Another double post! I actually started writing this post last night, but fell asleep in the process with my computer on my chest. I always get nervous when that happens since there is about a 3-foot drop from my bed to the floor. The two recipes I’m sharing tonight are not necessarily your traditional, festive Christmas cookies.
Apple Cake & Honey Walnut Cookies
Apple Cake & Honey Walnut Cookies
If you’ve ever had apple cake before, you know it’s more like bread than cake. Either way, it’s delicious. The woman I babysit for gave me her recipe which is called “light apple cake.” We can pretend that makes it healthy. Whatever makes you feel better, right?
Apple Cake
Ingredients:
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbls orange juice
- 2 large Granny Smith apples, cored, unpeeled, cut into 1/4 inch slices
- 1 cup golden raisins
- powdered sugar for dusting
Directions:
- Butter and flour 10-inch tube pan, bundt pan, or any similar sized pan (I experimented with mine)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- With an electric mixer, beat vegetable oil and sugar until combined. Add eggs, flour, salt, cinnamon, baking soda, cinnamon and vanilla, and orange juice. Mix well.
- Stir in apples and raisins, gently. Be careful not to break up the apple slices.
- Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour 10 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool in pan for 30 minutes before removing to cooling rack.
- Dust with powdered sugar.
I love apple cake! It’s so warm and festive. This recipe is spot on.
Honey Walnut Cookies
Ingredients:
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/3 cup chopped walnuts
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
- In a small bowl, combine oil, honey and vanilla. Add oil mixture to flour mixture and stir until combined.
- Fold in chopped walnuts. Since the dough is eggless, it will have a slightly different texture than most cookie dough.
- Roll into 12, 1-inch balls, place onto prepared baking sheet.
- Bake 10 minutes, remove from oven and pat down slightly with hand while cookies are hot. Let cool for 2-3 minutes before removing to cooling rack.
Yield: 1 dozen
Enjoy!
Good evening! When I had the relatively unoriginal idea of posting 12 christmas cookie recipes on this blog, I overlooked the fact that baking and blogging both take time. Time that I rarely have. What I’m trying to say is I’m sorry I have been seriously slacking on the cookie front. However, I am pleased to bring you two delicious recipes tonight!
Double Chocolate Chip Cookies & German Chocolate Cookies!
I copied the recipe for the Double Chocolate Chip Cookies out of a Christmas Cookie magazine I found lying around my house while I was home over Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I cannot recall which particular magazine it was.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup baking cocoa
- 2 tbls milk
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
- 1 cup (6 oz) semisweet chocolate chunks or chips (double if not using nuts)
Directions:
- In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, sugar and vanilla. Beat in egg, cocoa and milk.
- Combine flour and baking powder, fold into creamed mixture.
- Fold in walnuts and chocolate chips
- Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, place 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with silpats or parchment paper.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire racks.
Yield: 3 dozen
These cookies were a hit! They almost tasted like hot cocoa. I highly recommend using chocolate chunks over chips. The extra crunch they give is much more pleasing, if you ask me!
German Chocolate Cookies:
Luckily, I CAN direct you to the source of this recipe! While searching for new holiday baking ideas, I came across these dangerous little devils . I am a huge fan of just about anything german chocolate. Cake, cookies, bars, ice cream (do they make that?)…Can’t go wrong with german chocolate anything!
Ingredients:
- 2 cups sweetened, shredded coconut
- 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
- 1 3/4 cups flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 cup packed light brown sugar
- 3/4 cup salted butter, softened
- 1 large egg
- 2 tbls light corn syrup
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
- 4 ounces semisweet chocolate finely chopped, or 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
Directions:
- Heat oven to 350 degrees. Spread pecans and coconut on a rimmed baking sheet and toast in oven for 7-10 minutes, or until fragrant.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.
- Cream brown sugar and butter until fluffy. Add egg, corn syrup, vanilla and almond extract.
- Gradually beat in flour mixture. Using a rubber spatula, fold in pecans, coconut, and chocolate.
- Drop tablespoonfuls of dough on baking sheets lined with silpats of parchment paper a few inches apart. Pat them down slightly using a knife.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 7-10 minutes. Let cool for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack.
Yield: About 30 cookies
Again, I absolutely loved these cookies. And so did everyone else judging by the fact that they were gone from the cookie jar in a couple days.
Happy Baking!
Greetings!
On this evening I am glad to present a holiday classic: Sugar Cookies!
I followed a new recipe this year for my sugar cookies that can be found here. My recipe was slightly less precise due to the fact that I do not have a stand mixer, and have to settle for my handy dandy hand mixer. I also did not measure the thickness of my cookies in such a precise manner. Nevertheless, these cookies came out perfect!
Ingredients:
Yield: About 3 dozen cookies
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
- Mix flour and baking powder in medium bowl.
- Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy (hand mixers will work just fine!)
- Add egg and vanilla to butter mixture. Mix for another minute.
- Slowly add flour mixture.
- Mix until well combined.
- Take dough out of bowl and knead a few times on a flat surface, covered with parchment paper.
- Put dough in a large plastic ziplock bag and refrigerate for at least two hours.
- Preheat oven to 350 just before it is time to remove the dough from the refrigerator.
- Roll out about half the dough on a lightly floured flat surface. Cover dough with a piece of parchment paper to prevent it from sticking to the rolling pin. (This was a new tip I just learned this year!)
- Roll the dough until it is about 1/3 of an inch thick.
- Using your favorite cookie cutters, cut the dough and place cookies on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper of a Silpat.
- Bake cookies 8-10 minutes (I did 9) or until they just begin to turn golden.
- Remove cookies from oven and let cool for about a minute before moving to a cooling rack.
Once the cookies are completely cooled, whip up your favorite powder sugar frosting and get decorating! The frosting recipe I used this year is excellent. I found it on Annie’s Eats. I love nice and simple recipes, nothing fancy for this girl!
After frosting the cookies, I topped them off with some simple sprinkles. Mike actually helped me out on this step which made it go by much faster.
Look at that bad boy! I have to say these are some of the best sugar cookies I’ve had in the past couple Christmases. Thank you so much to the bloggers who helped me out with the recipes! I will definitely be recreating these later this month and may even use the same recipe for another holiday. Valentine’s cookies, perhaps?
Happy baking!
I’m known for getting in the Christmas spirit a little too early. Like months too early. I’m not opposed to listening to Christmas music before Halloween hits. When December rolls around, and it is officially acceptable to become immersed in all things Christmas, my enthusiasm for my favorite holiday peaks.
While I love Christmas shopping, Christmas movies and Christmas decorations, my favorite thing of all is Christmas baking! The Christmas weather has not hit Chicago just yet, but that hasn’t stopped me from diving into some delicious treats. Over the next three weeks, I will be posting 12 Christmas cookie recipes. Some new, some old, some classic, and some experimental. I’d like to call this little segment:
Now, since I am one of the top ten busiest college students ever (totally not exaggerating), it’s going to take me until right up until Christmas to post 12 different cookies. To kick things off, I’m going to share a cookie recipe that is new to me this season: Betty Crocker’s Reindeer Tracks
I picked this gem out of a Christmas Cookie recipe book that I picked up at Dominick’s last week.
Reindeer Tracks Ingredients:
- 2 1/3 cups flour (I used 1 1/2 cups all purpose and substituted whole wheat for the rest. My feeble attempt to add nutrition)
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 eggs
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 (12 oz) package white vanilla baking chips
- 1 (8 0z) package mini peanut butter cup candies
- 1 cup coarsely chopped pretzel twists
Directions:
- Heat oven to 350 degrees, lightly spray cookie sheets or use a silpat.
- In medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
- Beat in eggs and vanilla until blended.
- Slowly add flour mixture to butter mixture until blended.
- Stir in baking chips, peanut butter cup candies and pretzels
Drop dough by rounded tablespoons 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake 9-11 minutes, or until lightly browned. Immediately remove cookies onto cooling racks.
The ingredient that absolutely made these cookies was the peanut butter cups.
These cookies were a huge hit. Mike actually ate SIX of them in a row. Yes, that’s a true story. Remember how I said he’s slightly apprehensive about trying healthy recipes? The same does not hold true when it comes to cookies. These cookies are so good, they get a special little spot in my apartment.
Behold, the Nutcracker cookie jar!
My mom got me this little guy last time I was home. He’s awesome! In addition to sharing cookie recipes over the next few weeks, I have a lot of fitness related things going on. I just started a new workout plan that is absolutely kicking my butt. I was planning on sharing it in this post, but somehow cookies and exercise just don’t go together in my head. Hopefully I will get a chance to share it this week!
Happy Holidays!
It’s been a while! A lot has happened since my last post. I celebrated my 22nd birthday last weekend, finished my last fall quarter of college EVER, and am now home in Minneapolis, enjoying a nice four-day Thanksgiving break.
The Thanksgiving festivities started off with the Turkey Day 5k in Minneapolis yesterday. My goal was to finish in 23:00 minutes, which did not happen. I wasn’t far off and ended up at 23:34. There’s always next time! After I crossed the finish line I waited for Mike who came in shortly after with a frighteningly red face, as you can see in the picture.
Turkey Trotters
My Mom came down to the race to cheer us on, accompanied by the doggies!
Alfie and Poppy
Note my Christmas socks. I might’ve suffered a little holiday confusion yesterday.
After the run, we dropped Mike off at his parents’ house before diving into the Thanksgiving cooking. The menu consisted of:
- Turkey (duh)
- Classic mashed potatoes
- Glazed sweet potatoes with pecans
- Rutabaga
- Asparagus
- Corn
- Wild rice stuffing (personal fav)
- Cranberry sauce
- Deviled eggs
- pumpkin pie, apple pie, and the new addition of apple cake!
Needless to say there was no shortage of food.
A fraction of the food.
Ready to dig in!
After stuffing my face with my own family, I headed over to Mike’s to top it off with some more dessert. It was one of the best Thanksgivings I’ve had in recent memory. To top it all off, we got about an inch of snow overnight, creating that perfect winter wonderland feel for Christmas! Let the Christmas spirit begin!
let it snow!
Last week Mike got tickets for us to see Daniel Tosh at the State Theatre tonight for my birthday! Should be a riot. As soon as I get the details from my mom, I plan on posting the recipes for the stuffing, sweet potatoes, and rutabaga on here. Stay tuned!
biggest food junkie 