25 Days of Cookies: Marble Cookies

If Michelangelo had worked as a baker, he would have preferred these cookies above all. Why? They're marble. And I hope you are all aware of his talent with carving and marble sculptures.

Cookie #17...holy guacamole, Batman! 17 cookies already!?

Today's cookie was such a battle to get to make. I had a staff training session with one of the new databases we are subscribing to (and it's awesome! I will never use Wikipedia again) and then a staff lunch meeting. When I got home, it was one project after another. And a family photo for our Christmas card! And then trying to use one of the websites to create a family card. Supposedly, those sites are supposed to be for the sake of convenience. Neither of them worked and just made me swear at my laptop a lot and get testy with everyone.

Dad had the audacity to complain that I hadn't baked any cookies yet while I was trying to make our Christmas card. It was nearly 7:00 and the thought of baking was awful. Like looking up at the top of a ropes course ladder after you've been climbing all day and your muscles are trembling from exhaustion.

I made a commitment though. To make 25 different cookies for the 25 days until Christmas. Dear God! At 8:00pm, I got all the ingredients out to make this recipe which I adapted from Mrs. Fields and made some excellent alterations to. My favorite part was the low oven temp and long cooking time. Finally got a chance to watch the episode of Bones that I missed a couple weeks ago!

 Perhaps I finished off what was left of a bottle of tempranillo wine from Saturday night... No shame. I was really wound up and thankfully everyone else left to do some Christmas shopping so I could relax and do my thing in the kitchen.

Don't be tricked by these cookies! When they come out of the oven they are pillowy soft and will seem under done but they are not!! That's just how wonderful they are.

These cookies are incredibly soft and even a little fluffy on the inside. This is because there is Tofutti non-dairy sour cream in them! Yeah, I know sour cream is for the tops of your baked potatoes or a healthy dollop in your chili. BUT it's an excellent sweet treat baking ingredient! The original Mrs. Fields recipe calls for regular sour cream and I chose to use the Tofutti for its own unique properties. My mother used the Tofutti in a sour cream pound cake she made from Cooking Light  a few (ugh, or several, now that I think about it) years ago. When she made the recipe with regular sour cream, we didn't like it nearly as much. The Tofutti made that pound cake much softer and it stayed very moist. I also used a greater ratio of brown sugar to granulated sugar to keep the texture soft. If you can't find Tofutti,  you can use regular sour cream. The texture won't be quite the same but I'm sure they will still be good!

Marble Cookies

The Taming of the Roux  

adapted from Mrs. Fields Best Ever Cookie Book

Ingredients:

2 c. all purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

¾ c. packed light brown sugar

¼ c. granulated sugar

½ c. unsalted butter, softened (1 stick)

1 large egg

4 oz (½ c. Tofutti sour cream)

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 300°.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl with a whisk. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until you made a grainy paste. Add egg and mix until incorporated. Add vanilla and Tofutti. Mix until combined.

Add dry ingredients and stir slowly until wet. Do not over mix!

Pour melted chocolate into the dough and gently fold with a wooden spoon. This part can be tricky. You want swirls so you must not mix with circular motions! Slowly drag your spoon from the bottom of the bowl to the top until your dough takes on a swirl of chocolate and vanilla. If you mix with circular motions, you'll just end up with chocolate (and delicious) cookies but that's not what you're aiming for. Think of the difference between a soft-serve swirl ice cream and a chocolate or a vanilla soft-serve.

Using about a rounded tablespoon’s amount, scoop dough into balls and drop onto a parchment lined sheet pan about 2 inches apart from each other.

Bake for 20-22 minutes.

 

Your tastebuds won't be sorry you baked these even though your waistline might be annoyed.

25 Days of Cookies: Mexican Spiced Shortbread Cookies

Cookie #16 and you know what that means...9 Days until Christmas! HURRAH! I really don't know why I thought baking 25 different cookies for all 25 days leading to Christmas was a spectacular idea. I have certainly been learning a lot about baking cookies but I am so tired! They're time consuming and they need to be watched and rotated and spun and cooled and transferred and dusted or glazed or iced or frosted!!! GAAAAAH!

</rant> If you haven't heard about the combination of hot spices and chocolate don't be scared by this recipe! Don't be scared by it even if you have heard of spicy chocolate! These Mexican Spiced Shortbread Cookies from Cooking Light are so lightly spiced by cayenne and ancho chile powders that no one would know its there unless you divulged this secret.

But it's there. It's a warm and slightly smoky but subtle hint in the back of your throat after you finish the cookie. I was a little disappointed honestly! I've never tried chocolate with chiles so I was really excited and interested. Preface to this story: I love spicy food. I think I've burned some of the sensitivity in my mouth away because I eat the hottest and spiciest food I can find.

But these cookies are not spicy. In fact, the sweet dulce de leche icing on the tops of them with toasted and sweetened pecans completely counteracts any of the spice that is just barely imparted by the miniscule amounts of cayenne and ancho powders.

Oh, but they are very tasty. Very tasty, indeed! But they are unlike any other cookie I have baked so far in that they are shortbread cookies. Shortbread is very crumbly and so is this cookie. If you're looking for a soft chewy chocolatey cookie, then these are not the cookie for you. Go back and have one of the Caramel Filled Chocolate Cookies I baked last week.

 Now lets get down to some things you should know if you decide to bake these.

Chill your dough. I suggest an hour at least! There were no instructions on how much dough to use for each cookie. I used a rounded teaspoon to get about 38 cookies. If the dough warmed up at all, I stuck the whole tray in my freezer for about 3 minutes.

The icing is absolutely divine but the milk component can easily curdle during the cooking process. I think it should be tempered and added slowly. There were no instructions to do this. If I were to make the icing again (and I assure you I will find other things to put it on because it's just that good), I would warm the milk slightly before adding it to the hot pan. Use a whisk for this part to help emulsify the brown sugar, butter, and milk components. It won't visibly thicken. Check this by running your finger across a dipped wooden spoon. If a clear line remains and isn't instantly awash in sweetness, you're good to go.

25 Days of Cookies: Chocolate Orange Chip Cookies

 My sister absolutely loves Orange Milanos. If you've never had chocolate and orange together, then let me tell you how much you're missing out on! These are Double Chocolate Orange Chip Cookies and they're my own original recipe. BUT I am not ready to share the recipe just yet. They count for 25 days of cookies because I baked them obviously.

I want to keep tweaking the recipe until I'm completely happy with it. I think I need to use more brown sugar in the recipe. I want them to be softer and chewier. They're heavenly right out of the oven.

Lindt makes a dark chocolate bar with orange zest and almond slivers in it and I just had to use it in these cookies. I chopped them up and mixed them into the dough but they need a little more fresh orange pop.

Dad took about 75% of these to work with him...he's lucky there was a second container full because otherwise I wouldn't have had any pictures of them.

Let's hope my sister gets to try one since I did make these with her in mind!

25 Days of Cookies: Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

These are, HANDS DOWN, the best oatmeal raisin cookies I have ever, ever, had! We got the recipe off of a family friend and they are so delicious, they will change your mind forever about all other oatmeal raisin cookies. Cookie #14: Christine McCarthy's Giant Oatmeal Raisin Cookies.

 What makes them so amazing? I've got a few reasons: 1. They're huge. Bigger than my hand. 2. They're soft and chewy where they should be but the addition of the walnuts gives them a pleasant crunch. 3. A combination of baking powder and baking soda makes them puff up ever so nicely. 4. The brown sugar and cinnamon are so warm and comforting! 5. Plenty of raisins!

 
 We've made these a number of times and family and friends think they're the bees knees. Rachel's eyes lit up when she saw that I baked these when she came home. Mom has also baked these and sent them to her work partner whenever he's been deployed overseas with the military. Since he's done mom so many favors to help with the holidays, I figured making some of these specifically for him as a thank you would be nice. :)

 Now I had a problem...no raisins. Thought we did have some but unfortunately that was not the case! We did have dried currants though! These taste very much like raisins, in fact if I didn't tell you that they're currants, you would just think they were raisins. Smaller in size, they are slightly sweeter and are very popular around the holidays.

Next time I make these I'm going to feel free to experiment though. I really enjoyed the currant for raisins swap and would love to try some other swaps. Since there are walnuts chopped into these,  you know I toasted them up before mixing them into the dough. Of course, it wasn't called for in the original recipe but toasting them makes such a huge difference.

 Christine's Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Christine swears by using the brand names and organic. We can't always afford to do this and feel that the cookies taste just as good with more affordable options but I've included the brands since it is her recipe. 

1 c. unsalted butter, softened (2 sticks) [Land-o-Lakes organic]

1 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar [Dominos]

2 eggs [organic]

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 c. old fashioned, rolled oats

1 c. raisins (or dried currants)

1 c. walnuts (toasted)

Preheat oven to 350°

Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and then the vanilla.  Add flour mixture to the wet ingredients.

Add oats, raisins, and nuts. The dough will be heavy so don't use an electric mixer for the last part. Your hand and a wooden spoon are the best tools for this step.

On a parchment lined tray, using an leveled ice cream scoop, drop your dough by the scoop full. (I'd say it's about 2 1/2 to 3 tablespoons of dough for each cookie. I can only fit 5 cookies on one tray. Flatten the scoops to about an inch thick so they bake evenly. 

Bake for 12-14 minutes or until the edges are browned.

Yields about 17 cookies.