good way to incorporate some toffee into my baking.

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I used 2 Hershey’s brand Heath bars for this recipe, just the regular 1.4-ounce size you can find in the grocery store’s checkout lane.

I contemplated on using a different peanut butter cookie base, one that I knew and loved, but decided I’d go ahead with the one in the recipe.  A different cookie recipe could definitely be used, as long as the cookie will be thick enough to distribute and hold the toffee pieces nicely (i.e. not a thin cookie).

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I got exactly 24 cookies.  They’re pretty good, although as I suspected, I’m not totally fond of the peanut butter cookie itself.  It’s a slightly crunchier sort of cookie with softer insides; I think the crunch of the toffee goes well with the crunchiness of the cookie, though.

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I really do like the idea of toffee pieces in cookies now, and I suspect I’ll be making different varieties of cookies with toffee in the future.  :)

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies

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I was super excited when I saw Joy The Baker’s recent post on flourless peanut butter cookies because these cookies are made without flour (as the name would suggest!) and also without butter (in my previous post I noted that I’m out of butter!).  The cookies require only four ingredients, and they bake up soft and chewy.

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I’m so impressed with these cookies and am thankful to Joy for posting the recipe.  If you’re short on staple baking ingredients (such as flour, butter or vanilla, etc.) and in need of a super quick sweet treat, I highly recommend these little gems.

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Adapted from Joy The Baker & The Gourmet Cookbook

Ingredients
1 cup all-natural chunky or smooth peanut butter
1 cup sugar (1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar)
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking soda

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a baking sheet with butter and set aside. In a mixer combine peanut butter and sugars until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add egg and baking soda and mix for another 2 minutes. Roll into walnut sized balls and create a cris-cross pattern with a fork. If you’d like, add a few chocolate pieces to the top of the cookies. Bake for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool on a baking sheet for two minutes, then transfer to… your mouth.

Happy Easter!

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I didn’t make anything specifically for Easter (except the baby bluebird cupcakes I made the other week).  But we were surprised with an Easter cookie bouquet!

We had taken the kids to an Easter Egg Hunt at a local park yesterday and came home to find a box on our front porch.  Inside was the Easter cookie bouquet – 5 huge butter cookies frosted with crunchy royal icing (and a slight hint of lemon?).

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They were sent from my mother-in-law via Secret Spoon Sweets.  They’re very yummy – our 2 young children just love them!

I hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies Update

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As you may remember, I was refrigerating a portion of the dough from this recipe to do my own refrigeration test on it, which is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while now.  I believe that letting the dough rest in the refrigerator for 36 hours is recommended, but I decided to bake them about 6 hours earlier!

I lowered the oven temperature to 350F, instead of 375F, and also needed to bake them about 3-4 minutes longer.  What I first noticed about the cookies that had been refrigerated is that they actually stayed puffier, even after cooling.

At first, I thought the taste result would be inconclusive.  But, I had eaten a semi-warm cookie (I personally think that these cookies taste better when they are at room temperature).  I waited until they had cooled down to room temperature and I did a side-by-side comparison test with the non-refrigerated cookies.  I personally thought that the taste of the cookies that had been refrigerated was richer and deeper and even more of that browned butter taste came through.  They were also a bit chewier, and of course, puffier than the dough that had not been refrigerated.

In the end I decided that the refrigerated cookie dough cookies were slightly better than the non-refrigerated ones.  It wasn’t a huge difference, and I don’t think I could wait that long to bake the chocolate chip cookies each time I made up the dough.  I wouldn’t even have noticed a difference, I don’t think, if I hadn’t eaten them side-by-side.

I can tell you with certainty, however, that this new Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies will now be my go-to chocolate chip cookie recipe.

M&M’s Ice Cream Sandwich Cookies

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I was planning on making ice cream cupcakes soon, but my daughter said she preferred ice cream cookies.  I decided to make the cookies first, and the cupcakes another day.

I used an M&M’s cookie recipe in a 12-year-old M&M’s cookbook that I got for free way back when (although I realize the same recipe is also available on the back of the M&M’s Mini Baking Bits bag).

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Red’s Ultimate M&M’s Cookies
Adapted from Red’s Favorite Recipes
Makes around 3 dozen

Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 12-ounce package M&M’s Chocolate Mini Baking Bits

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy; beat in egg and vanilla.  In medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt; blend into creamed mixture.  Stir in M&M’s.  Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 10-13 minutes or until edges are lightly browned and centers are still soft.  Do not overbake.

Cool 1 minute on cookie sheets; cool completely on wire racks.

After the cookies cooled down, I put the cookies in the freezer and took out the vanilla ice cream to soften it.  I thought that putting the cookies in the freezer beforehand to harden them up would make them easier to work with, so they wouldn’t crumble.

After the ice cream was soft enough to spread, I put a couple spoonfuls on one cookie and smooshed another cookie on top, using a knife to scrape off excess ice cream around the edges.

When that was done, I froze the ice cream sandwich cookies again to harden up the ice cream (and of course, put the rest of the ice cream back in the freezer!).  Once they were completely frozen, I wrapped them individually in saran wrap and stuck them in a Ziploc freezer bag.

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They’re pretty good, but not entirely what I was expecting.  I wanted a chewier cookie, but these ended up a little crunchy.  I wonder if chilling the dough would have helped?  I made two different sizes; bigger ones for the adults, and smaller ones for the kids!

I might try these again sometime, but with a chocolate chip cookie.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

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This is a cookie for the peanut butter lover.  It was just a touch too much peanut butter in one bite for me, but I will admit that these cookies are very tasty.  And very full of peanut butter.

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I originally saw the recipe for peanut butter sandwich cookies in the new The Taste of Home Cookbook.  I did not use the recipe for the cookies (because it called for butter-flavored shortening, which I don’t have any of because I don’t like shortening), but I did use the recipe for the filling.

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The old-fashioned peanut butter cookie recipe comes from A Chow Life, who is a self-confessed peanut butter lover.  I divided the recipe in half and ended up with 16 sandwich cookies.

The filling recipe… I also cut this recipe in half and ended up with enough filling to fill the 16 sandwich cookies, plus two or three tablespoons extra.  I’m posting the full recipe here.

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookie Filling
Adapted from The Taste of Home Cookbook

Ingredients
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 -6 tablespoons milk

Method
In a large mixing bowl, beat the peanut butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract and enough milk to achieve spreading consistency.  Spread filling on half of the cookies and top with another cookie.

Note, I’m keeping my sandwich cookies refrigerated because of the milk in the filling.