I talk about food, you read it.
Cookies
Chocolate Lava Cookies
1I know most of my posts are usually something to eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner with desserts being few and far between. This is largely due to the fact that I don’t like to bake. I actually am not really a sweets person and much prefers salty snacks. Give me a bag of chips and I will go to town, but give me cookies and I will have just one. There isn’t very many types of cookies out there that would make me want to go for seconds, except for crumbling minty Girl Guide cookies on Ice Cream and these super soft chocolaty lava cookies.
These cookies were introduced to me by a co-worker who regularly brings them to feed the hungry staff. We then take over the lunch room and gorge on them like piranhas. They’re super moist like a brownie but much lighter in flavour and according to the recipe low in fat.
Ingredients
- 1 1/3 cup flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- ½ cup cocoa
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ cup margarine or butter softened
- 3 large egg whites, lightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Icing sugar for rolling
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, brown sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt, breaking up any lumps of brown sugar. Stir in margarine until the mixture is well combined and crumbly. This can be done in a food processor. (I wouldn’t say this step leads to a crumbly mixture but more of a damp powdery mixture).
Add eggs whites and vanilla and stir by hand just until the dough comes together.
Place a few heaping spoonfuls of icing sugar in a bowl or shallow dish. Roll dough into 1 ½ inch balls and then roll the ball into the icing sugar to coat.
Place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with non-stick spray or parchment paper.
Bake for 12-14 minutes, until just set around the edges but still soft in the middle. Transfer to rack to cool.
*Makes 2 dozen
Like I said, these cookies actually make me want to go back for seconds which is rather unusual. I couldn’t get over how easy they were either, which is a bonus for the non-bakers like me.
Shortbread Cookies
0This Christmas season has been a little slow for me. J and I haven’t had to attend many Christmas Parties and we also haven’t really had people come over either. It seems that everyone else is super busy but us as we missed most of the Christmas shenanigans while we were in Dominican. My first taste of Christmas treats were things people brought into work and some goodies my friend C made for girls night. Our home has yet to be filled with the aroma of Christmas baking until today.
When I think of Christmas goodies I think my favourites are rum balls, Nanaimo bars, chocolate covered cherry balls and shortbread cookies. J absolutely loves shortbread too so I decided to make us some soft, melt in your mouth, buttery shortbread.
Shortbread adapted from Joy of Baking
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)
- ½ cup icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ¼ tsp salt
In the bowl of your mixer whip the butter for about 1 minute, add icing sugar and stir for about 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Add Vanilla until incorporated. In a separate bowl combine flour and salt together. Slowly add flour mixture to butter until just mixed in, don’t over mix.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about 30-60 min. (until firm)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface until ¼ inch thick and cut into desired shapes. Bake for about 8-10 minutes or until cookies are very lightly browned.
My cookies were slightly thicker then ¼ inch so it took an extra 4 minutes to cook. It’s really important at that point to really watch them because they can brown very fast which really ruins the flavour of shortbread. I am so very happy that I decided to do some baking for Christmas after all. J and I filled out bellies with eggnog and shortbread warm from the oven while occasionally cuddling with our puppy monster. What a great evening!
Ginger Bread Christmas Cookie Tree
5Back in November J and I were wondering around the Superstore looking at all the new Christmas stuff that had just arrived, when I came across a stack of red boxes. J picked it up and I got pretty excited to see that it was a box of cookie cutters that creates a cookie tree. I thought J was just going to laugh and put it down but he asked if I wanted it…heck yes!!
Last night I decided to make my tree. I was a little worried because I am not really a baker and this involved ginger bread cookie dough but the recipe didn’t look too intimidating. I even slightly changed the recipe, which I am not sure you’re supposed to do but it worked. I just took out some of the corn syrup and added molasses to darken up the dough. The recipe came in the box, so I don’t really know how close it is to actual ginger bread. I am sure you can use your own handed down recipe instead.
Ingredients
- 5 1/2 cups All purpose flour
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 2 tsp baking soda
- 1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 cups corn syrup
- 1 1/2 sugar
- 1 1/4 unsalted butter
- 1/2 milk
1. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, ginger and salt. Set aside. 2. In a large microwave safe container, heat corn syrup and butter in microwave on HIGH for 2-3 min, until butter is melted. Stir in milk. Pour over dry ingredients. With Hands, work into a smooth sticky dough ball. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and chill 4 hours until dough is very firm and cold. 3. Preheat oven to 325 F. Line 5 baking sheets with parchment paper. Divide dough into 3 portions. Cover and refrigerate portions not in use. On lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out two stars of each size, place on a baking sheet. To reduce the amount of dough needed, use a smaller star to cut out the center of a larger star. 4. Bake 2 sheets at a time, in the center of over. Larger stars take 18 min and smaller stars 12-14. (I cooked them all for 15 min and it worked fine). Rotate sheets halfway through cooking time. Cookies can be stores in airtight container for 3 days.
Now the fun part was decorating the tree. I really wanted those little silver balls that people used to decorate cookies with, and also shown in the picture on the box but I couldn’t find them anywhere. Instead I just used green sprinkles and an icing sugar glaze.
Glaze
- 2 cups icing sugar
- 3 tbsp milk.
Stir together and drizzle over cookies.
The glaze was super easy, 2 ingredients can’t get any simpler. I outlined all the cookies and then filled in the cookies. To do that I just spooned on the glaze inside the outline and with a wooden skewer I just pushed the glaze where I wanted it (closer to the edges) and gravity makes sure it’s even and smooth. The outline just creates a barrier for the glaze as I didn’t really want it to run off the cookies.
So after about an hour and a half of glazing and sprinkling the finished product! I don’t think it will last very long with J in the house but it was fun to do.
