Fudgy Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Chip Cookies

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This is a rich chocolate cookie that has a wonderful fudge like texture inside. The cookies are great even without the glaze icing but they are extra special with the icing and extra peppermint crunch on top. Chocolate and peppermint are the perfect Christmas time combo which makes this fudgy peppermint cookie perfect for Christmas cookie exchanges!They are festive looking and oh so delicious.
Fudgy Chocolate Peppermint Crunch Cookies

Yeilds: 3 1/2 to 4 dozen cookies
METHOD:1 stick butter
12 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups (packed) brown sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon espresso powder or coffee extract

1 cup Andes peppermint crunch baking chips

Chocolate Glaze Icing

 2 cups confectioners' sugar

 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

 2 tablespoon butter, softened

 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

 4 tablespoons milk

METHOD:

For the cookies:

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

Using an electric mixer, beat the sugar, eggs and vanilla at low speed until smooth, 2 minutes. Mix in the cooled chocolate mixture just until blended. With the mixer running, slowly add in the flour mixture. Mixing on low speed until just combined. Refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour. 

Position a rack in the upper third of the oven; preheat to 325 degrees . Line 2 large cookie sheets with parchment or a silicon baking mat. Using a tablespoon, scoop the dough and roll between your palms to form 1-inch balls. Arrange balls 2 inches apart on each cookie sheet, flattening the tops slightly. Bake until the tops of the cookies crack, about 12 minutes. Don't over bake. You want the cookies to be soft and fudgy!

For the Chocolate Icing:
In a small bowl, combine butter with sugar and cocoa.
Add vanilla. Add milk gradually until smooth.

Just add a glass of milk

Royal Icing or Glaze Icing?

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Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been swamped making dozens of these conversation heart cookies. One of my friends asked for a glaze type icing instead of royal icing. The rest of the cookies I made were done with royal icing. This was the first time I had done an actual side-by-side comparison of the two. So I thought I'd break down a few of my pros and cons for each. I've had my issues with royal icing in the past but we have learned to play nice with each other. (lots of practice helps!) Glaze icing is super simple to make and for the novice decorator, can be a little less frustrating than royal icing. Both are great options for making cute delicious cookies.

Pros for glaze icing:
1. you can make a huge batch of icing in about 2 minutes with just a bowl and a spoon
2. it's easy to get the right flooding consistency.
3. it stays really shiny when dry
4. doesn't dry hard, like royal icing, but hard enough to stack and bag
Cons:
1. the flooded cookies are more likely to overflow the outline
2. it's sticky, like really sticky, to work with
3. it doesn't work well for more intricate designs because it doesn't hold its shape well
4. lots of air bubbles unless it sits for a long time after mixing, even then lots of air bubbles.

Here is the glaze icing recipe I used for these cookies.

Glaze iced cookies: Shiny, but less perfect looking (writing is royal icing)

Pros for royal icing:
1. holds it's shape when piped
2. if you have the right consistency in the icing, it's easier than glaze to achieve a "perfect" looking cookie
3.It's very versatile, can be used to decorate cookies, on cakes, as glue for fondant pieces, thinned out to cover cake boards...
4. dries hard
Cons:
1.I call it finicky, because you have to be very precise when you make it. Too little or too much of anything really changes the icing and how it looks when it's dry.
2. dries matte (which isn't always a con, I liked the less shiny look better for these heart cookies)
3. getting the right flood consistency can be tricky (again lots of practice)

Royal icing cookies

A couple of tips for royal icing that have helped me:

Finding the right recipe. This one from Antonia74 is amazing, if you follow her recipe exactly. This is the only way I make my royal icing now but if you have a recipe you like then stick with it.
Weigh your sugar, unless you can be certain that you can measure it exactly the same every time. This simple step has made all the difference for me when making royal icing.
Don't over-mix the icing. Don't mix at too high of a speed. This prevents cracking and really cuts down on air bubbles.

Mostly relax and have fun, it's just a cookie!

So there you have it, my take on royal icing verses glaze. Both are a great option for decorating cookies. What is your favorite icing for decorating cookies?? I'd love hear any tips you want to share as well!
Happy decorating!

German Chocolate Cookies

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This time of the year is crazy for everyone. I don't have time for a long post but I wanted to get these cookies posted before Christmas. They are a basic sugar cookies filled with German chocolate frosting. If you are looking for a new cookie to add to your Christmas cookie tray, these cookies will not disappoint!

German chocolaty goodness!

German Chocolate Cookies

No-Chill Sugar Cookies

Source: The Adventures of Sweet Sugar Belle  (adapted)

Yield: about 2 dozen 2-in. sandwich cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract 

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls.
On floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. diameter x 1/8 in. thick. Using a 2 inch round cutter, cut out as many cookies as possible. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 8-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.

German Chocolate Filling
source: Taste of the South Dec 2012

INGREDIENTS:
4 oz semi- sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup chopped pecans (optional)
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
Place chocolate, nuts, and coconut in a small bowl. Set aside. In a small sauce pan butter and cream. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and pour over the chocolate mixture. Stir until the chocolate is melted. Allow to cool to room temperature.
Put about 1 teaspoon chocolate coconut filling on the flat side of one cookie, and top with another cookie to make a sandwich. Sprinkle the tops of the cookies with confectioners sugar. Can be stored up to one week in an airtight container.

Pepper Jelly Thumbprint Cookies

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If you're not from the South, you may not be too familiar with pepper jelly. Pepper jelly is usually made with spicy peppers, such as jalapeno or habanero's. The jelly is the perfect marriage of spicy and sweet. Here in the South we love our pepper jellies. It frequently shows up at parties, poured over cream cheese, served with crackers. I love it. However, I was a little skeptical about this recipe the first time I saw it. I mean I love thumbprint cookies and pepper jelly but I NEVER would have considered putting the two together. Hubs, who puts hot sauce on nearly everything he eats even draws the line at dessert! As soon as I saw this recipe I knew I just had to make these cookies. It sounded like such an unlikely combo that I just couldn't wait to try them. Believe it or not these cookies are really really good. They are a little sweet and buttery with just a just a slight hit of heat at the end. It all just works. It's delicious, I promise! Now I guess hubs can even have spicy for dessert. Okay, that kind of scares me!
Made with green and red pepper jelly these cookies look so festive for the Christmas season. They will make a great addition to your Christmas cookie baking. Trust me they will be a hit at your cookie swap!

Pepper Jelly Thumbprint Cookies
source: BHG.com
yields: about 6 dozen

INGREDIENTS: 
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup red and/or green jalapeno jelly

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with a mixer on medium to high speed for about 30 seconds. Add brown sugar and baking powder. Beat until combined, scraping side of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla until combined. Mix in cornmeal. Mix in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour.
Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls. Place one inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Lightly press  your thumb into the center of each ball of dough. Fill each center with about 1/8-1/4 teaspoon of the jelly.
Bake in the preheated oven about 10-12 minutes or until bottoms are lightly browned. Cool on cookie sheet for a few minutes then transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Molten Deep-Dish Chocolate Chip Cookies

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I clearly remember my first experience with a molten chocolate cake. It was at a high-end restaurant in the 90's. I had to order it when I placed my dinner order if I wanted it for dessert. The waiter waxed poetic about it at length and of course I ordered one. When it came to the table I thought it looked nice but rather ordinary, then I cut into the center. Oh my, I think I heard angels sing! It was divine. The cake seemed somehow to be more than the sum of it's parts. There's something pretty wonderful about cutting into your dessert and having a warm chocolaty center ooze out.

Hot from the oven homemade chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorite things in the world. They are definitely near the top of my all-time favorite desserts. Possibly the only way to improve on a chocolate chip cookie is for a them to have a warm oozy chocolaty center.

These cookies are as easy to make as regular chocolate chip cookies. They are just baked in a ramekin instead of on a cookie sheet. The recipe for the cookies is the one I always use for my chocolate chip cookies. It's a pretty standard recipe, I got it from the back of the Ghirardelli semi-sweet chips bag. Just place a square of chocolate candy between two layers of cookie dough, bake, and I'll bet you'll be hearing angels sing too!

Molten Deep-Dish Chocolate Chip Cookies
Source: Kosher by Design - Teens and 20-Somethings, by Susie Fishbein

2  1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temp
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1-12ounce bag chocolate chips (2 cups)
1 (4-ounce) good-quality semisweet or milk chocolate bar, broken into pieces along score lines. ( I used ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate bar.)

Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, at medium-low speed, mix the butter with the sugar and brown sugar. Raise the speed to medium-high and mix until creamy, light, and fluffy. Scrape down the bowl. Add the vanilla and eggs. Mix together until incorporated.
Add half of the four mixture. Mix until just combined, scrape down the bowl. Add the remaining flour mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Spray 6-ounce ramekins with nonstick cooking spray.
Fill each ramekin a quarter of the way with a large, golf-ball-size ball of cookie dough. Flatten to cover the bottom. Add 1 or 2, (depends on the size of the chocolate squares in the chocolate bar you use) chocolate squares in the center of the cookie dough. Cover with a second walnut-sized ball of cookie dough, flattening it to completely cover the chocolate.

Place onto a cookie sheet and bake until the tops are golden brown. Do not overbake or the end result will not be gooey. The baking time will vary from 20-25 minutes depending on the size of the  ramekin and the amount of dough you used. You can serve the cookies in the ramekins or flip them out onto individual plates. Serve warm.
Yields: about 8 6-ounce ramekins. Leftover cookie dough can be baked into regular chocolate chip cookies.

 http://tidymom.net/2012/nyc-pistacchio-gelato/ Come join the party!

Stenciled Easter Cookies

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I get asked to make a lot of decorated sugar cookies and I have a love/hate relationship with royal icing. That's actually an improvement over the outright hatred I used to feel for it. We've worked out most of our issues, (well I've done the all work) and now have a pretty good working relationship. Although sometimes, on occasion, I still yell at it, call it mean names, and threaten to throw it away and never use it again...rrrr love/hate! When it came to these cookies I didn't feel like dealing with my frenemy royal icing. I was just making these cookies for fun and didn't want to work that hard. So here is my lazy girl answer to royal icing decorated sugar cookies. I went easy all the way. I made a no-chill sugar cookies, really just roll out, cut out, and bake...easy!  Instead of high maintenance, finicky, royal icing, I made super easy corn syrup icing, no whipping or thinning, just mix and use...also very easy. Then I iced cookies, when the icing dried, I threw a stencil on the cookies and sprayed with some Wilton color mist. So easy and cute! The only problem with these cookies is that the stenciling was really fun and now I'm coveting  this airbrush cake decorating kit. Maybe one day!

How adorable are these cookies!

No-Chill Sugar Cookies

Source: Wilton recipes

Yield: about 3 dozen 3-in. cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon no-color almond extract 

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Method:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extracts. Mix flour, baking powder and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Do not chill dough. Divide dough into 2 balls.
On floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. diameter x 1/8 in. thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 8-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
Note: These cookies taste great but do spread a little when baking, unlike this recipe, but for simple sugar cookies, it's a great choice.

When the cookies cool, pipe an outline(you can skip this but it helps keep the icing from running), spread icing on the rest of the cookie. Let the icing dry, about 6 hours, overnight is best. 

Corn Syrup Icing

Source: Karen's Cookies  
2 lb powdered sugar
½ C plus 2 T milk (10 T)
½ C plus 2 T corn syrup (10 T)
1 Tablespoon flavoring, anything you like: a combination of clear vanilla and almond extract is nice. I also like lemon flavoring for this icing.

Mix together till smooth. Divide up and color as desired.
You can use this icing just the way it is for both outlining and filling in. If you're looking for more detail, you can thicken up your outline color with a bit more powdered sugar if desired. The formula is not set in stone, feel free to experiment with different ratios of liquid to sugar to get the consistency you like the best.
Note: Love this icing....so much easier than royal icing. However, the consistency is too thin for piping intricate designs (so I'll still be using royal icing for those cookies) but it's perfect for a simple iced cookie, like these.

Now for the fun part.... stenciling! I found this pack of stencils at Wal-Mart in the craft section.

So cute and they're the perfect size for cookies!

Lay stencil on top

Spray iced cookie with color spray.

Ta da!

Notes: Be sure to cover your work area well, there's quite a bit of over spray. It takes a couple of tries to get the feel for using the color mist. I practiced on a paper towel first. The first couple of cookies still didn't turn out perfectly.  Doing couple of light coats works better than one heavy coat. There's a little bit of a learning curve but even the less than perfect cookies are delicious! 

This is one of the first ones I made...not exactly perfect!

zebra stripes!

Easter basket ready!

Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies

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Growing up, my mom would on occasion, usually around the holidays, buy a bag of Hersey's mini chocolate bars. My sisters and I would play this game where we'd have to reach into the bag without looking and take out a candy bar. You had to take the one you got. I remember there was a very specific pecking order in the way us kids ate those chocolate bars. Krackel was King. All of us wanted the Krackel bars. If we got a Krackel bar out of the bag, would it eat slowly with great relish. All this was done to cause as much torture and jealousy as possible to those that didn't have a Krackel bar. The Hersey bar was next in line, followed by the Mr. Goodbar. That left the Hersey's Special Dark, which none of us wanted. Those were the only bars that we allowed each other to toss those back into the bag to try our luck again. Mom always offered to eat the Special Dark bars. We thought she was a great mom for settling for the reject candy,while we feasted on Krackels. Nice job, Mom. We all fell for it. You had us fooled for all those years, but no more!  Now I'm with mom, you can have the Krackel, the milk chocolate, even the peanuts, I'll happily take those Special Dark Chocolates off your hands. These cookies are like those Special Dark bars, they are for serious chocolate lovers. They are a delicious dark chocolate cookie studded chocolate chips and tart cherries,  The perfect balance of bittersweet. All that's needed is a glass of ice cold milk.

Just for fun, I dipped  some fresh cherries in chocolate and then into sprinkles. Cute and tasty!

Double Dark Chocolate Cherry Cookies
Source: The Sweet Melissa Baking Book
Printable Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup dried sour cherries

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugars until fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the egg, mixing well. Stir in the vanilla.
With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture n three batches, mixing until incorporated after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips and cherries down the sides of the bowl.
Refrigerate the dough for a few hours until firm.
Turn the dough onto a clean work surface and divide it in half. Roll out into 2 uniform logs about 12” long. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate again until firm enough to slice. At least 1 hour. (I left mine overnight).   At this stage you could wrap the log again in foil and freeze for up to 1 month.

Place one rack in the top third and one in the bottom third of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line the bottom of 2 rimmed cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat. Place the slices about an inch or so apart.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, or until the dough looks just baked . Don’t over bake, the cookies should be tender. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the cookies cool.

Makes about 2 dozen cookies

Great for Valentine's Day!

Red Velvet Cookies

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 Red velvet and Christmas are a perfect combo in my world. I mean what could be more perfect for Christmas celebration than a bright red cake topped with a luscious creamy white frosting? It's a decadent treat with colors that are tailor made for the season. I've had the recipe for these cookies dogeared in my copy of Taste of the South magazine since last year. I thought they looked like a perfect Christmas cookie. I'm so glad I finally tried this recipe. They are everything wonderful about red velvet cake, in a cookie. I think that I even like them a little better than red velvet cake. The cookies are rolled in sugar before they are baked which gives the outside just a slight crunch, that's so good. ( I'm not just saying that to sound like Giada ,it really is good, but I'm pretty sure she'd also approve of the slight crunch on the outside.)
 If you like red velvet cake these cookies will not disappoint. Plus they how perfect are they for serving at a holiday party??!

Red Velvet Cookies
Printable Recipe

For the cookies:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons natural unsweetened cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
Red gel food coloring

In a large bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar at medium speed with an electric mixer. Add egg and vanilla, beating until well blended.
In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
Add flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time to butter mixture, beating well after each addition. Add desired amount of red gel food coloring, stirring well. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
Preheat oven to 350°. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Using your hands, roll dough into 1 1/2-inch balls. Roll balls in remaining 1/2 cup sugar. Place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets; flatten slightly with a spatula.
Bake until slightly soft, 7 to 9 minutes. Let cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes. Transfer cookies to wire racks, and let cool completely. Spread cream cheese frosting on flat side of 1 cookie. Top with another cookie, flat side toward filling. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling.

Cream cheese frosting filling:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until creamy. Gradually add confectioners’ sugar, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla, beating well. (I put green gel coloring into half of the cream cheese frosting and left half white.)

Source: Taste of the South, Dec/Jan 2011

Hohoho yeah!

Candy Corn Sugar Cookies

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Hubs tells me all the time that I like to do things the hard way. He says this when I choose to make something rather than buy it or make do with what I have rather than buy something new. Even if that something new would make my life easier. Usually it's because I'm being cheap thrifty. However sometimes it's because I get an idea and just want to see if it will work. That's how these cookies came about. I was wasting time doing important research on Pinterest. In the interest of public safety, I feel I must warn those that don't already know about Pinterest. I'm not sure what happens, maybe a quantum time leap, or perhaps it's in its own time zone or something. All I know is that when you visit Pinterest, what feels like 5 minutes in Pinterest time is actually an hour in real time. Consider yourselves warned! Anyhooo, back to the cookies, so I saw some cute candy corn shaped sugar cookies while surfing around Pinterest. I liked that they looked like candy corn but didn't have to be decorated. They looked easy, a departure from my usual way of doing things. This was a week or two ago and I didn't pin the picture, which I realize kind of defeats the purpose of Pinterest. I couldn't find the picture again so I decided I'd just wing it and see if I could make some cookies like the ones I had seen. I have since seen other ways to make candy corn cookies but I like how these came out and they really are easy to make.

These are perfect for when you need a fun Fall/Halloween dessert, like school parties. You could go super easy and use store bought sugar cookie dough to make these cookies. No judgement here! However this recipe for sugar cookies is simple to make and tastes delicious. The dough doesn't need to be chilled before using, so it's quick to make as well.

Easy No-Chill Sugar Cookies
Source: Food.com submitted by Chef.Jules
Ingredients:
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

orange and yellow gel food coloring
candy corn cookie cutter (or you could cut out triangles)

Method:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla.
Mix flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Divide dough into two balls.

To make Candy Corn Cookies:

Divide your cookie dough into three equal pieces. Knead orange gel food coloring into one piece and yellow into another. Leave the third piece white. Roll the dough into logs about 1 inch wide and 6-8 inches long. Put each of the logs side-by-side and slightly push them together like in the picture below.

Roll the cookie dough out approximately 12" wide and about 1/8" thick and cut out with a candy corn shaped cookie cutter. If you don't have a candy corn cutter you can just cut out triangles.

Kind of has a 70's vibe going!

I sprinkled some with sanding sugar and left some plain.

Bake on ungreased cookie sheet for 6 - 7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. I line my pans with parchment paper or a silpat for easy cookie removal.

I didn't waste the leftover pieces of cookie dough. I gathered them all together, added more orange gel coloring, rolled out the dough again and cut out pumpkins.

I got a little over a dozen candy corn cookies. I made small and large pumpkins and had a dozen pumpkin cookies when I was done.

Carrot Cake Cookies

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I love carrot cake. For some reason I always really want it around Easter. Maybe it's a subconscious thing with seeing all the Easter bunnies that gets me craving carrots. Who knows! This year was no different. I been craving a piece  hunk of carrot cake. Although as much as I really do adore carrot cake, the recipe I usually use makes an enormous cake. Not necessarily a bad thing if you've got a big family, or are entertaining a crowd, or don't mind eating only carrot cake for a week. Actually I could probably do the last one, my pants, not so much though! Anyway since it is just hubs and me, and he'll only eat a couple slices, and I do want to zip my pants, I thought I try these carrot cake cookies. They had everything I love in carrot cake; nuts, raisins, carrots, and cream cheese frosting. The original frosting recipe mixes cream cheese and honey together for the frosting, but I decided to use the cream cheese frosting I use on my cake for the cookies. I mean really, it's the cream cheese frosting that has you licking the plate with carrot cake, right?
I was really happy with  these cookies, they really did taste a lot like a traditional carrot cake. I got my carrot cake fix and didn't have to eat 75 percent of a cake to do it!

Carrot Cake Cookies
(printable recipe)

Source: Gourmet,  April 2004 (adapted)

Ingredients:
1 1/8 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt 

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup coarsely grated carrots (2 medium)

1 scant cup walnuts (3 ounces), chopped

1/2 cup raisins 

Method:

Put oven racks in upper and lower thirds of oven and preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper.

Whisk together flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.

Beat together butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla in a bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Mix in carrots, nuts, and raisins at low speed, then add flour mixture and beat until just combined. 

Drop 1 1/2 tablespoons batter per cookie 2 inches apart on baking sheets and bake, switching position of sheets halfway through baking, until cookies are lightly browned and springy to the touch, 12 to 16 minutes total. Cool cookies on sheets on racks 1 minute, then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.

While cookies are baking, make the cream cheese frosting.

Ice the tops of the cookies with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with chopped nuts or sandwich flat sides of cookies together with a generous tablespoon of cream cheese frosting in between.

On some of the cookies I just iced the tops. Either way is yummy!

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

8 oz. cream cheese

3 cups powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Method:

With an electric mixer, mix together the butter and cream cheese , until very smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.  Add the vanilla extract and the powdered sugar, mix until smooth.

Trail Mix Cookies

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We are heading to the beach for a week...yea! So just a short post for now. Anyway, I wanted to bring along some hearty and hopefully somewhat healthier, cookies for us to snack on during the week. I came across quite a few recipes for trail mix cookies that seemed to fit the bill. I took some elements from a several recipes and came up with these cookies. This recipe is open to endless interpretation, so use whatever combo of dried fruits and nuts that you want.

Trail Mix Cookies
(printable recipe)
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour or a mix of white and wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips or chunks
1 1/2 cups total of any mixture of dried fruits and nuts. (I used cranberries, almond slivers, and raisins)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until smooth. Beat in vanilla.Combine flours, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Mix into butter mixture. Add rolled oats, chocolate chunks, and dried fruits and nuts. Roll into balls ( I made mine 2" because I wanted a big cookie), place on an ungreased or parchment lined baking sheet, and flatten slightly. Bake 10 to 15 ( depending on how big you made your cookies) minutes or until bottoms are golden, not browned. Cool on pan for
5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes about two dozen cookies

Other great recipes for trail mix cookies:

Healthy Trail Mix Cookies

Trail Mix Energy Cookies/Breakfast Cookies