It's a Wicked Good Life!

This picture is of the cookies that were left when I went to put them away in the evening once they were cooled.  The original recipe is double this amount.  An additional 18-22 cookies in addition to those picture.  Where are the other cookies you might ask?  My husband ate them in a little over an hour.  How many did I eat during this time?  One…yes, you read that correctly he had 18-21 and I had 1.  In the following day or so those pictured also made there way into his 6’7” body which is still skinny no matter what he eats or in what quantity.  Life is SO NOT FAIR!!!

Granted these cookies are not large.  They are a one (if your shoveling them in) or two bite cookie.  They have a light crumbly texture that is perfect with a cup of tea etc. If you don’t have Meyer lemons use regular and they will still be tasty!

Meyer Lemon Tea Cookies

• 3/4 cup of butter softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 TBSP packed Meyer Lemon zest
• 1 TBSP Meyer Lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until smooth.

Add egg yolk, Meyer Lemon zest, juice, and vanilla and beat until combined.

On low speed, gradually add flour until mixture is no longer crumbly and forms a dough.

Using a one-inch cookie scoop, scoop dough onto parchment lined cookie sheets an inch apart.  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cookies puff and start to turn light yellow/golden brown with small cracks form on the surface.  

Shift some powdered sugar over the cookies while they are warm (optional) then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

Every morning usually before 8 AM, M1 asks if she can “do a craft”.  She isn’t talking about the bin of coloring books that I bought for this express “craft making” time.  Oh, no she wants cutting, painting, glitter, stickers, creations of grand “artist” intent.  I wish that I was more innately crafty/artist.  I almost hesitate to tell people that I was once a craft director at a camp for 5 years.  While I can pour ceramics, make candles, fabric paint etc. my strengths in that position were teaching little kids who think anything that is entirely painted is a “masterpiece” and organizing.  I wish I was one of those people who can look at a random collection of household items and think “ohh I can make _______ this those”.  I tend to do a little better if there is a teaching objective involved.  I’ve been working on shapes with M2 and patterns with M1 (for some reason having my 3 and 4 year olds master the Geometry Common Core Standards for 1st grade sounded like a good idea) and created some, in my opinion, cute shapes crafts (post to come).  Other than that I spend more time on pintrest looking for various simple and cheap (seriously one can spend SO much on craft supplies) kids crafts.

I got the inspiration/idea for the heart trees from somewhere on pintrest.  I bought the Valentine’s heart stickers the day before V day when they went on 50% off.  I figured my MIL can get them late.  Basically just trace and cut out your kid’s hand and a portion of arm.  Glue to paper and them make “leaves” with heart stickers or cut out hearts from paper.  I put each kids initials and year in the “tree trunk”. 

Once again I had too many ripe bananas in the house.  I had already made banana bread, banana “ice cream”, and was looking for something else to make with bananas.  As banana cake is pretty similar to banana bread I wanted something different texturally.  When we lived in OH my hubby bought me Bon Appetit’s Dessert cookbook at Half Price Books (boy I miss that place)!  While I was looking in the index of all my cookbooks for banana related items I saw BA’s Banana-Oatmeal Bars with Chocolate Chunks.  I adjusted the recipe a bit by cutting down on the sugar and using dark chocolate chips.

Banana-Oatmeal-Chocolate Chip Bars

• 1 cup quick-cooking oats
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 1 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2/3 cup mashed ripe bananas (about 2 large)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cover a jelly roll (18x13x1-inch) baking sheet with foil and coat with nonstick spray. Blend first 4 ingredients in medium bowl. Beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Add both sugars and beat until well blended. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in bananas, then vanilla. Stir in flour mixture and then chocolate chips.

Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean and top is golden, about 20-25 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. Cut into 3x2-inch bars and serve

I know what you are thinking…Cookie Recipe right after New Year’s!  Where is the quinoa and kale or other healthy type recipes. I may get to those at some point, but I am really behind on posting my cookie craziness from the holiday baking.  So here are some thoughts…have you stuck with your New Year’s resolution to eat healthy?  It’s the 7th of Jan. so maybe not, so make some cookies.  If so power to you and just file this away for later.  These cookies freeze well so you could always make a batch and then thaw one or two at a time.  

Speaking of freezing I don’t have a picture of these because I was trying to hard to spirit some away into the freezer for Christmas.  Robert was definitely on the prowl for these cookies.  They are small little disks with some lovely lemon sugar on top.  They are also a favorite of my sister’s who is currently back on her sugar fast so I won’t be making any for her soon…though Robert is requesting more as we speak.  But there are still a few random bits of other cookies left around and until those are gone I’m trying to keep myself in check.

Lemon Cookies adapted slightly from Moosewood Restaurant Celebrates

Lemon sugar (I let mine set overnight so that the lemon really got into the sugar)

• 1 TBSP freshly grated lemon peel
• 2 TBSP sugar

Stir together the sugar and lemon peel until well mixed and fragrant.  If you are making ahead cover with plastic wrap pressed onto sugar.

Dough

• 1 3/4 cups unbleached white flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1-2 TBSP freshly grated lemon peel (I like things really lemony so I go with more)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1-2 drops lemon oil (optional)
• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1 TBSP fresh lemon juice

 In a food processor, combine flour, salt and sugar and pulse a couple time until blended.  Add butter and lemon peel and process until the mixture has the texture of coarse meal. Add the vanilla, lemon oil if using, egg, and lemon juice.  Process until the dough leaves the sides of the bowl and forms a ball.  Remove dough, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper

Divide the chilled dough into four equal pieces.  Working with one portion of dough at a time, divide each portion into 12 pieces.  Roll each piece of dough between your hands to make a small ball. Place on baking sheet. Repeat with other portions of dough.  Using the bottom of a glass or measuring cup, flatten the four dozen balls into 1 1/2-2 inch circles.  Press the circles firmly into the lemon-sugar topping to coat thoroughly on one side.

Place the cookies topping side up on baking sheet and bake until golden at the edges 7-8 minutes.  Cool for 1 minute , then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely.  Store in sealed container.  Can be frozen between wax paper sheets for up to 3 months.  

When I was growing up my mother usually made lots of cookies at Christmas.  How lucky was I right?  But here’s the thing about those cookies…98% of them were crispy.  Even if they weren’t intended to be that way in the original recipe.  My Mum doesn’t like “soft” cookies.  They must be crisp to bordering on biscotti crunchy.  She wonders now in my desire for a mix of cookies soft to crunchy.  She will grudgingly try all my cookies and then say “this would be really good if it was crisp” to which the answer is often “Mum, this is a ______(insert traditionally soft cookie name like snickerdoodle etc.) it is supposed to be soft.”  I usually get some kind of “hrumph” in return.  

The 2% of exception to the crispy cookie situation at Christmas were gingerbread (which she tried to make crispy but usually my Daddy strongly requested she take out early) and spritz cookies which due to their buttery nature are usually a flaky not crispy cookie (not that she didn’t try).  

Mum hasn’t make spritz (she usually makes chocolate ones) in years.  I have a cookie gun and thought it would be fun for the kiddos and I to make shaped cookies that they could quickly decorate and weren’t quite the process of cut-out cookies.  

This recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart’s Vanilla-Bean Wreath Spritz cookies. A note about Spritz…depending on your cookie press some shapes are easier to make than others.  I tried some very decorative shapes, but ended up having to scrap them as they didn’t turn out well.  So I ended up sticking with Christmas trees which the kids decorated with vanilla sugar and green sprinkles.  Martha’s recipe was double the recipe below and adds some cinnamon. 

Vanilla Bean Spritz

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise, seeds scraped and reserved or 1 TBSP vanilla paste
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sugar (vanilla sugar if you keep such a thing on hand)
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg yolk
• vanilla sugar or colored sugar for decorating (optional)

So cookies…This type of dessert if often at our house.  However, at Christmas I tend to go a little crazy.  I tend to make some standard recipes and then go through all the holiday magazines to find some new ones to try.  Here are some of our “Z” family classics:

Christmas Biscotti

Vanilla Sugar Cookies

Maple Drop Cookies

Specuchen (Spice Cookies)

Spice Chocolate Cut Out Cookies

Up next expect a slew of cookies recipes that I’ve tried or developed recently.

“Hi, my name is Heidi and I’ve turned into a complete wuss.” To which you answer “Hi, Heidi”.  After almost 9 years in southern Ohio where one (okay not me, but Robert) can be mowing grass into November and you get a good snow storm once every year or so I’m completely unprepared for the cold that has descended on New England.  The kiddos are equally unaccustomed as they have been trying to wear flip-flops (or as Micah says “plip-plops”) out in 40 degree weather.  

I don’t normally need a reason to bake, but I’ve been in a bit of a cooking funk lately.  However, the cold weather has left me rather desperate to get warm.  As we don’t know what the heating bills will be like in our rental yet, we are keeping things on the cool side.  So when all else fails turn the oven on and let any escaping heat from opening the door to rotate cookie sheets kiss my freezing nose and cheeks.

These cookies have been on my “to do” list since last cold weather season.  I don’t know why I haven’t made them yet as I LOVE snickerdoodles and chai.  I’m guessing it is laziness over the extra step of rolling the dough in a spice-sugar mixture rather than dropping directly on a cookie sheet.  But now that I’ve made them I’m kicking myself for not making them earlier.  

This recipe is adapted from Baking Bites.  A note about the spice level…I like my chai to be kick you in the face strong.  On the rare occasion I have the money to order one from Starbucks I have this big explanation about not adding water and extra pumps of chai etc.  When making it at home from scratch with all those whole spices my recipe is about double the strength of the one my Mom makes.  So if you (or your kids) don’t like the slight heat that a touch more ginger and cinnamon bring, please use Nicole from Baking Bites original recipe found here.

Chai Snickerdoodles adapted from Baking Bites

Chai Snickerdoodles

2 cups sugar
 3 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 2 teaspoon ground ginger
 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup butter, soft
2 large eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine sugar and spices; remove 1/2 cup of this mixture and place in a medium-sized, shallow dish or bowl (like a soup plate). Add butter to bowl and cream with sugar mixture until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and vanilla extract.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, cream of tartar and baking soda. Add to sugar mixture and stir until fully incorporated.

Shape dough into 1 inch balls and roll in reserved sugar-spice mixture. Place on baking sheet, leaving 2 inches between balls to allow for spreading.

Bake for about 12 minutes, until edges are firm to the touch, but not quite browned. Cool for 3-5 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen.

There are some people who never met a cookie that didn’t like.  My husband tends to lean in that direction while I am really picky about cookies (my diet thanks me).  So it is probably saying something that I LOVE these cookies!  The entire batch has almost been wiped out in a startlingly short amount of time by my husband and MIL who is visiting with a little help from me.  

I currently have this “rule” in which I try to make a new cookie/dessert recipe before cycling back.  The semi-obvious reason being the massive list of dessert recipes I want to try.  However, there are exceptions like biscotti, angel food cake and now these cookies.  Seriously, they are that good!

This is a super simple recipe, but don’t let it fool you.  I may have mentioned before that brown-butter is a reason I will never become a vegan.   There really isn’t a substitute for that wonderful nutty buttery taste.  These cookies also rely on a good dose of vanilla (in a couple forms) and cardamom which you either love or hate.  Being Indian, we love it in this house!

This recipe is adapted from Brownie Bites .

•  1 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup vanilla sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 tablespoon vanilla paste
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• pinch Kosher salt
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup powdered sugar

Melt butter in saucepan over medium heat, occasionally stirring until butter just starts to turn golden brown and gets foamy and bubbly – about 4 minutes. (It turns quickly once it starts so don’t leave unattended.  Immediately remove from heat, transfer to a bowl and cool in refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

I’m sure this never happens to you.  I’m convinced that you have more self-control and don’t succumb to random purchases in the grocery store.  People like you give me hope that one day I will walk away from some possibly delicious element that I can turn into some equally yummy cookie/cake/pie/dessert etc.  But I am not you.  I buy random things like chocolate covered malt-eggs at Trader Joe’s because they might taste interesting in a cookie.  Their Almondictive Bits also made their way into my basket.  I would like to think that they will make it into a future baked good, but really they are so wicked good on their own that this may not happen.  And to think I wonder why I can’t seem to stay on top of my food budget…

Now if you are interested in making these cookies and don’t have chocolate covered malt-eggs you can obviously use Whoopers.  Baking Bites has a recipe (more like a chocolate chip cookie except that it uses bits of Whoopers instead of chocolate chips) but I wanted a chocolate cookie base so I changed the recipe up a bit.  

Chocolate Malted Milk Ball Cookies

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup natural process cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 TBSP malted milk powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cup roughly chopped malted milk balls

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Place the oven racks in the top and bottom thirds of the oven. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. 

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Mix the malted milk powder into the milk.  Add the milk mixture and vanilla to the butter mixture and mix until mostly incorporated.  

Add the flour mixture in two portions.  Do not over mix.  Add the chopped malted milk balls and stir until just incorporated.  

Drop tablespoon sized balls onto the prepared baking sheets.  Bake for 12-14 minutes, rotating top to bottom half way through baking time.  Cool on baking sheets for 2-3 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

This is not a health food post.  I could totally try and say that this is like eating oatmeal sweetened with maple syrup and baked into cookie form.  But really they’re cookies.  If you need to rationalize eating them for breakfast feel free.  I’m sure my husband will have some pointers you can use for justifying the whole cookie for breakfast scenario.  

The whole to cookie or not to cookie for breakfast thing being said…these lovelies are not overly sweet.  They have a chewy to crisp (depending on how long you cook them) texture that either way retains some texture.  The recipe also makes a lot of cookies so maybe YOU will have them around for a while.  Not the case at my house (due to the whole cookie for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, midnight snack situation that Robert has going on), but maybe you will have better luck.

Maple-Oatmeal Cookiesadapted fromEveryday Food

• 3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup maple sugar (if you don’t have this use regular sugar it just may not be quite as maple-y)
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup (grade B)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 large egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees with racks in upper and lower thirds of the oven.  Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium bowl stir together oats, flour, salt, and baking soda.  

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugars on high until pale and fluffy (up to 3 minutes).  Beat in maple syrup, egg, vanilla and water, scraping down the bowl as needed.  Reduce mixer speed to low and in two batches add oat mixture.

Drop dough in rounded teaspoons (I used a cookie scoop) 2 inches apart on the baking sheets.  Bake until edges are golden, about 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. 

Let cookies cool for a couple minutes and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.  Store in an airtight container.