Tag Archives: cookies

Halloween Cookies- Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

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I love fall. I love the weather turning chilly. I love sweaters. I love changing leaves. I love cinnamon. And I love pumpkin.

I was thinking about cinnamon which led me to thinking about snickerdoodles. (recipe here). I really associate those cookies with Christmas, though, so I started thinking about how to fallify them. And landed on pumpkin.

So, here are my pumpkin snickerdoodles.

For this recipe you will need:

  • 2 sticks salted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
  • 1 egg
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 3 3/4 cups flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • plus more cinnamon and sugar for rolling

This dough is really easy to make. Just keep in mind it needs to be refrigerated for 1 hour before you roll and bake your cookies.

To make the dough, start by creaming two sticks of butter.

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When the butter is fluffy, add sugar, brown sugar, pumpkin, vanilla and egg and stir to combine.

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In a separate bowl, mix your remaining ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon) and slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet.

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Stir until combined

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At this point, the dough needs to go into the fridge for at least one hour.

…Time lapse…

Preheat the oven to 350, grease two cookie sheets and take your dough out of the fridge. in a small bowl, mix together cinnamon and sugar. I tend to a 2:1 sugar : cinnamon ration, but mix to your taste.

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Let’s start making cookies! I made roughly ping pong size balls of dough and wound up with 6 dozen cookies.

Roll the dough into a ball

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Roll the dough ball into the cinnamon and sugar and place on the cookie sheet.

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When your cookie sheet is full, lightly press down on the dough balls to flatten them. These cookies don’t spread, so flattening them is necessary.

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Bake at 350 for 11-13 minutes.

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The best part? The house smells like pumpkin pie. The bestest part? You get to eat cookies that taste like pumpkin pie. And who doesn’t love a cookie?

And the bestest bestest part? You’ll have 72 cookies to share with friends or coworkers.

Happy Halloween!

Brown Butter Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

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I bet that title caught your attention.

Brown butter,

Peanut butter

Oatmeal

Sign me up!

And make it a double.

I found this recipe over at the Bakeaholic Mama’s Site. Hers included caramel, which the fiance is not a fan of. So, I tweaked slightly, removing the caramel, and came up with what is now his favorite cookie.

Remember, if there’s some ingredient you don’t like or can’t find, don’t be afraid to play. You might come up with a new favorite too!

For this recipe you will need:

  • 1 stick of butter, melted until golden brown and nutty smelling
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla (I didn’t have vanilla so subbed with bourbon. Best idea ever)
  • 1 1/4 cup flour
  • 3/4 cup old fashioned oats
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • creamy peanut butter – I will never tell you how much or how little peanut butter to use. dollop away

Preheat the oven to 350 and lightly grease a cookie sheet.

In a bowl, mix together the sugars, egg and vanilla (or bourbon. I’m telling you, it added a nice little something to the cookies)

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When combined, pour in the melted butter

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Add in the oats, flour, salt and baking powder.

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When the dough comes together, refrigerate for about 20 minutes.

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Remove from the fridge and roll the cookies into one inch balls, and press lightly to flatten.

They are perfectly wonderful just as they are, all buttery and oaty.

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But we’re going to up the game and add a dollop of peanut butter to the top of each cookie

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And then bake them for about 14 minutes. I got 16 cookies out of this recipe.

The peanut butter will melt over the top and form a nice little shell on the cookie.

 

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They’re nutty and warm and gooey and buttery, and vaguely reminiscent of a childhood favorite – Nutter Butters!

Anything that takes you back to childhood is a good thing in my book.

Rainy Day Cookies

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Memorial Day Weekend!

A three-day break from work.

The unofficial start of summer.

Time for barbecues and picnics and ripe peaches and watermelon and strawberry pie.

Except.

Here in New York, it’s 53 degrees and cloudy and windy.

So my plans for a hefty slice of cold strawberry pie after a burger and coleslaw had been thwarted. (I promise to tell you how to make the strawberry pie though once the temperatures rise).

All we can think about are movies on the couch and a big bowl of popcorn.

And cookies.

Gray and cold days scream for cookies.

Trouble was, I had planned on making pie. The strawberries were washed and sitting in the fridge, ready to be baked into a slice of summer. The butter was cubed for the pie crust.

So, we improvise.

Remember my pantry staples? Yup this is why you have them.

If you have cake mix, vegetable oil and eggs, you can make cookies.

Seriously.

All you need are

  • 1 box cake mix (I used dark chocolate)
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil

This gives you a basic cookie dough. Then you can mix in whatever you want.

For super decadent chocolate gooeyness, add chocolate chips to chocolate cake mix, or peanut butter chips for a play on Reese’s cups. Vanilla cake mix plays well with chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. Or coconut if you want a real taste of summer.

I think that one of the most perfect combinations, besides peanut butter and chocolate, is chocolate and hazelnuts. Nutella? One of the world’s most perfect foods.

To make the cookies, preheat oven to 350.

Combine the cake mix, eggs and vegetable oil. The mix will be really thick. It will almost resemble the Oreo crumble on dirt cups. If you never made dirt cups as a kid go talk to your mom right now about why she deprived you of such an iconic childhood treat.

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When the ingredients are combined, stir in the mix in of your choice. I used about a half cup of hazelnuts, I think. I don’t really measure. I just kind of throw them in and stir and add more if I need to. I just go for no cookie being left without nuts.

Spoon out the batter onto a greased cookie sheet. You can make the cookies any size you want. A little smaller than a ping pong ball gives you two dozen cookies.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

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Your kitchen smells like chocolate. Melted, warm chocolate.

Brew a pot of coffee or some tea.

And settle into the couch for a 3 O’clock coffee break.

(My dad has coffee and a cookie at 3 everyday. He passed the habit to me. My body knows when it’s 3 O’clock)

These cookies are like a mix between a cookie and a brownie. Cakey and fudgey, but chewy and crunchy.

The gray skies don’t seem like such a damper on the weekend anymore.