Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies

Last month, I had a few friends over for an impromptu knitting night, and I used that as an excuse to bake up some cookies.  Here's my version of a cranberry oatmeal cookie, adapted from an Allrecipes recipe.  I like this recipe because it's a bit more heavily spiced than your average oatmeal cookie, so it's especially good around the holidays.  I used cranberries because I hate raisins, but you could easily swap them out.  I did think these were a tad sweet the last time I made them, so I will likely cut out at least 1/4 c. of the brown sugar for a slightly milder cookie.
 

Ingredients

1 c. (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 c. packed brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 c. all-purpose flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

3 c. rolled oats

1 c. dried cranberries

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a small bowl, combine both flours, baking soda, salt cinnamon and cloves. 

3. In your mixer bowl, cream butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy.

4. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl in-between each addition.  Add vanilla and combine.

5. Add flour mixture and mix on low until just combined.

6. Add oats and cranberries and stir to combine.

7.  Drop rounded tablespoons onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden around the edges.  Do not overbake.  Allow to cool on cookie sheet for about 2 minutes before transferring to cooling rack. 

I can't quite remember since it's been a while, but I think this makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Fudge puddles

 

I've been dying to make these ever since my friend Abbie posted them on her website, The Green Wife (she has lots of great stuff there - recipes, crafts, giveaways, etc).  I mean, who doesn't love peanut butter and chocolate together, right?

Well with the big snowstorm here in Texas, we were more or less housebound today so I decided to give it a whirl.  They're a teeny bit labor intensive, but totally worth it.  These cookies were absolutely fabulous, bordering on sinful.  I'm actually almost glad that I waited so long to make them because they are crazy addictive too.  I don't know if she mentions it on her site, but the recipe makes a TON - I ended up with about 8 dozen.

I made it pretty much exactly as written with the exception of the fact that I halved the salt.  I figured that with all that peanut butter, it'd be plenty salty already.  I also recommend waiting until you've finished baking all the cookies before you make the fudge filling.  I made mine too early and after a while, the fudge cooled and set a bit and didn't look as pretty after being scooped and filled.  They still tasted the same, I'm just obsessive about things being pretty. ;)

Check out the recipe here.  And don't say I didn't warn you!

Decorated cookies - part 3

(In case you missed them, here are links to part one and part two.)

After you have what is more or less a base coat of icing on your cookies, you can do all your detail work. For me, this includes doing the outlines too. For these cookies, I pretty much just winged it and piped mostly straight lines and dots. The nice thing about snowflakes is that they can be as simple or as intricate as you want, and either way, they look good. Especially if you use sanding sugar. Sprinkles/jimmies will work too, but I prefer Sanding Sugar because of the fineness of the grains. It gives it a sparkly, snowy look.  I also meant to put on some Sugar Pearls, but I because I fell behind, I had to skip it this time.

Here's a pic of the finished cookies. Apologies for the picture quality. I dropped my DSLR the other day and it seems to be acting up now.



I think this one was my favorite:


I sprinkled the sugar on pretty much immediately after piping so that it would stick. Be generous with the sugar; it looks much prettier that way. I usually decorate the cookies on a small cooling rack with parchment underneath to catch the overflow. This way you can pour off the excess sugar and reuse it, if necessary.

After that, give them some more time to dry. I waited about 6 hours, but overnight would have been better. Then I bagged each cookie in an individual cellophane bag and tied with ribbon. They make great favors and teacher gifts.

Decorated cookies - part 2

(In case you missed it, here's a link to Part 1)

Today I'm going to talk about the most fun part - icing and decorating the cookies! I won't lie, this part requires a fair amount of dedication because the real key to making beautiful, elaborately decorated cookies is time and patience. As I mentioned in part one, you want to allow yourself at least 3-4 days to make decorated cookies. These are definitely NOT something that can be whipped up the night before a big party. Why so long? Because the icing can take up to a full 24 hours to dry, and depending on how you want them decorated, you may have to wait for one color to set before you can start on another.

For the icing, I stick with the standard royal icing, which is basically egg whites and powdered sugar. You can use real egg whites, but I prefer meringue powder because it's less hassle to deal with, and it's also been pasteurized, which makes it a little bit safer. You should be able to find meringue powder in the cake decorating aisle at places like Jo-Ann, Michael's or Hobby Lobby. It pretty much lasts forever, so it's worth springing for.

Anyways, I pretty much just mix the powder according to directions, which in my case was 1/4 c. powder beaten with 1/2 c. water until peaks form, then add 4 c. sifted powdered sugar. This makes for a pretty stiff icing, but don't worry about that for now. You'll be able to thin it out later as needed. Next, you'll want to start breaking your large batch of white icing down into smaller colored ones.

Let me add a word here about food coloring: most of what you can buy at the regular grocery store is crap. Don't bother. For one thing, you'll likely have to use half a bottle to get even remotely close to the shade you want. And for another, most of that stuff is water-based, which means it's going to thin out your icing and make it very difficult to pipe.

Gel-based coloring is the way to go. Again, you should be able to find these in the cake-decorating aisle of your local craft store. Wilton is probably the most readily available. In a pinch it'll do, but honestly I don't care much for the Wilton-brand colors. For one thing, they come in these annoying little pots with screw on lids, which makes them super messy to use (not to mention that they tend to leak if they're not upright), but again, the colors just aren't very deep and I find myself having to use a lot to get the bright reds and greens for Christmastime.

If you can, find a cake supply store or go online and buy the professional ones. They're more expensive, but worth it. I use these AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste Food Colors, and one drop goes a loonnngg way.


OK, done with the plugs, now back to the tute.
Now here's one thing you need to be aware of: royal icing turns to cement when it dries. It is a total pain in the arse to clean up, and you really don't want to spend the next few days soaking and scraping it off of a million various bowls and spoons. So here's my tip: save a bunch of plastic containers, preferably with lids. I've been hoarding sour cream and yogurt containers for the past 2 months, along with plastic knives and spoons from takeout places, etc. Or if that's not an option, use plastic cups. This way, when you're done, you can just chunk everything into the trash. When you're not using any particular color, lay a damp paper towel on the surface of the icing and then cover with the lid or plastic wrap. This will keep the icing from drying out in-between uses.

Most people start by piping the outline of the cookie with the stiff icing and then thinning it down and "flooding" the outline to fill it in. Because my entire background is going to be one color and also because I don't like waiting for the outline to dry before I can flood, I usually just glaze the entire cookie with the thinned out icing and then go back and do the outline later. If you prefer a crisper look, then you can pipe the outline first. It all comes down to personal preference.

So after scooping some icing into a separate container and coloring it (one little drop of blue gel for about 1 1/2-2 cups of white icing), I thinned it down with a little water to make it more spreadable. There's no real formula to this - just add a couple teaspoons of water at a time and keep stirring until you reach the desired consistency.

Then I just spooned the icing on and spread it around a bit until the entire cookie was covered. Like I said, I don't mind it if the icing goes off the edges.



Another word of warning: there is such a thing as thinning your icing out too much. I glazed about 6 cookies (and sprinkled them with edible glitter), then watered down my icing a LOT more to glaze the rest. I foolishly (and lazily) thought it would be faster if I could pour the icing instead of spreading it around with a spoon. Well because of all the moisture in the icing, this decision cost me an extra TWO DAYS in drying time. Gah! They were so tacky after the second day that I honestly thought they were never going to dry, and I almost threw them all in the trash. Have I mentioned that I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to these things?

Anyhow, they did eventually dry, and this is why it's a good idea to start way ahead of time. The extra water also gave the icing a more shiny and translucent look which I wasn't particularly fond of. Here are the two different versions, side by side:


The cookie on the left also has some edible glitter that I sprinkled on while it was still wet. I let the clerk at the store convince me that it would be pretty, but I was rather unimpressed by it. I probably won't use it again unless I'm going to use a LOT all over the entire face of the cookie.

I'm running short on time today, so I'm going to go ahead and post, and I'll show detailing and finishing touches in part 3. :)

Holiday baking

Well, I suck. I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted. Sincere apologies for my lameness, although in my own defense, I spent the better part of November (including Thanksgiving) sick. And since then...well, I guess I've just been lazy.

To make up for it, I thought I'd post a step-by-step of how I do my decorated sugar cookies. I absolutely LOVE baking and decorating. It's easily one of my favorite things about the holidays - a built-in excuse to make tons of goodies and then give them all away so I don't have to eat them.

Because this is a bit of a long process (generally, I try to allot at least 4 days for decorated cookies), I'm going to break it up into parts. For part one, I thought I'd share my sugar cookie recipe. I got it at a cookie decorating demo in Austin a number of years ago from the owner of Penny's Pastries. It is far and away the best recipe ever for decorated cookies. The edges stay very clean during baking, and the best part? You don't have to refrigerate it before using! You can mix it up and immediately start rolling, cutting and baking. Also, according to Penny, once iced/glazed, these cookies are shelf-stable for up to a month! This makes it a lot easier to get a head start when you have a huge batch to make.

Butter Cookie Dough
from Penny's Pastries in Austin, TX

Ingredients
1 c. salted butter
1 c. granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 tbsp whipping cream
2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
3 c. unbleached flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. In a mixer combine butter and sugar. Mix until just incorporated - do not cream until light.

3. Add egg, cream, vanilla, and almond extract all at once and thoroughly blend. It may look curdled, but don't worry, the finished dough will be fine.

4. In a separate bowl stir together flour and baking powder. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ones and blend.

5. Roll out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch and cut with a cookie cutter.

6. Bake on a greased cookie sheet 8 to 12 minutes (depending on size) and cool on a rack. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

My changes:
I only ever use unsalted butter when I bake (in fact, I don't even keep the salted kind in my house), so I added about a 1/2 tsp of salt to compensate. I also despise almond extract, so I replaced it with orange extract/oil. Also, if you don't have whipping cream, half-and-half or whole milk will work just as well. But don't use skim. You want that extra fat. ;)

I also skipped the greased cookie sheet in favor of parchment paper. If you have the option, try and find light-colored cookie sheets. Dark ones will make the bottoms brown too quickly. My favorites are these AirBake sheets- I've had the same two sheets since college and they still yield perfect cookies every time.

This year, I'm making giant snowflake cookies (using this Snowflake Cookie Cutter Set that I absolutely LOVE) to give as favors at a holiday playdate. Because my cookies were gigantic, and I needed to make a lot of them, I doubled this recipe. It pretty much filled my stand mixer bowl to capacity.

I generally only like to re-roll the scraps once. I feel like after that, the dough gets difficult to work with and the cookies end up tough. So that being said, I ended up with 16 snowflakes, plus a couple dozen or so smaller random cookies cut from the edges and in-between spaces.

Coming in part two - icing!