A Dark and Stormy Christmas Cookie

Twas the week before Christmas and all through the house and kitchen, the cookies were baked and frozen -- to prevent the spouse from snitchin'!

Last week, when I shared my Orange Chocolate Chippers, I mentioned that I had tried another new cookie recipe this year.  I'll admit, I snitched one of these before I packed them away in the freezer.  Well, after all, a girl has to make sure they are edible before sharing them with the family, right?

I clipped the recipe for Dorie's Dark and Stormies from a Chicago Tribune 2008 cookie contest article, but I never tried them before.  Now I kick myself for waiting so long.  Easy to make and so chocolaty scrumptious.  The recipe is available online on page two of this article from the Tribune archives.  The recipe says it makes three dozen cookies, but somehow I only got two dozen.  I did not use Dutch process cocoa, I used regular Hershey's.  For the chocolate bits, I chopped up five ounces of Ghirardelli 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate.

You know you want one.

Orange You Glad I Made Cookies?

Remember that old knock-knock joke?  Orange you glad I didn't say banana?  Well, I made a new Christmas cookie that's no joke -- Orange Chocolate Chippers.

Christmas cookies are a big thing at our house.  There are some traditional favorites that I make every year, like the Italian Wedding Cookies, Candy Cane Cookies, and Butter Cookies that I shared with you last year.  I also like to add in something new.  Last year it was Martha Stewart's Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies, which became a favorite of the husband's, so they made it back onto this year's hit parade.

This year, I added two cookies to the repertoire.  Today I'll share the first one, Orange Chocolate Chippers.  I found a recipe in an old-ish cookbook from my husband's uncle's collection.  The book has an insanely long title: Senior Pilgrim Fellowship, United Church of Christ, Beacon Falls, Connecticut.  If there was another title, it didn't leap out at me.  This is one of those great cookbooks where all the ladies contributed their favorite recipes to raise money for their organization.  I like this kind of cookbook because the recipes are not trendy or "foodie;" they are tasty, do-able recipes that regular women made for their families and bridge clubs.  

When I saw the recipe for an orange and chocolate cookie, I knew I had to try it.  I changed the original recipe a little bit to include orange juice and baking powder.  I used orange peel and juice from some fruit my father-in-law had sent from Florida.  I don't know what variety they were, but they were not navel oranges; they were much more flavorful.  In looking at the website of the grower where he shops, I think they might have been Robinson tangerines, which is a cross of 3/4 tangerine and 1/4 grapefruit.  With navel oranges, I don't think you'd get the same strong citrusy pop that my cookies have, so I recommend tangerines or tangelos to really get that citrus flavor.

Orange Chocolate Chippers

Adapted from Audrey Gendron’s recipe in Senior Pilgrim Fellowship,
United Church of Christ, Beacon Falls, Connecticut cookbook, 1982

1 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 eggs

2 tablespoons grated orange/tangerine peel

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon fresh orange/tangerine juice

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Sift together flour, salt, and baking powder; set aside. 

Cream shortening, sugar, and cream cheese.  Add eggs, orange peel, vanilla, and orange juice.  Beat well.  Add flour mixture to creamed mixture.  Mix well.  Stir in chocolate chips.  Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet.  Bake about 7 minutes at 350 degrees F.  Cool on wire racks.

Makes approximately 56 cookies.



Printable recipe

Frosty Times Call for a Frosty Dessert

Winter is almost here, at least in most parts of the U.S., so why am I writing about ice cream?  This year on Thanksgiving, I served ice cream in addition to pumpkin pie.  Not pumpkin pie a la mode, after all, whipped cream is the proper topping for pumpkin pie.  (In the husband's case, lots and lots of whipped cream.)  In our family of four, there are only two pumpkin pie eaters -- the husband and our daughter.  Daughter likes it so much she has even been known to request a pumpkin pie for her month of May birthday!  Our son and I, however, are not pumpkin pie fans.  So when I asked him what he wanted for his Thanksgiving dessert, he asked for "that ice cream dessert."

I got the recipe for "that ice cream dessert" when we lived in the little town of Harvard, Illinois.  Harvard is the end of the train line, so when we were ready to move out of our Chicago condo and into a single family house, that's where we wound up.  We just kept going out until we found something decent we could afford and, before we knew it, we were at the end of the line in Harvard.

Harvard is a really small town.  When we lived there, the population was around 6,000 people.  It has increased since then to more than 9,000.  At one time, Harvard was the center point of an area with the greatest milk production in the nation.  Thus, the big event in Harvard each year is Milk Days, complete with a parade, a carnival, a Milk Queen, bed races, and big wheel races.  Our daughter was in preschool when we lived there, so the big wheel race was important. She competed and lost.  Our neighbor, whose daughter was the same age, put his child in training for the big wheel race.  I am not making this up.  He took his four-year-old daughter to an empty parking lot several times before the race for training.  She won her age category.  In a couple of years, she was entered in the Milk Days Princess competition and eventually was crowned Milk Queen.  So I suppose that early training paid off.

The logo my husband designed.

I belonged to a women's group named Women for Harvard.  It was a good group of women, mostly young. We raised money to stock a little store that was set up one weekend in December for Shopping with Santa.  Children could come in, visit with Santa Claus, have their picture taken, and be taken into a secret store -- no parents allowed -- to shop.  Gifts cost no more than a couple of dollars.  There was a sample of each item and the rest were wrapped, so the child could surprise a family member on Christmas morning.  That was such a wonderful event.  Sadly, I don't think they have the store anymore.  What they do have is the same group logo that my husband designed for them twenty years ago.  It features Harmilda, the town mascot.  I really can't believe they are still using a cow logo for a women's group!  Anyway, we always had dessert at our monthly meetings, which rotated among the members' homes. One meeting, Julie, that month's hostess, brought out this yummy ice cream dessert.  All the women, including me, raved!  We had to have the recipe.  Julie kind of laughed about that.  It's the easiest thing in the world, and you can change up the flavors any way you like.  I have made this with mint ice cream, pecans, any combination would be good.  For Thanksgiving, I made the original version, Peanut Bar Ice Cream Dessert, one we might call the Buster Bar Dessert if "Buster" wasn't trademarked by Dairy Queen.

Peanut Bar Ice Cream Dessert

40 Oreo cookies, crushed into crumbs

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 gallon softened vanilla ice cream

15 oz. hot fudge topping

2-3 tablespoons chocolate syrup

8 oz. Cool Whip

1 cup peanuts

Reserve about 2-3 tablespoons of cookie crumbs.  Combine remaining cookie crumbs and melted butter in small bowl.  Press crumb/butter mixture in bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan and refrigerate for about 15 minutes.

Layer remaining ingredients as follows, spreading each layer as evenly as possible:

Cookie crumbs, ice cream, fudge sauce (fill in bare areas with a little chocolate syrup), nuts, Cool Whip, reserved cookie crumbs (these should not fully cover the Cool Whip)

Freeze several hours until firm.

Note:  You can use any flavor of ice cream you wish and change the nuts as well.  Chopped pecans make a nice change.

Printable recipe

Pistachio Chocolate Curry Cookies?

Crispy version

Our son went to a residential high school about thirty-five miles from home.  The parents association hosted a dinner one Friday a month to give the students -- particularly those who didn't get to go home too often -- a break from cafeteria food.  Each month was a different theme.

One month was Indian cuisine, a chance for the many Indian families at the school to showcase their favorite dishes.  Knowing I couldn't compete with real Indian cooks, I scoured the internet for a dessert which would complement the theme that I could also make in bulk.

I found a recipe on Epicurious for Pistachio Dark Chocolate Crisps.  The crisps generated a lot of interest that night as people tried to figure out exactly what they were.  What they were was, in a word, unique.  A not-too-sweet combination of colorful nuts and bittersweet chocolate with a surprising touch of curry powder.

Cookie version

Recently, I made the crisps again and adjusted the flavorings to make them a little zippier.  I also worked up a less crispy, more cookie-like version.  I find it hard to spread the batter evenly with the crisp version because, let's face it, 1/8 inch is really thin.  That's why the edges of the crisps are so dark in my first photo.  The edges overcooked.  The crisp version is nice and crunchy, so I don't discourage you from trying it.  Just be sure not to get your batter too thin along the edges.

The flavor combination of chocolate and curry is intriguing.  I used 1/2 teaspoon of curry because we like the flavor.  If you are less adventurous, you might want to go with 1/4 teaspoon.  (The original recipe calls for only 1/8 teaspoon.)

For the original recipe, please click here to go to Epicurious.

Pistachio Chocolate Crisps

Adapted from Gourmet Paul Grimes, Gourmet  on Epicurious.com

Crispy version, see how thin they are?

1/4 cup salted butter, softened

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

6 tablespoons flour

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon curry powder, depending on spiciness desired

1 large egg white

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup shelled, roasted pistachios, chopped

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

Blend butter, brown sugar, flour, vanilla, curry powder, and egg white until smooth.  Spread batter evenly on parchment paper into a 12- by 10-inch rectangle (1/8” thick).  Scatter chocolate and nuts evenly over batter, then bake until golden brown, 15-18 minutes.  Transfer, still on parchment paper, to rack to cool completely.  Remove from paper, break into pieces. 

For a softer, more cookie-like version:

Cookie version, much thicker

1/2 cup salted butter, softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 - 3/4 teaspoon curry powder, depending on spiciness desired

1 large whole egg

2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup shelled, roasted pistachios, chopped

Follow preparation and baking instructions as for crisps.  Cut into rectangles while still slightly warm.

Printable recipe

Eat 'em Sesame

I've been in kind of a cooking funk lately.  As in, I just don't want to cook.  The husband has actually had to resort to cooking a few dinners to avoid starvation.  I was feeling a little guilty about it, so the other night I whipped up a batch of the sesame seed cookies he likes as a little gesture.  (They're easy to make, so it really was a pretty small gesture.) Still, he was pleased and gulped down four cookies to show his appreciation.

These cookies are for real sesame seed lovers.  At the first bite, you think, "Wow, these are really seedy and different. I don't know . . . ."  Then you finish the cookie and think, "I want another one."  At least that was how I felt the first time I made the cookies.

Look at all those seeds!

I found the recipe on About.com where it was posted by Diana Rattray.

Soft Chocolate Chip Cookie Joy

Did you know that the chocolate chip cookie is the official cookie of Massachusetts?  Here in Illinois, we have an official snack food – popcorn – but no state cookie.  And while I do love popcorn, there’s something about a warm chocolate chip cookie with a glass of milk.

Of course, the reason Massachusetts is particularly fond of the cookie is because it was reputedly invented there.  According to Wikipedia, chocolate chip cookies were developed by Ruth Graves Wakefield in 1930.  According to the story, Mrs. Wakefield was making chocolate cookies at her Whitman, Massachusetts inn, the Toll House Inn. When she ran low on baker’s chocolate, she substituted broken bits of semi-sweet chocolate, hoping they would melt and mix into the batter.  I kind of wonder about this; if she really wanted them to melt, wouldn’t she have melted them in a small pot first?  Whatever the truth of the story, a recipe for “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies” appeared in her 1936 cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes.  Mrs. Wakefield then sold the recipe to Nestlé, supposedly in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips. 

For the last several years, I have forsaken the original toll house recipe and made my cookies using Martha Stewart’s “Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies” recipe which you can find on her website.  I follow her recipe pretty exactly except I used salted butter and reduce the additional salt by half.  I sometimes throw in some chopped nuts, too, but this batch is heading down to the son at school, and he likes his cookies nut-free.  These cookies really are soft, not crispy like many toll house ones.  The trick is to use a generous scoop and slightly undercook.

What’s your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe?

Christmas Cookies - Fourth Batch

Butter cookies -- you can't beat 'em.  These butter cookies are classics for Christmas, but are also good year round cut into other shapes.  When I make them during other times of the year, I don't decorate with any sugar or sprinkles, and I add 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds to the dough.  This recipe is so simple and so yummy.  I like to roll my dough pretty thick and pull the cookies out of the oven before they brown on the edges, but I'm notorious for my uneven dough, so some of the cookies always get more browned than I prefer.  No matter, they're still tasty!

This recipe comes from the Joy of Cooking.

Rich Roll Cookies

The Joy of Cooking (1975)

by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker

1 cup butter

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ½ cups sifted flour

½ teaspoon salt

Cream together butter and sugar.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Sift together flour and salt and add to the butter mixture.

Chill dough 3 to 4 hours before rolling.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out dough to about ¼ inch thick on a floured board (use as little flour as possible, but do not let the dough stick).  Cut into shapes.  Bake on a greased cookie sheet 7-8 minutes or until slightly colored.

Printable recipe

Christmas Cookies - Second Batch

Finished the second batch of Christmas cookies!  These candy cane cookies are my son's particular favorites.  The recipe comes from A Cookbook by Sunset House Auxiliary Toledo, Ohio.

Candy Cane Cookies

½ cup margarine, softened

½ cup butter, softened

1 cup confectioner’s sugar, sifted

1 egg

1 ½ teaspoons almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 ¼ cups flour, sifted

¾ -1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon red food coloring

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Cream butter, margarine and sugar.  Add egg, almond extract and vanilla.

Sift together flour and salt, and add to creamed mixture.

Divide dough into halves.  Blend red food coloring into one half of dough.  Roll one teaspoon of each color dough into a strip about 4 inches long.  Place strips side by side; press lightly together and twist like rope. 

Place on lightly greased (I spray lightly with cooking spray) cookie sheet and curve one end to form handle of cane.  Bake about 9 minutes.  Cool on wire racks.

Christmas Cookies - First Batch

The first batch of Christmas cookies are baked and in the freezer!  In my last post, I talked about my family's tree cutting tradition.  Well, we also have cookie traditions.  Everyone has his or her favorite Christmas cookies, and I am expected to bake all of them every year.  I usually throw in something different each year, too, just to spice things up.

The first cookie on my list this year is the Italian Wedding Cookie.  You may know these as Mexican Wedding Cookies, Swedish Wedding Cookies, or even Hawaiian Wedding Cookies depending on where you are from and your own background.  In our family, they are definitely Italian.  I got this recipe from my Italian-American mother-in-law.  Despite the widespread popularity of this cookie, I had never had these until the first Christmas I spent with my in-laws.  Mmmm, melt-in-your-mouth goodness.  I had to make them myself.

The first time I made these cookies, I knew I'd done something wrong.  While my mother-in-law's cookies were little bites of powdered goodness, mine were hard little rocks.  Turns out I had both underworked and overworked the dough. What?  It's true.  I'll tell you the secret.  You want to be sure to beat the dough until it actually is, well, dough.  I had not beaten mine enough, so it was still kind of shaggy and crumbly.  And that was when the overworking came in.  I had to really squeeze the dough into those little balls to make them hold together.  If you beat the dough sufficiently, however, you can form the balls very lightly -- just pinch off the dough and gently roll with your palms.  Once you know the secret, the cookies turn out perfectly every time!

Italian Wedding Cookies

½ cup butter, softened

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour, sifted

1 cup ground pecans

powdered sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. 

Beat butter, sugar and vanilla until soft. 

Add flour and pecans; mix well, until dough forms. 

Form dough into small balls, about ¾ inch.

Bake 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and immediately roll in powdered sugar.  Let cookies cool and roll in powdered sugar again.