Holiday Cookie Recipes, Pt. 2

Black Walnut Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup chopped black walnuts

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl, cream butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Add eggs and beat until smooth. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Stir dry ingredients into the creamed mixture until well blended. Stir in walnuts last. Shape dough into logs about 2 inches in diameter, wrap them in wax paper, and refrigerate until firm.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
Slice dough logs into 1/2 inch slices, and place on baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes. Mmmm nuttylicious! Great with Tea!

Servings Per Recipe: 24

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Basic Butter Cookies
Recipe courtesy Gourmet Magazine

Recipe Summary
Difficulty: Easy
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 5 hours
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 dozen cookies

These cookies are absolutely delicious made with regular butter. Dough log can be chilled up to 5 days or frozen, wrapped in a double layer of plastic wrap, 1 month. If frozen, thaw dough in refrigerator just until it can be sliced. Instead of forming dough into a log and chilling, you can roll tablespoons of dough into 1 1/4-inch balls, then roll balls in finely chopped nuts (about 1 cup) and coarse sugar. Bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until bottoms are browned, about 15 minutes total. To garnish cookies with chocolate, melt 3 1/2 ounces chocolate and cool slightly. Transfer to a heavy-duty sealable plastic bag and snip a 1/16-inch opening in 1 corner. Pipe chocolate evenly back and forth over cookies. Let chocolate set before storing cookies. Cookies keep, layered between sheets of waxed paper or parchment, in an airtight container at room temperature 1 week.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (*I’ve used lemon extract, and any preferred extract would be okay)

Garnish: coarse or sanding sugar (I used just plain sugar); or melted chocolate; I also mixed in chopped blanched almonds (see cook’s note, below)

Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl.
Beat together butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes in a standing mixer (preferably fitted with paddle attachment) or 6 with a handheld.
Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low, then add flour mixture and mix until just combined.
Form dough into a 12-inch log (2 inches in diameter) on a sheet of plastic wrap(or waxed paper) and roll up dough in plastic wrap. Chill dough on a baking sheet until firm, at least 4 hours. (To roll cookies into balls, see cook’s note, below.)
Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 375 degrees F. (I had to adjust my oven to 350 degrees F.)
Cut enough 1/8 to 1/4-inch-thick slices from log with a heavy knife to fill 2 ungreased large baking sheets, arranging slices about 1-inch apart (chill remainder of log, wrapped in plastic wrap). If garnishing with coarse sugar, sprinkle slices with it.
Bake cookies, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes total. Cool on sheets 3 minutes, then transfer with a metal spatula to racks to cool completely. Make more cookies with remaining dough on cooled baking sheets.

Cook’s Note: Sanding sugar is available at specialty foods shops and New York Cake & Baking Distributor (800-942-2639).

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Butter Pecan Cookies
From Everyday Food magazine.

Here’s a tip cream the butter first. Then add sugar and cream them together. This is the way it is supposed to be done.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 cup chopped pecans
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar, plus more for coating
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 350°. On a baking sheet, toast pecans until fragrant, about 6 minutes. Let cool completely; finely chop.
With an electric mixer, cream butter for about a minute. Add 1/3 cup sugar and cream until light, about 1 minute more. Beat in vanilla, salt, and flour, scraping down sides of bowl, just until dough comes together. Fold in pecans.
Separate dough into 12 pieces; squeeze dough to shape into balls. Roll in sugar. Place, 3 inches apart, on a baking sheet. (the dough is a crumbly texture)
Gently flatten with the bottom of a glass (reshape sides if necessary). Sprinkle with sugar.
Bake until golden brown, rotating sheet halfway through, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle with more sugar. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Yields: a dozen cookies (try to double up ingredients for more cookies)

Holiday Cookie Recipes

The holidays will be coming around and I thought I will post some cookie recipes that I made last year, my family enjoyed them.

I was craving the peanut butter cookies that our cafeteria used to make and came across so many recipes that don’t even include flour. I was amazed because I can’t imagine cookies being made without flour. Well I went to the Skippy website and found a recipe that seems logical. I did change a thing or two. Overall these cookies came close to the recipe I remembered years ago.

CLASSIC PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

• 2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 cup Skippy ® Creamy or Super Chunk ® Peanut Butter (I’ve used Jif, matter of preference.)
• 1 cup Imperial ® Spread, softened (I use butter instead)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350°. In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

2. In large bowl, with electric mixer, beat Skippy ® Creamy Peanut Butter and Spread until smooth. Beat in sugars, then eggs and vanilla until blended. Beat in flour mixture just until blended. (If necessary, refrigerate dough until easy to handle.)

3. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. On ungreased baking sheets, arrange balls 2 inches apart. With fork dipped in sugar, gently flatten each cookie and press crisscross pattern into tops.

4. Bake 12 minutes or until lightly golden. On wire rack, cool completely. Store in tightly covered container.

Makes:
6 dozen cookies

Preparation Time:
20 Minute(s)

Cook Time:
12 Minute(s)
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I short cut these cookies, because I didn’t want to buy a container of oatmeal just to make this.
I made various kinds of Oatmeal cookies by adding the following to the recipe:

Oatmeal Cookies

Butterscotch chips
Chocolate chips
Peanut Butter chips (or combination of chocolate and peanut butter)
Raisins (but I used Craisins, dried cranberries, great for holiday recipes)
and Nuts (walnut, pecan or almond)

Main Ingredient:
Betty Crocker’s Oatmeal Cookie mix

If you have the ingredients, you can use Betty Crocker’s Cookie mix and make different cookies all together.

Directions:
Follow the directions on the package and add any of the ingredients listed. I would suggest anywhere from 1/2 cup to 1 cup total (combination or not), but I just eyeball it and do as preference.

When making various cookies for holiday gifts or for dessert, this was a time saver.
I hope to add more recipes for the holiday, so come and check time to time. If you have any favorite cookie recipes, please leave it comments and I can post it up.
*TIP*
If you plan on having cookies through most of the holiday season, save yourself some time by making double, triple the amount and freeze for another time. The dough will be all ready and most cookie dough recipes keep up to 3 months in the freezer when stored properly.