Reindeer Cookies

Wait, what?  I'm actually going to post a timely post - you know, before you need it?

And i'm going to do this in the middle of what is always my busiest time of the year, to which i've already added trying to buy a co-op and the other half of my department being on maternity leave?  While I've got an awful head cold and have guests coming into town in a week?

I'm such a rockstar.

or, i thought i was until my sister told me that my 3 year old nephew had made these exact same cookies in NURSERY SCHOOL.

oh whatever.  they're cute.

(sorry for the crappy cell phone camera picture.  and yes, i should have
faced the Ms down - but I was REALLY tired...)

I made them for my work cookie exchange and while they were a HUGE pain to transport to the office (due to not wanting to lose the antlers, though the antlers seem way more secure than i expected), i fully expect to win (no actual award but lots of bragging rights for) cutest cookies on that exchange table...

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Reindeer Cookies
courtesy of Bakergirl with slight modifications by me
Click here to import recipe directly into Pepperplate

3/4 c creamy peanut butter
1 1/4 c firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter (1 stick)
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 egg

1 3/4 c all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

~ 72 chocolate-covered mini pretzels (1 box of the 100 calorie packages works)
~ 72 brown and green M&Ms
~ 36 red M&Ms in one of the larger varieties (i used pretzel but you could use peanut too...)

***

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Line baking sheets with parchment and set aside.

Combine peanut butter, brown sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until well mixed and fluffy.  (it also tastes REALLY good - sample it now, cause the egg is about to go in...)

Add egg; beat again to combine.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.  Whisk to combine.

Slowly add flour mixture to peanut butter/sugar mixture with mixer on low. Mix til combined, but do not overmix - once everything is incorporated, shut it down.

Form dough into ~1-inch balls.  Place on baking sheet, an about 1.5 - 2 inches apart.  Pinch one end to form a nose and then slightly flatten the entire thing.  You will have a tray of alien-heads at this point.

Bake for 7 to 8 minutes, until set or just barely beginning to brown.

Remove from oven and immediately press red M&Ms into the point to make Rudolph's nose.  Then place either 2 brown or 2 green M&Ms into the middle to make the eyes.

Finally, push two mini pretzels at a ~90° angle (so, sticking straight up towards the sky) into the tops of the cookies for the reindeer's antlers.

Allow to cool 5 minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  DO NOT TOUCH antlers while cookies are cooling as the chocolate will be melty and they are precarious at this point.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Irish Kiss Cookies

This morning, Jordan informed me that he doesnt 'theme dress'...  He nearly wore a green shirt to work today but then realized it was St Pats and changed into a purple one.

BAH HUMBUG.

I find it slightly ironic that a guy who loves Guinness and found his future wife (me) by searching the internet dating world for redheads would decline to openly participate in the holiday that celebrates both beer and those who gave us redheads, but i digress...

I'm making up for his non-participatory nature by wearing a green shirt, green eyeliner and giving you boozy green cookies.

Happy St Patrick's Day!!!

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Irish Kiss Cookies

courtesy of The Runaway Spoon with modifications by me

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) butter, softened
½ cup sugar
½ cup light brown sugar

1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ c + 1 tbsp Bailey's Irish cream
green food coloring gel

32 Dark Hershey’s Kisses, unwrapped

Powdered Sugar

***

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Combine flour, baking soda & salt and set aside.

Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. 

Add the egg and vanilla, beating until combined. 

Add the Irish Cream, beating well.

Add half of the flour mixture & mix to combine.  Add the remaining flour mixture & mix to combine.

Continue to mix while you add green food coloring until you get your desired shade of green.

Push a kiss into ~ 1 tsp of dough and form a ball around the kiss.  Place on baking sheet, leaving 1.5 inches or more between each ball.

Bake ~9 minutes.  Cookies will flatten some and the color will change slightly.

Cool on the cookie sheets for a minute or two, then carefully slide parchment paper onto a wire rack to finish cooling.  

Dust with powdered sugar.

why you wish we were coworkers...

... because if we were, you'd stop by my office tomorrow to get one of these...

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Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies
adapted from marthastewart.com

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) butter, room temperature (half salted and half unsalted)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar - half light and half dark
1 teaspoon coarse salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips


Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. (yes, you can do this with a regular old hand mixer...)
Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute.
Add flour mixture; mix until just combined.
Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Bake until cookies are golden around the edges and set in the center, 12 - 14 minutes.
Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely.

Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

all reduced to this...

work is kicking my ass... the 60 hour weeks are in full force already - and its only january.

life is also kicking my ass... smack in the middle of that 60 hour week was a day and a half of sick time due to a broken wisdom tooth which needed to come out - stat.

therefore, not only do i not have time to cook, but even if i did, i'd only be able to eat mushy things...

so its come down to break and bake cookies...

sadly, you can still make out the square lines if you look closely.

junior, they'll be on my desk tomorrow.

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Break & Bake cookies
courtesy of Toll House

1 package "break & bake" chocolate chip walnut cookies


go to grocery store.
buy prepackaged, premade cookie dough.

come home.
preheat oven to 350°
remember to remove the pizza stone that you store in the oven before it gets too hot.

cut open package.
break cookies apart along the pre-cut lines.

arrange 22 of the 24 on that pizza stone that you use for EVERYTHING due to its low-maintenance nature. eat the other two, raw. explain to your mother that no, worms will not grow in your belly and really, she's an adult and should have figured that out by now.

bake for ~ 12 mins.

remove from oven.

photograph for your blog

let cool for 2 minutes, get impatient, scrape one off and eat it.
notice that its still raw inside.

turn the oven back on (or pat yourself on the back for not turning it off) and put them back in for another 3 - 4 minutes while you upload your pictures.

pull back out of the oven and cool.

finish posting blog.

bad day solution

if you read my other blog, you already know i had a craptastic day. if you dont read it, i'll recap... annoying people on the subway, annoying people at work, annoying people at the lab, annoying people at time warner...

i thought the solution to my bad day was to go out and get myself some Sabra hummus for dinner (seriously, i cant even make it that cheap, so why bother trying? theirs is SO good!) even though it meant changing out of my PJs and back into real clothes...
so i did that, and it was good, but it wasnt good enough...

i needed more. i needed cookies.

(it is worth mentioning that today was supposed to be the start of 'operation: body makeover' but it was squashed by the fact that my shiny new gym membership may be cheaper through our new insurance, which means i need to find out the details before i sign up and spend too much...)

nothing fancy - half of a batch of the good ol fashioned toll house cookie recipe. plus coconut. plus one mistake...

the recipe calls for softened butter... in a very typical moment of impatience, i wanted the butter softened like, 5 minutes ago. so i put it in the microwave. and forgot about it until i heard it bubbling. oops... i thought that i should let it cool before beating, but figured i might as well add the sugar and then cool it... and by cool it, i mean put it in the fridge.

then i got more impatient and added the egg, the vanilla, the salt and the baking soda. and put it back in the fridge.

then i got more impatient and took it out. it was still quite melty, but whatever. i wanted cookies NOW, not in an hour...

so i beat the hell out of the mixture... until it seemed like it came as close to resembling softened butter as possible... it was holding some shape - i figured that was enough, right? mixed in the flour (a bit more than i even should have) and then got a little nervous - the batter seemed more like batter than like dough...

but thank god for that coconut... (not the sweetened kind, the kind you get out of the bulk food bin in the supermarket...) i mixed in the chips and the coconut and i guess the dried coconut soaked up just the right amount of liquid, (liquid caused by melted butter. duh.) cause now it seemed right.

i was still a bit skeptical but wow - thats a mistake i'll make over and over... the cookies are a little crisp on the outside and almost a little cakey on the inside...


the chips are soft but not mushed. and the coconut is there, but its just a hint of flavor... um, yum...

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Chocolate Chip Coconut Mistake Cookies
screwed up courtesy of the standard Toll House Cookie recipe

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 sticks) butter, melted and then cooled
3/4 cup sugar - half granulated sugar, half packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 cup NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
scant 1/2 cup organic coconut flakes (not sweetened)


PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

In microwave, melt butter in medium sized (non-metal) mixing bowl. 1 min, 15 seconds should do it.

Mix sugars, vanilla, salt and baking soda in with melted butter. Add egg.
Refrigerate for 5 minutes or more, if you can stand the waiting.

Beat melted butter mixture on medium high until it starts to get lighter, fluffier and hold some shape... probably a good 3 or 4 minutes...

Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in chips and coconut. Drop by heaping tablespoons onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

BAKE for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Dough can also be frozen. Wrap in wax paper, form into a log and wrap the whole thing in a freezer bag. I hear it will last this way for up to 8 weeks, but who the heck has cookie dough in their freezer for 8 weeks???