Butter Pecan Cookies

Butter Pecan Cookies

I’ve gone rogue on you, I tell ya’! Me, making more cookies? Unheard of! Unlike the dreaded cakes and pastries, it appears I’m able to make some humble cookies without a complete disaster.

Once again, I got this fabulous recipe from my friend Jodi over at The Creative Life in Between. She’s the cookie-maker queen! My mom sent me a couple of pounds of Texas pecans for Christmas, and another dear friend gifted me some candied pecans. So when Jodi posted her Butter Pecan Cookie recipe… well, you get the picture.

I halved the original recipe, so the smaller version is below which makes about 3 dozen cookies. And for whatever reason, this cookie recipe didn’t really need a high-altitude adjustment aside from maybe a minute or two cooking longer. I put the candied pecans on top, and omitted the raw sugar topping. We kept a dozen for ourselves and the rest I brought to a USPS potluck on my last night of work as a Holiday Clerk Assistant. I survived six weeks helping to bring your holiday mail and packages to your doorstep! That certainly deserved a cookie or two.

Butter Pecan Cookies

1 1/2 tablespoons salted butter
1 1/2 cups pecan halves, chopped
2 sticks salted butter
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cups sugar
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 1/4 cups flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
Candied or regular pecan halves for decorating

Buttered Pecans

Prepare buttered pecans by melting 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chopped pecans and cook, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes, until lightly toasted. Remove from skillet to a bowl to cool.

In same skillet, melt 2 sticks of butter for cookie batter. Bring to a boil until butter just begins to brown, and then remove from heat. Be careful not to burn it as that tastes bitter, but be sure to get it to the browned stage.

Browning the Butter ~ yes, you really do boil the butter!

Using an electric mixer, combine sugars with browned butter on slow speed until fully combined. Add vanilla and then eggs, one at time, beating until fully combined.

Add flour, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda – folding in with rubber spatula until fully incorporated, and then fold in the buttered pecans.

Butter Pecan Cookie Batter

Cover bowl and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375 degrees.

If you have refrigerated overnight – let dough sit long enough to become scoopable.

Place ping-pong-ball sized scoops of dough 1-2 inches apart on baking stone or cookie sheet. Flatten slightly and press a pecan half in center.

Bake 8 to 11 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit on baking stone/cookie sheet for 10 minutes, then remove to cooling rack to cool completely.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

I made cookies!! Yes indeed, I really did. Most of you who know me are aware that me and flour and baking don’t really get along so well. And they actually came out pretty spectacular if I don’t say so myself. (Oh but my family told me too, along with my book club members at our cookie exchange, and the kind folks at my seasonal post office job!)

I first tried this recipe back in November, but the cookies didn’t come out so great texture- and shape-wise because of my high altitude. So I did a bunch of research, prepared a double batch, and set to experiment on cookie dough shape, oven temps, and timing.

The original recipe comes from my foodie friend Jodi over at The Creative Life In Between. I’ll share her original instructions, along with my high-altitude adjustments for those of you who share similar climes.

If you are a lover of snickerdoodles and are always first in line for pumpkin pie, this is a perfect marriage of flavors. I hope you enjoy these as much as we have!

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 large egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
3 1/2 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3 1/4 cups flour
For rolling: 1/4 cup sugar + 2 tsp ground cinnamon, combined

Cream together butter and sugars with electric mixer. Add egg yolk, vanilla and pumpkin, and combine.

Add next 8 ingredients, followed by the flour, and mix until combined.

Refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour.

Pumpkin Snickdoodle

Normal cooking directions:

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll and shape dough into golf ball sized balls. Roll balls in sugar-cinnamon mixture. Place on baking stone or sheet and bake approximately 12 minutes until tops begin to crack. Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking stone/sheet for an additional 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

High-altitude cooking directions:

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Roll and shape dough into golf ball sized balls. Place on baking stone or sheet and flatten the cookie with the palm of your hand to an even thickness of about 1/4 inch. Gently press into cinnamon sugar on both sides and place back onto the cookie sheet. Bake approximately 8 to 9 minutes until tops begin to crack. Remove from oven and allow to cool on baking stone/sheet for an additional 10 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

P.S. Happy Yule Y’all!! 😀

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

 

Chocolate-Covered Cookie Butter-Filled Oreo Thins

Chocolate-Covered Cookie Butter-Filled Oreo Thins

Surprise, surprise, I have a a dessert on my blog! If you’ve followed me for any length of time you know I really don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but when my friend Jodi at The Creative Life In Between posted this, I thought heck yes, I can handle that! I know my husband and daughter really like Oreos so surprised them with this recently. I think I more shocked than surprised them, as in sugar shock. Zowee, one bite is certainly a head rush.

I only made four of them in case they didn’t like them. They both liked them enough, but daughter could only eat half of one, and hubby took one bite and said it was like eating three cookies in one bite! Anyhoot, they store well in Tupperware so the fam gets to take a bite or two from them when they want.

I attempted to make fancy squiggles with chocolate on the top, but they came out more like scribbles, lol. The recipe below is taken directly from Jodi’s website here, so please navigate over there if you want to see a prettier version of these cookies. I even stole her idea to use my daughter as a hand model for them. Jodi is an excellent photographer, painter, and writer too!

p.s I’ll be gone the next two weekends fishing and crabbing! So hopefully all the sugar in this will tide you over until we get back and I can post a new recipe.

Chocolate-Covered Cookie Butter-Filled Oreo Thins
From Jodi at The Creative Life In Between

One box of Oreo Thins Chocolate cookies
One jar of Biscof or Trader Joe’s Speculoos cookie butter (I used Trader Joe’s)
One and 1/2 bags of Wilton’s Candy melts in dark chocolate (I used a microwavable tub of Baker’s Semi-Sweet Dark Chocolate)

Place the amount of Oreo Thins Cookies on a cookie sheet that you plan on making.  Top each cookie with a teaspoon-sized scoop of cookie butter.  Press a second Oreo Thin on top to make a sandwich.

Assembling the Cookies

Freeze for approximately 30 minutes.

Melt the chocolate in microwave in 30 second increments, stirring after each increment, until chocolate is melted and smooth.

Take 3-4 cookies out of the freezer at a time, and carefully dip – one at a time – in the melted chocolate.  Use a fork to tap excess off, and slide the bottom of the cookie along the edge of the bowl to remove excess.  Set on parchment or wax paper to harden. (Since I am SO GOOD at reading directions, I put them in the freezer AFTER I added the chocolate, sheesh! They still came out fine. 🙂 )

Dipped Cookies Ready to Harden

Add sprinkles (if desired) before chocolate hardens, or drizzle with white or contrasting chocolate after it hardens. (I just drizzled the same chocolate over top.)

P.S. I’ve added this recipe to The Secret Recipe Club site! Pop on over to The Bewitching Kitchen here to see her creation, and tap on the frog to see many more great recipes!

Daughter Modeling her Half Eaten Cookie

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Chocolate-Gingerbread-Toffee Cake

TA-DAH! Chocolate Gingerbread Toffee Cake

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends! Today I bring you a photo compilation of this delicious cake made by my daughter. These recipes come from last year’s December Southern Living magazine. My daughter cooked just the cake portion of this last year in a bundt pan and we used store-bought icing, but this year she went all out and made the entire thing from scratch, including the filling and frosting. (Except the cookie garnish, we did buy those and she decorated them.) We brought this to a friend’s house for her family’s annual Christmas Eve Dinner Party, and it was a hit!

Here are the links to the recipes:

Chocolate-Gingerbread-Toffee Cake

Ginger Whipped Cream

Silky Ganache

Mixing the Brown Sugar, Molasses and Eggs

Adding the Melted Chocolate – You’d think I was advertising for Arm and Hammer, lol!

Mixing the Flour and Spices

Making the Batter

Filling the Cake Pans

Cooling the Cake Layers

More Melted Chocolate for Filling

Whipping Up Some Chocolatey Goodness

Topping the First Layer

First Layer Toffee Bits

Second Layer Complete!

Three Layers Ready to Chill

Whipping the Ginger-Infused Cream

Frosting the Cake

TA-DAH! Chocolate Gingerbread Toffee Cake

Cutting the First Slice

First Slice of Chocolate Gingerbread Toffee Cake

I hope you enjoyed this journey of baking!

Cookie Monster Cookies

Cookie Monster Cookies

So I have admitted several times that I am not the baker in the house and that my daughter loves to bake all kinds of cookies, cakes, etc. However, today I was all set to make some really healthy oat bran/flax meal muffins with applesauce, carrots and golden raisins in them, and had my shopping list all ready for the store in search of my ingredients. But then my daughter said she wrote down a friend’s recipe for these AWESOME cookies and she just HAD to make them today instead. So there I am at the store buying all these healthy items, along with butter, chocolate chips, brown sugar, and M&Ms, among other things.

I let her have at it in the kitchen today. She was disappointed with her first batch as she made the dough balls way too big and didn’t cook them long enough. But after I told her to use less dough for each cookie and to cook them longer, she’s now happy with them.

This recipe made a ton of cookies! We filled up one large Tupperware container, then another smaller one (in photo).

The Recipe

I don’t know the origin of this recipe at all, so I’m including a photo of her handwritten one to show that I didn’t steal it somewhere. Let’s just say it was “adapted” from a recipe. Well I guess it was as she did have to switch out some of the ingredients.

I’m not a big cookie eater, so I haven’t tasted them. I guess you could call these somewhat healthy since they have almost an entire container of oatmeal in them. I’ll let you be the judge. Happy Snacking!

Cookie Monster Cookies

3 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon white Kayro syrup (we had dark on hand and used that instead)
1 1/3 cups creamy peanut butter (we only had Chunky)
1 1/2 cups butter
4 1/2 cups quick-cooking oatmeal
1/3 cup chocolate chips (we used dark chocolate ones)
1/2 cup M&Ms

Cream eggs and sugars. Add baking soda, syrup, butter, and peanut butter. Then mix in the oatmeal, chocolate chips, and M&Ms. Blend well. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.