Cookies

Category: Cookies

12
Dec
2013

Cranberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies & The 2013 Great Blogger Cookie Swap!

categories: Cookies, Dessert

Some people build houses.

Some people donate clothes & toiletries.

Some people give their pocket change. Some people run for miles.

We bake cookies & send them to strangers.

Then we blog.

Why do we do it?

To raise money for pediatric research for kids’ cancer! It feels so good to pay it forward. It feels 100x better when it’s for a good cause.

2013 is the third year of The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap & I’m proud to say that I have been participating in it for all 3 years.

That’s sayin’ a lot because I have the attention span of a…. oooh, I should water my Christmas tree.

I love taking part of this event every heart because it makes me feel like I’m part of a big community of people who love to do what I do, want to share it with others & care enough to take the time to reach out to someone they hardly even know & send them a little something that will put a smile on their face. We are a pretty neat bunch!

So I signed up, donated my $4 & waited for my email telling me who my matches were. Now to make a cookie I’ve never made before… I’ve made A LOT of cookies in my day but after dropping off a cookie order to a customer, they asked me if I could make them a cookie with cranberries in it. Boom! And a cookie & a blog was born. I’m all about cranberries. I usually put them in my yogurt or salads or just directly into my mouth but just never in a cookie. Something in my brain must have told me they were too sour for cookies but that’s also probably the same part of my brain that tells me that wine & brownies are a good combo. After a little tweaking, a little rummaging through my cupboards & a little taste testing, I decided to make these Cranberry White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies for you & three of my new blogger friends at A Picture Journey, Rose and Henry & Dining With Alice!

Saving the best for last, I want to thank Amy from Simple Everyday Food for her delicious gingersnaps, Christine of Cooking With Cakes for the decadent chocolate chunk peppermint pattie cookies & Amy at Cakestar for her amazing hazelnut chocolate chip cookies! You made my day with your yummy cookies!! So go make some cookies, send them to someone to let you know you are thinking of them & bake someone happy!

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12
Dec
2012

Lemon Wreath Cookies & The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012!!

categories: Cookies, Dessert, italian

Have I ever told you that I freakin’ LOVE Christmas?

Well, I do.

I love it so much it’s almost a problem….

Almost.

But no one ever seems to complain when I pull out the ol’ recipe book
& tell them I need them to be guinea pigs for an upcoming cookie swap.
All of a sudden, not so much of a problem, is it?

This year’s occasion for using my friends: The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap 2012!
The recipe: Lemon Wreath Cookies
The result: Christmas Cookie Tangy Lemon-y Yumminess 🙂

Last year I had a great experience taking part in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap
so when I got the email saying that it was that time of year again, I jumped at the chance!

It’s pretty cray how big this swap has gotten since last year!

Imagine 575 food bloggers in 8 countries baking hundreds of different types of cookies & clogging up the post offices with delicious baked goods!
But that’s not all…

This year, all 570 bloggers donated to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer and were matched dollar for dollar by OXO (the company that makes those handy kitchen tools) resulting in a donation of $4,300 to aid in the fight against Kids’ Cancer.
Who said baking was a frivolous past-time??

This year I sent cookies to:
Sharon at cheesypennies.blogspot.com
Carolyn at alldayidreamaboutfood.com &
Renee at tortillasandhoney.com
(Don’t forget to check them out & see what they made for the swap!)

My 3 matches sent me the deliciously diverse cookies you see below!

Check out their recipes & blogs at the following links:
Amy Christie at thisheartofmineblog.com
Stacy Lundstedt at bakingbandit.wordpress.com
Valerie at pursuitofsweetness.com
Thanks Ladies!!
You helped me nullify my diet 3 times 🙂

This year I challenged myself to make something that I had never made before but always wanted to try.

I set to scouring the endless collection of “to-do” recipes I have collected over the years & quickly overwhelmed myself.

10 minutes later, cut to me drinking a glass of red wine in my kitchen…& it hit me!

Who’s the one person that not only completely fills me with fits of jealous rage but also insurmountable amounts of creativity?

Martha friggin’ Stewart.

I’m a big enough woman to admit it…

Oprah has this same effect on me, but she doesn’t make cookies,
so I’ll leave her out of this.

Anywho,

I went back to my “to-do” list & what do you know?

Sitting on top of the crazy pile I had made on the floor was this recipe for
Lemon Wreath Cookies.

Kismet.

I loved everything about these cookies.

I loved the fact that they looked nothing like “cookies”.

I loved that they looked like little Christmas wreath glazed donuts.

I loved that they had history being based on a traditional Italian cookie called “ciambella“.

So I made them & anxiously awaited my taste-tester’s response.

My guinea pigs approved….

I ate, like, a dozen….

Then I made them again just to make sure they were delicious.

Yup. Still pretty darn delicious….

Martha’s gone and done it again…and I hate her a little more with every bite…

And there you have it:

Beautiful & Tart Lemon Wreath Cookies!

You can thank me later…I’ll wait 🙂

Enjoy!

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16
Oct
2012

Cinnamon Walnut Biscotti

categories: Biscotti, Chocolate, Cookies, Nuts

Soooo…hey there.

Remember me?

I’m that one girl who started a food blog, said whatever random thought came to my head, showed you some pretty sweet recipes, but then fell off the face of the earth?
Remember me now?
**insert crickets here**

Well, I guess that’s what happens when you fall of the earth’s face, now doesn’t it?

There is totally a reason I went dark.

I went out & became one of those fancy-shmancy bakers…like, for realsies.
But once I hit a creative wall, I decided to pack up my chef’s coat & go back to what I loved most:
Doing things my own way with my very own baking gig & gettin’ all kinds of creative with it.Now I’m back with a couple of nifty tricks up my coat sleeve &
I’m wielding a mean a** biscotti.
CHURCH.

Soooo…this may NOT be the best way to start this blog but can I just begin by saying that I never really liked biscotti?

I know, I know.

Here I am writing about it, baking it, & trying to get all of you to fall in love with it so much that you’ll go into your kitchens & make it too, and yet there I go, totally putting down biscotti like a mean tweenager.

But I just need you to trust me.

^^This ain’t your nonna’s biscotti.^^

(Nonna = grandmother in case you have no idea what I’m talking about)

I actually like this biscotti and I bet yo’ nonna, you will like this biscotti, too.

As a matter of fact, I liked it so much that I started to anthropomorphize the biscotti
& realized that if biscotti were a person, we’d have a lot in common.
Maybe even be BFF’s…For instance:

BISCOTTI:

The word biscotti comes from the Latin word biscoctus, meaning “twice-baked or cooked”.

ME:

In college, sometimes I would party two days in a row therefore, I too, have been “biscoctus”.

BISCOTTI:

The biscotti cooking method of twice-baking was used as a means of prolonging the “shelf-life” during ancient “refridgeration-free” times.

ME:

After turning 30, I started putting on face cream in order to prolong the shelf-life of my face.

Anywho….

Traditionally, biscotti uses anise extract but I tend to associate anise with this amazingly effective yet absolutely gross tea my mom gave me when I had cramps soooo….I’m not putting it in a biscuit.
Lucky for me, the awesome thing about biscotti is that it is pretty versatile. You can use just about any kind of extract, spices, & nuts in the mix and dip it in just about anything you can think of.
Enough of the history lesson, let’s make some Biscotti!!

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13
Dec
2011

2011 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap: Citrus Alfajores

categories: Christmas, Cookies, Dessert

‘Tis the season…to eat cookies.

Duh.

Well maybe not just eat cookies, but it’s not a bad idea!

So you can imagine my excitement when I came across the posting by

Lyndsay at Love and Olive Oil & Julie at The Little Kitchen about

The 2011 Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.

The idea: Have several food bloggers from across the United States sign up to take part of the cookie swap (600 to be exact!) have them each bake 3 dozen cookies and send a dozen to 3 other bloggers.

Then sit back, relax, and wait for your very own 3 dozen cookies to arrive at your door!!

I figured:

Hey.

I can bake

and

I’m pretty good at sitting back

and

I’m pretty friggin’ spectacular at eating cookies.

Win. Win. Win.

So I put on my apron, got out my rolling pin and decided on a variation of my absolute favorite cookie: Peruvian Alfajores!

Alfajores are a biscuit-y, slightly sweet wafer/cookie filled with dulce de leche and rolled in powdered sugar. They are very common in Peru and many other Latin countries with each one having their own variation on the same basic cookie. Growing up, I LOVED when my family would bring these from Peru when they’d visit us. I have not been able to readily find these in any bakeries so I decided to start making them myself.

But this was the first annual cookie swap.

I couldn’t just make any ol’ alfajor.

It had to be bad ass. It had to be unique.

I had to bring my “A” game.

So here you go:

Citrus Alfajores.

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