Chocolate Peppermint Cookies

I officially consider it Christmas cookie time. And since I first made these 5 years ago, they've been my go to Christmas cookie ever since.

I literally remember where I was standing when I copied down the recipe. Is that weird? Hey, at least I don't remember what I was wearing...

These cookies are just so fudgy and fantastic. They come out in perfect circles, and I love the textural and taste differences with the soft chocolate and crunchy peppermint. Trust me, you need to throw these on your cookie tray this year-you'll thank me.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
From Martha Stewart

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup dark cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz. milk chocolate
1 stick butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp peppermint extract
3 eggs
35 crushed peppermint candies, divided


In a small bowl, mix together dry ingredients. Melt together chocolate and butter in a large bowl placed over a pan of simmering water. Remove bowl from over pan and add sugar and extracts. Allow to cool, then mix in eggs one at a time. Slowly add in flour mixture. Stir in 15 crushed peppermint candies. Refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes, or as long as overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Roll dough into circles, and dip tops in remaining crushed peppermint candies. Place cookies on lined/greased baking sheets, and bake for 15 minutes. Allow to cool, and enjoy!

Who needs Girl Scouts?

Finally, I'm on top of things this week!!

Tonight is the monthly women's group get together at my church and we're all bringing food and recipes. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and bring cookies! So I sorta fudged my own rule of only making cookies I've never made before. I hate bringing things to a potluck if I've never made them before because I'm pretty critical of my baking. So, while I've never made these in cookie form before, I have made them as bar cookies before. Medium cheat, but what are ya gunna do?

I made Samoas! These are my absolute favorite Girl Scout cookies. They turn out chewier than the originals, but equally delicious.

Samoas Girl Scout CookiesFrom Baking Bites

Cookies
2 sticks (1 cup) butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Cream together butter and sugar. Slowly mix in flour, baking powder and salt. Add vanilla and slowly add milk until the dough comes together-you may not need all the milk. Roll your dough out to 1/4 inch on a floured surface, and you may need to add flour to keep dough from sticking. Cut into desired shape and place on lined/greased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes until cookies are slightly browned.

*On a side note-as legit as the cookies look with the center cut out, it's a total hassle when adding the topping, so if you don't mind the difference, just go with a circle!


Topping
3 cups shredded coconut
12 oz. chewy caramels
1/4 tsp salt
3 Tbsp milk
8 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Spread shredded coconut on a cookie tray. Toast for 10-12 minutes, strirring every three minutes. Let cool.
Unwrap caramels and place in a microwaveable bowl. Add milk and salt; microwave for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Fold in coconut. Spread topping onto cooled cookies.
After all your cookies are topped, melt chocolate chips in the microwave, stirring frequently to prevent it from burning. Dip the bottom of the cookies into the chocolate. Place the remaining chocolate in a plastic bag, snip off a corner, and drizzle across tops of cookies. Eat one. Or two. Or 12.

World Peace Cookies

Watch Megan's 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies fall apart spectacularly.

Sorry! I really shouldn't be apologizing, because really I'm only wrecking the experience for myself. Between starting a new job and first time apartment hunting, I've had just zero time to worry about recipes and baking and writing. So this was the first thing to go. And I won't even try and say that in the future when things get crazy hectic that I'll try harder. Cause, if I'm being honest, this would be the first thing to go again. The worst part is, I anticipated this very thing and have multiple posts already typed with pictures in place ready to go! None of them are cookies, but even if I was skipping the 12 Weeks posts, I still could have been putting something out there! Lame, Megan. Lame.

Oh well, no more excuses, I completely skipped last week, but this week I'm armed with World Peace Cookies! I'd love to say something fun about how they filled me with peace through my apartment hunt but...since I just made them this morning, that's not true. Any peace I had definitely came from above, but these cookies are still FANTASTIC. I mentioned in the beginning that I'm not a huge cookie fan, but shortbread is my total downfall. I could eat a whole batch of shortbread without sharing. This ones are still sandy and buttery, but also rich and fantastic. Make some. Eat them. You won't regret it.

World Peace Cookies
From Dorie Greenspan

1 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
11 Tbsp butter, room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
generous 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

Mix together flour, cocoa and baking soda; set aside.

Cream butter until light and fluffy. Mix in both sugars, salt and vanilla until well blended. Dorie then has an interesting way of mixing in the flour. Add the whole flour mixture into the bowl, and cover your bowl and mixer with a towel. Slowly pulse your mixer four or five times to combine the majority of the flour (the towel keeps you from ending up with a kitchen covered in flour!). Take the towel off and finish mixing until the flour is just combined, and mix in the chocolate chips.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and divide in half. Shape both parts into a log, and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for two hours before baking. Dough can also be frozen, simply add an extra minute to the baking time.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. After dough has been refrigerated, cut logs into cookies and place on greased/lined cookie tray. Bake for 12 minutes (or 13 for frozen dough). Cookies will look doughy and not finished, but after cooling will be sandy and, mmm, so delish.

I only baked a quarter of the recipe, and then I ate three of the cookies before I even took pictures so I tried to fake it...

But my tray is depressingly empty...

Super Late 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies Post

Ahh, I know! I'm so behind! We can blame it on busyness, brain farts, and...buying? Maybe a stretch, but I had to try and go for alliteration!

I made my cookies for this post the same day I made the lime sandwich cookies. What I should have done was written my whole post then, too, and we wouldn't have had this problem. But in good busyness news, I started a new job this week. Between leaving my other job, and working all week at the new place, I worked 20 hours more than I've worked since moving here. So pretty much all I did was work, sleep, and neglect my blog.

This week (okay, last week), I made pumpkin cookies! Not like cookies with pumpkin in them, but pumpkin shaped cookies that I decorated. I had a real hankering for decorating Christmas cookies, but I didn't figure anyone would care to eat cookies decorated like Christmas trees or presents or candy canes. So I decided to ignore my desires-I tend to jump right over fall and start mentally celebrating Christmas in August)-and keep it within the current season.

I'm not including the decorating instructions in this current post. But I bought a Frankenstein cookie cutter, so maybe if I can find time to make those I'll put up step by step instructions. Or, more practically, sometime around Christmas I'll finally get around to it. I know, I know...

Brown Sugar and Spice Cutout Cookies
From Bake at 350

3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 sticks butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.

In a medium bowl, mix together flour, baking powder and spices. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Add egg and vanilla, mixing well. Slowly add in the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

Roll out on a floured surface (or refrigerate for a bit, if it's too soft). Cut into whatever shapes your heart desires, (or supress your desires and cut out pumpkins...), and place on a lined/greased baking sheet. Bake for 9-12 minutes. Let cool before decorating!

I better get on top of things and make something for this weeks post-it's only two days away, and I'm determined to be on time this week. I also have another tutu picture to post. I LOVE it! And now, a few extra pictures-I had way to much fun with these.

This pumpkin got scared by his friend in the background. And yes, that is, in fact, a napkin background that doesn't feel the whole picture area. Keeping it classy.

I made a bit of a messy on this one when I spilled icing out of the top of my piping bag.. But, I went with it. This poor pumpkin got scared and it made him cry. Or maybe he was just born with a birth defect...which made him cry.

I'm not linking up with all the other posts because I'm soooo late this week. But, next week (by which I mean, in two days) I will!

Lime Coconut Sandwich Cookies

Well, I made sandwich cookies again. No, it's not going to be my "thing" for the entire twleve weeks, I just wanted an excuse to try a new fruit curd recipe, and it fit perfectly with these cookies.

Again, I went through the whole not-stocked-on-kitchen-staples thing, only this time it sent me to four stores in the same day. I nearly gave up on my baking day yesterday, but eventually I got it all worked out. Until I went to make my lime curd and was out of limes. Thus when I say I adapted the recipe, what I really mean is, I ran out of limes, was too lazy to make a morning store run, and crossed them off the ingredients list.

Since moving, working in a kitchen that isn't what I'm used to, has been a strange experience. Ingredients that I grew up with constantly on hand, or fun tools I got used to, aren't standards in all kitchens. Weird, right? Most times I'll look over a recipe and think, ok, got all the ingredients, let's do this! Then I find out that not everyone buys gigantor bottles of cinnamon at Costco. Or, as with my cookies these last two weeks, since most of my kitchen tools are in box #9 in my old bedroom, I've had to make standard drop cookies by hand, and cut out cookies with the open end of a frosting tip. Not the end of the world, I was simply left with all sizes of sugar cookies, and 162 cut out cookies last week. But my things will be here in about one month, and Elton the Kitchen Aid and I will be reunited at last.

I've had these cookies on my radar for a while, because the words chewy, coconut, and lime were calling my name. They were worth the wait. I'm not a big sugar cookie person, but these have such a perfect texture and the coconut and lime add just the right amount of extra flavor. Yum...

Chewy Coconut Lime Sugar Cookies
From Rock Recipes

2 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
zest of one lime
3 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 cup unsweetened toasted coconut
1/2 cup sugar for rolling cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg, vanilla, lime juice and zest. Slowly mix in the dry ingredients and coconut until combined.

Roll rounded teaspoons of dough in sugar, and place on lined/greased cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly golden. Don't worry if they're puffed up when you first pull them out. As they cool they'll flatten nicely. Recipe makes about 60 cookies.

My nice stack of varying sized cookies.
I've always worked with a fruit curd recipe I received in a baking class. It was a huge recipe, and did taste great, but the addition of all the butter always made me squirm. I love citrus flavors, and I just wanted tart, crisp lemon flavor, not something muted with butter. (Side note: Sad that something so delicious was cursed with such a gross name. Curd...ugh, shudder....) So when I saw the color of the lemon curd on this website, I had to find the recipe. And, just as I expected, it was butter free-success! It. Was. AMAZING. It's definitely not for the citrus faint of heart. It's bold and fresh and...lime-y. I can't wait to make this with lemon and redo my lemon meringue cake-it'll totally kick it up a notch. Feel free to leave your cookies as they are, they're fantastic on their own.

Lime Curd
"Adapted" from Tartelette

1 cup lime juice
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg + 2 yolks

In a saucepan, stir together lime juice and sugar. Bring to a slow simmer over medium heat. In a seperate bowl, mix the egg and yolk together to combine. Slowly beat some of the lime juice mixture into the eggs. Pour egg mixture back into the pan, and stirring constantly, cook until the mixture thickens-about 5 minutes. Let cool before filling your cookies!


On a final note-these got a "really good" rating from my uncle whom I consider a food consumer, rather than a food enjoyer. Yup, they're that tasty!

Grown Up Baileys Creme Brownie Oreos

Here it is-my first official 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies post!

(Such great camera skills-too much bottom, not enough top...)
Like I mentioned in my last post, I've never been much of a cookie baker. That probably stem froms the fact that chocolate chip cookies totally intimidate me. Everyone likes their chocolate chip cookies slightly differently and I just don't know what to do since I have no opinion on them.

So, in order to expand my horizons, I decided to join 12 Weeks of Christmas Cookies, and at least try 12 new recipes!

So my own personal prerequisite is that I can't use a recipe I've tried in that past. That's right, even my absolute favorite Christmas cookies won't make the cut (although, naturally, they'll make it on the blog some other way!).

Also, because of the way my hours were going at Safeway the last couple weeks, funds were...nearly nonexsistent. So the biggest challenge for me was figuring out what ingredients I had on hand, and using only those. Thus, the only things I had to buy was sugar, flour, and shortening. Not too bad. (Don't you just hate running out of kitchen staples like that all at once?!)

So, this weeks ingredients were espresso and Baileys! I decided to use a brownie roll out cookie recipe I've been hoarding for a while, and wanted to fill them with something, and finally settled on an oreo cookie filling.

I had a very small cookie cutter (well actually I left all my cookie cutters in Phoenix, and had to use the large end of a frosting tip to cut my cookies), and I ended up with 163 cookies. I was able to make 81 cookies with this recipe. And you'll probably curse me after you mix your filling thinking, "Megan, there's no way I can fill all my cookies. Now I have to mix more!" But fear not, you'll be amazed at how far the filling goes. I even had a tablespoon left over at the end.
Now, enough talking, finally on to the recipe!

Brownie Roll Out Cookies
Adapted from Technicolor Kitchen

3 cups flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking powder
2 sticks butter, room temperature
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp espresso powder
2/3 cup cocoa powder (*note-the original recipe calls for unsweetened, I used dark cocoa powder cause 1. I had it on hand, 2. I liked the dark cocoa with espresso/Baileys combo better, anyways.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together flour, salt and baking powder; set aside. In a large bowl, mix together butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla, espresso powder, and cocoa powder. Slowly add in flour mixture. Wrap in plastic and chill for at least one hour.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/4" thick, and cut as you wish! Bake for 11 minutes, or until set. After they've cooled, you can fill them with the oreo filling!

See, you may want to create bigger cookies...or else you get to fill all 81 sandwiches!

Baileys Oreo Creme Filling
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1/2 stick butter, room temperature
1/4 cup vegetable shortening (ie. Crisco)
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp Baileys Irish Cream

Place the butter and shortening in a large bowl. Slowly add in sugar and Baileys. Mix on high for 2 to 3 minutes, or until light and fluffy.

This feeling holds endless flavor possibilities, and can easily be made kid friendly by replacing the Baileys with vanilla. Ooo like peppermint oreos at Christmas time! The cookies are fudgey and so delicious. I brought them into work and overheard a coworker tell someone else she'd eaten 8 of them! They're that good.

Now, what to make next week...?