Oatmeal M&M Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

The hubby got home from work early and wanted to do something fun together, so we baked cookies! He looked in the cupboard of baking supplies and chose the m&ms and peanut butter chips and so I modified an oatmeal cookie recipe from my Company's Coming cook book. They turned out great! The recipe yields 5 dozen, and we ended up with 4 1/2 dozen, which means that I only ate the equivalent of 6 cookies in dough, or I made them a bit bigger... Let's go with the second option :)

Ingredients

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup m&ms
1 cup peanut butter chips

Mix butter and brown sugar together. Add in the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Add in the dry ingredients and mix. Add the m&ms and peanut butter chips and mix. Form into small 1" balls and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes and let cool on a cookie rack. Makes approximately 5 dozen cookies.

Christmas Cookies 2012

I have been quite the busy beaver this past week! With classes finished done, no exams, and just assignments and marking to work on, I have had lots of time to do some Christmas baking! I did 3 rounds of baking and made 7 different kinds of cookies, which I will share with you here! I tested them all, and they are delicious, so don't worry!

1) Red Velvet Cookies with Cream Cheese Icing

I found this recipe on Pinterest, and the link for it can be found here.

Makes about 4 dozen
For the cookies:
2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon red food coloring

For the cream cheese frosting:
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons butter, softened
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325 and line a baking sheet with parchment. Whisk together the flour, salt and cocoa powder together in a medium bowl. In a large bowl beat the butter and powdered sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Add the food coloring and mix until the color is even and no streaks remain. Working in batches add the flour mixture and stir until incorporated. Roll dough into 1-inch round balls and place onto the prepared baking sheet. Make an indent into each ball using the end of a wooden spoon. Bake for 12 minutes and let cool on a rack.

To make the filling, beat all the ingredients together in a medium bowl until smooth and spreadable. Transfer to a pastry bag filled with a small round tip. Pipe the filling into the center of each cooled cookie. Feed to Santa immediately and store the rest in an airtight container.


2) Shortbread

Ingredients

2 cups flour

1 cup butter (don't substitute margarine)

¼ cup sugar

Sprinkles (optional)

Mix all ingredients until smooth. Pat into a 9x9" (approx.) cake pan, top with sprinkles, and bake at 325ºC for 30 minutes until edges just start to change colour. 

3) Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies (AKA Grinch Cookies)

I made these ones last year following the recipe that is listed on my blog here. It calls for sugar cookie mix, but I didn't feel like spending 3 dollars on it so I just added peppermint extract, green food colouring, and mint chocolate chips to the sugar cookie dough that I was making anyways. I think they were better the original way because they held their round shape, but maybe I should have just pressed them down with a fork? Still delicious though, I think these are the favourite of me and the hubby this year! 

4) Mini Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

I got this recipe from the package of mini kisses I had (found by the chocolate chips), which you can also find here. I didn't quite make them as mini as they were supposed to be, but that's OK! They still taste great :) You could also use the same recipe and make the balls a bit bigger and use full-size kisses.

Ingredients:
-1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
-3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
-1/3 cup granulated sugar
-1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
-1 egg
-3 tbsp milk
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
-1/2 tsp baking soda
-1/2 tsp salt
-1 package Chipits mini kisses

Cream together butter, peanut butter, white sugar and brown sugar. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Gradually blend dry ingredients into creamed mixture. Shape dough into small (2cm) balls, and roll in extra granulated sugar. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-6 minutes at 350F. Remove from oven and immediately press one mini kiss into the middle. Makes about 9 dozen cookies (if you make them small enough haha).

5) Candy Cane Sugar Cookies

 

This is another repeat recipe from last year- they were so yummy and festive I just had to make them again! You can find the recipe in a previous post here.

6) Sugar Cookies

 

The classic Christmas cookie! I was so impressed by all the beautiful sugar cookies I am seeing on Pinterest that I had to make some of my own! I used the recipe in my binder, but I think that it is different from the one that is on my blog, which is much better! So use this one! I made the icing way too runny so the decorating part didn't turn out as well as I would have hoped. Thanks to my friend Felicia for coming over to make and decorate these cookies with me! 

7) Cake Batter Cookies

OK, this has to be one of the easiest recipes ever.... seen on Pinterest here. There are only 3 ingredients and you can use whatever kind of cake mix you want. I used the sprinkle/funfetti kind and they are super yummy!

Ingredients
-1 box cake mix
-2 eggs
-1/3 cup oil

Mix ingredients together, form into balls, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375F for 6-8 minutes. 

Here is the final product(s)! I didn't count how many cookies I made in total, but it was quite a lot! We will see how many survive the Williams and Jones Christmases :) Enjoy!

The BEST Sugar Cookies Ever!

A few weeks ago I babysat for a family from church for the weekend. The daughter in the family and I decided that we should make some sugar cookies to decorate for something fun to do. I used my googling skills and came across this simple recipe from allrecipes.com, and trust me, it is a keeper!

Ingredients

1 ½ cups butter, softened

2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

Plus icing sugar, milk, and butter for the icing

Directions

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out dough on floured surface ¼ to ½ inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely. Top with icing.

Note: I couldn't find any cookie cutters, so we just used a glass cup flipped upside-down so they were all circles

Don't forget the icing!

I don't have specific measurements for the icing, but I mixed a large amount of icing sugar with a small amount of milk, and about a tablespoon of butter to thicken it. You hardly need any milk, so don't add too much! I just kept adding icing sugar until it was the consistency that I wanted. I added food colouring to some of the icing and put it in a ziploc baggie with the corner snipped so that we could put designs on the cookies. The ones in the pictures are just white icing with sprinkles.

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe I made closer to Christmas time but haven't had a chance to blog it until now. They were originally called "Grinch Cookies" because they are green, but if you call them Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies then you can eat them whenever you want! My fiance LOVES mint chocolate, so I had to try this recipe- and it was a hit!
 

 

  Ingredients

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix

½ cup butter or margarine, softened

¼ to ½ teaspoon mint extract

6 to 8 drops green food color

1 egg

1 cup creme de menthe baking chips (I used mint chocolate chips)

1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms.Stir in the chocolate chips.


Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set.

Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Serve warm or cool completely. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

Mine didn't look as green as the original picture, but they were still delicious! This recipe is from Pinterest/Betty Crocker, original link here.

Pinterest vs Reality: Grinch Cookies (mine on bottom)

Candy Cane Sugar Cookies

Check out this yummy recipe I made for Sarah's cookie swap (check out her blog here). I found this one on Pinterest, and had to try it! Here's a picture of what it looked like on Pinterest, and what my version of it looked like. OK, mine aren't quite as pretty, but they tasted great! The recipe made 3 dozen cookies, but I needed 4 dozen for the cookie swap, and couldn't use half an egg yolk, so I had to make a double recipe. Luckily they were yummy (Jordan wasn't complaining!)

Ingredients
-2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-¼ teaspoon salt

-1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

-¾ cup powdered sugar

-1 large egg yolk

-2 large egg whites

-½ cup finely crushed hard peppermint candies or candy canes (about 3-ounces)

-Additional powdered sugar for rolling

Makes: 3 dozen

Sift together dry ingredients- flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, beat butter and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk and beat until blended. Add egg whites and mix well (mixture will look grainy). Gradually beat dry ingredients into butter mixture. Stir in peppermint candies. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Form dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in powdered sugar and place on prepared baking sheets, spacing 2 inches apart. Flatten each cookie with a fork, creating crisscross pattern. Bake until cookies are golden on bottom, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to racks to cool completely.

A note about crushing candy canes: 

At first I was trying to crush the candy canes in a measuring cup with a big spoon, then with the bottom of a cup, which worked OK, but then I remembered another method that I picked up somewhere along the way. Put the candy canes in a large ziploc bag and use a rolling pin and slowly roll over the candy canes. I'll admit that rolling was taking too long, so I took it out to the front step and just hit it a bunch of times with my rolling pin, which worked really well! I also used this trick on crushing peanuts because I was too cheap to buy the pre-crushed ones (I actually rolled those ones though). 

Side rant: Parchment paper

Go out and buy some parchment paper. Seriously. It only costs a few dollars, but it makes it so much easier to bake things. You line your pan with it, and then when it's time to take it off you just peel off the paper, you don't have to scrape it off or worry about your treats sticking to the sides or falling apart. I used the same two pieces on my cookie sheets, and it worked great! I am converted! Note that wax paper is not an appropriate alternative, my friend Sarah told me she learned that one the hard way!

Enjoy! :)

M&M Cookies!

I don't have much to say about this recipe, but that it is fun and delicious! I got this recipe from Jordan's mom from a Company's Coming cookbook, and it is definitely a keeper. These cookies are nice and soft, but unfortunately this means that they fall apart easily. Still delicious. Also, if you don't have enough m&ms (or are too cheap to buy the right amount) then just replace with chocolate chips.

PS. I once made this recipe once with Reese's Pieces, and they were awesome!

v  1 cup butter or margarine, softened

v  1 cup brown sugar, packed

v  ½ cup granulated sugar

v  2 eggs

v  2 tsp vanilla

v  2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

v  1 tsp baking soda

v  1 tsp salt

v  1 ½ cups M&Ms

Makes 4 dozen

Cream butter and both sugars together. Beat in eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla. Add flour, baking soda, salt, and half the M&Ms. Mix well. Drop by spoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Press remaining M&Ms on top of cookies. Bake at 375ºF  for 8-10 minutes until golden brown. 

Enjoy!