The Nifty Foodie

One of the biggest addictions I had as a kid around Christmas were the Little Debbie frosted gingerbread man cookies. If my Mom brought those home….oh man, they were gone within 2 days between us 4 kids. I’ve made rolled gingerbread cookies before, which tasted very good, but soft and chewy is my ideal preference when it comes to cookies.

When I was at the store a couple of weeks ago, I came across cinnamon chips. I’ve always seen them on blogs, but NEVER in the stores near me. Maybe I’m just not that aware or it could be a seasonal thing around here, but when I saw them, I knew I had to scoop them up. I was thinking of how I could use them, and I didn’t want to just make chocolate chip cookie base and replace chocolate chips with these, so I thought that a molasses-y cookie would taste wonderful with these! I went to my favorite cookbook, and dug around for a recipe that featured a soft, spicy molasses cookie. When I read soft, chewy and “gently spiced”…I was in.

I will admit, I burned a batch of these. It’s VERY easy to overbake these cookies, so it’s best to keep an eye on the first batch to see how long it takes to bake them up in your oven. They will look kind of raw out of the oven, but they finish “baking” on the cookie sheet during the first part of the cooling process. These cookies have a wonderful flavor, and the cinnamon chips are the perfect enhancement to these. I rolled them in Christmas-y sparkling sugar instead of the granulated sugar as originally called for, which gave them a more festive feel. (Y’all can tell I’m obsessed with Christmas sprinkles, eh?…if you follow my Instagram, you know what I mean!)

Molasses Spice Cinnamon Chip Cookies
Source: adapted from Cooks Illustrated Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup + 1/3 cup granulated sugar (can sub 1/2 cup sugar for 1/2 cup festive sparkling sugar)
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 12 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup light or dark molasses
• 1 cup cinnamon chips

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and make sure the oven rack is in the middle position. Prepare your cookie sheets by lining them with parchment paper or a silicone sheet liner and set aside. Place 1/2 cup of granulated (or sparkling) sugar in a baking dish or pie plate and set aside for later.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, pepper and salt. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and remaining 1/3 cup of granulated sugar on medium-high speed for 2-3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add in the egg yolk and vanilla extract. Once those are added, increase the speed a bit and beat until everything is incorporated (about 20 seconds).
4. Reduce the speed to medium-low again and add in the molasses. Beat the molasses in until the batter is well-mixed. Scrape down the bowl at this time, if it’s necessary. Reduce your mixer speed to low and add in the flour mixture. Mix everything until the dough is just incorporated. Using a spatula or large spoon, stir in the cinnamon chips.Scoop the dough into tbsp. sized scoops, and place the top half of the balls in the leftover sugar. Place the balls of dough 2 inches apart on the prepared baking pans.
5. Bake the cookies 1 pan at a time, until the cookies are browned but still puffy, about 11 minutes, making sure to rotate the pans halfway through baking. The centers of the cookies will still be soft, and look raw between the cracks. Do not overbake these cookies…they can overbake very easily (within a minute, I found).
6. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, and then transfer them to a cooling rack to finish cooling.

Last Christmas, my in-laws got me this awesome cookbook as a gift. I’m a big fan of Cook’s Illustrated’s recipes, and so I was so thrilled to unwrap this book last year. I immediately skimmed through it while we still had family at the house…I just couldn’t wait! While the cookbook doesn’t have pictures throughout, I have to say it’s a VERY comprehensive cookbook, full of tips and recipes that are well-tested. Whenever I think of a recipe I want to make in the kitchen, this is the first book I look to for a recipe, and it hasn’t let me down yet!

I wanted to try a new cookie this year for food gifts, so of course I had to flip to the index to find a chocolate cookie.  The original recipe calls for chopped semi-sweet chocolate, but I just had to use up the Andes chips that I had in the pantry. (I used both the creme de menthe and peppermint crunch varieties since I made a ::gulp:: triple batch of this dough..)

This cookie is insanely rich and fudgey…I could barely finish one without gulping down water! The addition of the mint chips makes it so festive, not just flavor wise, but color wise, since the two chips are green and red.

Chewy Chocolate Mint Chip Cookies
adapted from: The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup + 1/3 cup granulated sugar (separated)
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup dutch processed cocoa
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. + 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup dark corn syrup
• 1 large egg white
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 12 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened
• 1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup mint chips (like Andes)

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and prepare two baking sheets by lining them with parchment or a silicone sheet.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and remaining 1/3 cup of granulated sugar for 2-3 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy.

Place the 1/2 cup of granulated sugar in a small, shallow baking dish or pie plate and set aside. Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt together in a medium-sized bowl, and in a separate smaller bowl, whisk together the corn syrup, egg white and vanilla.

Reduce the speed of the mixer to medium-low, and add in the corn syrup mixture. Beat the mixture for about 20 seconds, until everything is fully incorporated, being sure to scrape down the bowl as needed.

Turn the mixer to a low speed, and add in the flour mixture, as well as the mint chips. Mix everything together until the dough is just incorporated (do not overmix), making sure to scrape down the bowl as needed. This should take about 30 seconds to mix. With a spatula, turn the dough a couple of times to make sure there are no pockets of flour in the dough. Chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes to allow it to firm a little.

Roll the dough into tbsp. sized balls, and then roll the top half of the dough balls into the sugar (in the baking dish or pie plate) to just coat them. Place the dough balls about 2 inches apart on a baking sheet (with sprinkled sugar halves facing up), and bake the cookies until they are puffed and cracked, about 10 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway into baking. The edges of the cookies will have begun to set, but the middle of the cookies will still be soft. Be mindful not to over-bake these.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, and then place them on a cooling rack to remain cooling. Enjoy!

I absolutely love baking during the holiday season. I’m always looking for excuses to bake, and during the holidays, I tend to find a ton of excuses.

One of our biggest traditions around the holidays is what I like to call the annual bake-palooza, which is the weekend before Christmas. Basically, we live in the kitchen for the majority of the weekend and bake, bake, bake for friends, coworkers, neighbors…you name it! It doesn’t sound fun to most, but to me, it’s a blast! Over the years, I’ve learned which recipes are great for gifting, and which recipes, while impressive, are just too much work to make for 15-20 gifts.

This year, I’m doing something different. While I’m still baking up a storm, I figured I could lighten the load a little by spreading out the majority of the work—the cookies.

Since we’re making a ton of goodies (husband likes to help), I had to do the math to see how many batches of each recipe I’d need to make for gifts. Most cookie recipes make 24 cookies (check your recipes first), so after doing the math, I decided 11 batches of cookies was a good number (2 of those being cookie dough gifts, which is a whole ’nother gift idea). Of course, I doubt we’ll need all of those cookies, but I wanted to make sure I had extra dough, just in case…you can never have too much cookie dough, right?

One of the first things I always do for a big bake-palooza, is to stalk the grocery ads. I refuse to buy butter that’s over $2/pound box. I live in a fairly low to middle cost of living area, and from experience, I know $2 is rock bottom for the price of butter. It’s probably different in, say, New York or Los Angeles, but the idea is to buy butter when it’s the cheapest. Oh, and buy a LOT of it. I bought 12 boxes. Did you know that you can freeze butter? Just in case you don’t use it all..

Butter isn’t the only thing I shop for…I usually go through 3 bags of flour and sugar, multiple bags of chocolate chips, as well as 2-3 cartons of eggs. All of these go on sale this time of the year, and I know I sound like a cheap person for saying BUY EVERYTHING CHEAP, but seriously, when you’re baking multiple gifts, it all adds up! (and hey, saving money on ingredients means more money to buy pretty packaging, right?)

Once you have your ingredients, now of course you can make your dough. Since I’m usually doubling (or tripling) some recipes, I do that math in advance. Write those numbers on a post-it or something and stick it next to your recipe OR retype out your recipe with the correct amounts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve doubled a recipe, only to realize I forgot to double one thing…like sugar. Yup. Not good. Just do the math in advance.

Side note: Just keep in mind your mixer size when you’re doubling or tripling recipes. My standard 5 qt. mixer can usually handle a double batch of cookie dough, but tripling really pushes the limits on the capacity of my bowl. I was able to triple recipes just fine in the 7 qt. mixer I have, though. 

Once your dough is mixed, use a medium sized cookie scoop (or large, if recipe calls for it), and scoop dough balls out. My freezer is a side by side, and a 9×13 cake pan fits just fine in there. So, I scooped them out into a cake pan, making sure to leave a tiny bit of space between dough balls, to make sure they don’t freeze together.

If you have more than one layer of cookie dough, just layer balls of dough between sheets of wax paper.

Once you have your cookie dough scooped out, place the pan into a freezer and allow the dough balls to freeze for 1-2 hours, until they are fairly set. Then, take them out of the pan and throw them into a freezer bag. Allow all of the excess air out of the bags, and seal until you’re ready to bake them.

To bake the cookies, all you need to do is place the balls on a cookie sheet, allowing a couple of inches in between for spreading, and bake at the temperature specified for the recipe for just 1-2 minutes longer than called for.

You can see that I burnt the cookie in the back, but that was because it was meant to be baked 25 degrees cooler than the others. Whoops! Glad I learned that lesson before the big baking weekend!

Stay tuned for the next posts in this mini-series: one about favorite recipes for gifting and another about packaging.

Since Halloween is officially over, I usually just eat all of the candy leftover from trick or treaters like it’s no big deal. Heck, that’s why I’d get chocolate…always. However, with this diet thing going on, I felt like I could totally do the whole portion control thing. That lasted one night…when I caught myself eating 3 Reeses cups the next afternoon, I decided ALL of the candy had to go.

Even the pumpkin spice kisses in the freezer.

So, I decided to make blossom cookies with them, but I didn’t want to do plain sugar cookies. I wanted to do something a little different and more festive. I know it’s not the holiday season yet (to the majority, that is…I’m so ready to decorate for Christmas…judge away). However, gingerbread is fall spice-ish, so I figured it would probably work. Um…yeah…this totally worked. TOTALLY. These cookies are a soft, chewy gingerbread and with the pumpkin spice kisses in the middle?? Y’all…I can’t even. These cookies had to get out of our house! Thankfully, my coworkers didn’t mind polishing these off.

Now, I know these kisses are a Halloween candy, but you may luck out at your store. I saw them at my local Target a couple of days ago, and right now, the Halloween candy is SUPER cheap, so if you love these kisses, stock up! I really wish Hersheys would make this a year-round candy, but I guess it’s better for my thighs this way.

Gingerbread Blossom Cookies
Source: cookie recipe from Taste of Home

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
  
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Additional sugar for rolling
• Pumpkin Spice Hershey Kisses, unwrapped

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of a mixer, mix the butter and sugar for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is light and fluffy. With the mixer on low, add in the egg and molasses.
2. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt. With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture to the wet mixture and mix until everything is well-combined.
3. Using a small cookie scoop, scoop out cookies and roll the dough into granulated sugar. Place the dough balls 2 inches apart on a parchment or silicone mat lined cookie sheet. Bake the cookies for 8-11 minutes, until puffy and lightly browned along the edge.
4. Immediately after taking the cookies out, press a kiss candy into the center of each cookie. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely. Since these kisses are a softer chocolate, you may want to place them in the refrigerator for about 10-20 minutes, to allow the kiss candy to set before serving.

This past weekend, Hocus Pocus was on cable. Twice. So I watched it twice, of course. Thank goodness LSU’s game was a morning game or I would have been a little torn. Growing up in the 90s, Hocus Pocus just screams Halloween to me. I actually remember my parents not letting us watch the movie at first, because it was rated PG. Yes, I know how sheltered this makes me sound, but I understand. I probably would have had nightmares about my life being sucked out by a witch or something.

I love my parents, but as a kid, they were very strict about what my siblings and I could have. For example, when I got my first CD player, “Santa” included a copy of “Jagged Little Pill” with it, and the minute my mom heard “da*n” from the CD, I had to return it and ended up with Spice Girls. No offense to Spice Girls, but I really wanted Alanis Morissette’s CD. Also, when I had braces, most of the kids in class were rule breakers. They ate sticky candy and chewed gum, but I didn’t dare try that in front of my parents. One of the biggest candies I missed was caramel. Caramel is in so many things I love, like Snickers or a good ice cream sundae. So yeah, the braces phase of life REALLY stunk.

Now that I’m an adult, of course I don’t have anyone to tell me no PG movie or gum for you. I don’t necessarily junk up my life, but it’s cool to have that freedom, especially in the kitchen. A few weeks ago, I noticed these caramel bits in the grocery store and immediately thought of throwing them in cookies. Since it’s fall, of course I had to involve pumpkin, and I found this recipe. The original recipe involved butterscotch chips, but I added caramel bits and dried cranberries instead. Fantastic, right? Oh heck yes. You can’t go wrong with these cookies…in fact, the pumpkin oatmeal base makes it too tempting to add all sorts of fun ingredients to them.

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies
Source: adapted from Two Peas & Their Pod

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 3/4 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• pinch of ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 3 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 3/4 cup caramel bits (or you could use chocolate chips)

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Prepare two cookie sheets by lining them with parchment paper or a silicone mat and set those aside.
2. Whisk the dry ingredients in a small bowl. (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and salt) Set the dry mixture to the side while you prepare your wet ingredients
3. In the bowl of a mixer, mix the butter and sugars for a couple minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract, and mix until well-blended. Add in the pumpkin puree and mix until well-blended.
4. Slowly add in the dry mixture, and mix until just combined. With a spatula or spoon, stir in the oats, dried cranberries and caramel bits (or chocolate chips).
5. Using a tablespoon sized scoop, scoop the dough and drop each dollop onto your cookie sheets (giving about 2 inches in between). Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies appear to be set and are golden along the edges. When they are done, allow the cookies to cool on the cookie sheet for a couple of minutes, and then transfer the cookies to a regular cooling rack until they are completely cool!