Lemon Oatmeal Cookies

Since my cache of cookies that I have baked was dwindling, I wanted to make a couple of things to have in reserve. I didn’t quite know what I wanted to make, but I searched my recipes and figured that I was good with the exception of lemons for lemon zest. We picked up a couple of lemons at the store and headed home, knowing I could make something great!

One recipe that I made called for the zest of three lemons, but I edited that website slightly and used only one lemon. Having lemons on hand, I found this recipe that sounded great and it was also easy to convert this to a dairy free recipe. I try to make dairy-free recipes from time to time, and by substituting vegan butter here this cookie is instantly dairy free. The vegan butter tends to be softer, so I did end up chilling the dough for a short time to firm it up.

The original recipe had you flatten the cookie with a glass dipped in sugar, but I simply rolled the cookie dough in sugar. The cookies are extremely flat, and I don’t really think that you need to flatten the cookies. I did a little, but I don’t think it made much difference. While these cookies are flat, they are super crunchy and oaty. Oats and lemon are such a good combination, and these simple cookies fit the bill.

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup butter or vegan butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon lemon extract
Zest from 1 lemon
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
Additional sugar or sanding sugar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar and mix on medium until light. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the lemon extract and zest. Stir on medium to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Once those ingredients are incorporated, mix in the oats with a spatula.

Shape the dough into tablespoon-sized balls. Roll the dough balls in sugar and place on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the cookies slightly with the palm of your hand.

Bake the cookies for about 10-11 minutes, until golden. Some of the edges may be a little loose, but I tidied those up with a small metal spatula. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and then cool completely on a wire rack.

Recipe from Leigh Anne Wilkes

Vegan Apple Cider Cookies

With fall coming, it means that school starts again and it’s back to work! I try to be thoughtful about dietary restrictions, but there are many things to think about! Different folks have gluten, dairy, and chocolate limitations. I valiantly tried to find a recipe that would fit everyone (without too many changes) but I couldn’t. Gluten free flour can be strange, so I find that cookies that don’t contain flour at all are best gluten free ones. I made a http://cookiesonfriday.blogspot.com/2012/11/lemon-amaretti.html classic gluten free cookie, but also found this vegan recipe for apple cider cookies.

I have made a similar cookie, but I was curious how this vegan version would turn out. It also uses a good quantity of apple cider, which I adore! It isn’t common to use ½ cup of cider in a recipe, but it was not an issue in the end. As this recipe is vegan, there is no egg, which naturally adds liquid to a recipe. The dough was nice and soft, and I decided to refrigerate the dough for a couple of hours.

I wasn’t sure how long to bake these cookies, as the original recipe said to bake the cookies for 15+ minutes. Unless you make giant cookies, that’s usually too long to bake a cookie. I baked these for 10 minutes, then 2 minutes more, then an additional 2 minutes. In the end 14 minutes worked best, but that still seems like a long time! These thin cookies have a great cider flavor, which increases even more overnight. While these are vegan, they are a classic fall cookie to make again and again!

Vegan Apple Cider Cookies
1/2 cup room vegetable shortening/vegan butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup apple cider
2-1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1-1/2 cup powdered sugar
3+ tablespoons apple cider

In a large mixer bowl, beat the shortening, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until smooth. Add the vanilla and apple cider and mix on medium to combine. The mixture will look wet and somewhat lumpy, but it will come together. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into balls and place on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 15 minutes, until set. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 20 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Make the drizzle: in a small bowl whisk the powdered sugar and apple cider together until smooth. Drizzle over the cooled cookies.

Recipe from Two Raspberries

Chewy Hazelnut Cookies

It has been ages since I have done a traditional week where I bake on Thursday evening and then take cookies to work on Friday. This is the week! We were having visitors at the library, and I wanted to make something great. I also wanted to take into consideration dietary restrictions. While I didn’t know anything about the dietary needs of our visitors, I knew that I wanted to make cookies that are both gluten and dairy free.

I have talked about this a little, but some items are easy to replace. Vegan butter works well in most recipes. Milk is usually used in very small quantities, and there are multiple soy/almond/oat milk options out there. Gluten free flour works well, but you need to be thoughtful, as a cookie that is expected to rise significantly isn’t the right choice. The hardest for this recipe was that the recipe called for Nutella, which contains dairy. I could make my own or buy one of the dairy free versions out on the market. I ended up using Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut and Almond Butter, which is dairy free.

I try to be as careful as possible when doing dairy or gluten free baking. I have specific measuring cups I use for gluten free flour, and I wear gloves to help with any allergens. As careful as I am, I do bake with gluten and dairy, so it helps to be careful. Cookies with dairy and gluten free ingredients tend to be softer and act a little differently, so it’s ok to adapt. I ended up flattening the cookies as they didn’t change while they baked, but that was fine. They are soft but have a good chocolate/hazelnut flavor without being too sweet.

Chewy Hazelnut Cookies
1 ½ cups flour (or gluten free flour)
1/4 cup cocoa powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup vegan butter, room temperature
⅔ cup sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons non-dairy milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup dairy free chocolate hazelnut spread
Chopped Hazelnuts

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, combine the vegan butter and sugar and beat on medium until light. Add the egg, non-dairy milk, and vanilla and stir on medium to combine. Add the chocolate hazelnut spread and mix on low to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture and stir until incorporated.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for about two hours.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into 1-1/4” balls and roll in the chopped hazelnuts. Flatten the cookies slightly with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the cookies are set. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Country Cleaver

Cherry and Coconut Flapjacks

I’ve made a couple of different flapjack recipes, but they are not at all common in the states. They are simply an oat-based bar, typically made on the stove and then cooked in the oven. Occasionally you find ones that aren’t baked, but I don’t like those as much. There are some differences between the British ingredients that the recipe specifies and what you can get in American shops, but you can substitute as needed. I keep a decent supply of British baking items on hand, which helps tremendously.

Flapjacks are quick and easy. They are naturally gluten free and by using vegan butter they are also dairy free. Thankfully I had just received a shipment of glacé cherries from the UK, but you can find candied cherries in the states. If you don’t have desiccated coconut, which is more finely ground, you can always use the shredded coconut you can find at the store. I suspect their oats, which are “porridge oats” are different than what I used, but they worked!

The biggest challenge for these flapjacks was this statement from the original recipe, “grease a suitable baking tin.” I had no idea what size of pan that means, but looking at the photo I guessed a 7” x 11” pan. Your flapjacks could be made in any pan, I suppose, but the thickness would vary as would the baking time. Mine were nice and golden after 25 minutes, and I scored/partially cut the bars while still warm. I will say that these bars are incredibly sticky, and I had problems getting them out of the pan. Still, if you don’t mind a little stickiness, these are quite tasty!

Cherry and Coconut Flapjacks
150 grams butter or vegan butter
150 grams brown sugar
90 ml golden syrup
300 grams oats
200 grams glace/candied cherries
40 grams desiccated coconut

Heat the oven to 320 degrees. Spray a 7” x 11” baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large saucepan, over low heat, melt the butter. Add the brown sugar and golden syrup and stir, until the mixture comes together. Add the oats, cherries, and coconut and stir with a wooden spoon to combine. Remove from the heat and spread evenly in the prepared pan.

Bake for about 25 minutes, until the bars are golden. Allow the bars to cool for 10 minutes before scoring into bars. Cool completely and then remove the bars from the pan.

Recipe from What the Redhead Said

Chai Spice Biscotti

The library where I work is open, despite the fact that classes are online. It has been very quiet, but I do enjoy working with the students who do come into the library. For staffing, a handful of folks come in each day, but it can be hard to track. We have a calendar that provides who will be on campus each day. While it is not perfect, I find it to be so helpful. When baking for work, I vary what I make depending on who is there, avoiding gluten, dairy, or chocolate as needed. This time, I was looking for dairy-free ideas.

Dairy free is not too hard, as I can at least use eggs. I have vegan butter and that works in many instances. I had marked this recipe for biscotti some time ago but took a closer look at the required ingredients and it contains no butter AT ALL! While that is unusual, it does happen with biscotti. It originally called for cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, star anise, and white pepper, but I figured I could adjust. I used regular pepper, used nutmeg instead of star anise, and left out the cardamom. I have bad memories of baking with cardamom, so I avoid it!

This biscotti recipe makes about two dozen, which is a nice petite amount. I am never great at shaping the dough into the perfect size, but it is not critical, as long as the dough is the same thickness throughout. I bake my biscotti for slightly less time than the original recipe, so the cookies are not as hard. They are still crunchy, so no worries there! Given that these biscotti have no added butter or shortening, the texture did not change from other biscotti recipes. These biscotti have a good spiciness, no matter which spices you use, and the glaze adds a hint of sweetness.

Chai Spice Biscotti
2-1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 eggs + 2 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons strongly brewed chai tea

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and salt; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, combine the sugar, eggs and egg yolks and mix on medium until combined. Add the vanilla and mix to incorporate. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture. When mixed, the dough may look dry.

Divide the dough in halves and shape each half into a loaf about 9” x 3” and about ½ inch thick.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven to cool for 10 minutes.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Slice the loaves into biscotti slices, between ½” and ¾” thick. Place back on the baking sheet and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Allow to cool completely before glazing.

In a small bowl, whisk the powdered sugar and enough chai tea to make a smooth glaze. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled biscotti and allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Tastes Lovely

Hermit Bars

I go into work a couple of days per week now, which makes the idea of “Cookies on Friday” a bit of a challenge. Now it’s cookies on whatever day I am organized enough to bring them! That seems to work out ok as different people work different days, so I try to tailor recipes on who may be at work. Some of my friends can’t have gluten, and others can’t have dairy. I made these cookies dairy free, and next time I will find a gluten free recipe to try.

The original recipe I had planned to make would have been easy to convert to dairy free, but then I realized they contained toffee chips and I don’t know how you could make those without dairy! I swapped to this recipe which required I used margarine/vegan butter and then a substitute liquid for the icing. Since it was fairly late in the evening, I looked at what I had on hand and used apple cider for the icing. I figured that would taste great with these spiced cookies.

I hadn’t realized that hermits are very similar to biscotti, but you only bake them once. My two logs of dough did expand and almost come together, so about 12 minutes in I used a metal spatula to encourage them to stay apart. These cookies certainly make your house smell like fall, with the molasses and spices. They are quick to make, and I was able to work on other projects while they chilled. My cookies ended up quite large, so the only change I would make in the future is to shape the dough into three logs instead of two and use an additional baking sheet.

Hermit Bars
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon cloves
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup vegan butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
¼ cup molasses
1 egg
2/3 cup raisins

1 cup powdered sugar
5–6 teaspoons apple cider

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt. Set aside. In a large mixer bowl, combine the vegan butter and brown sugar and mix on medium until light. Add the molasses and egg and mix again on medium to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, stirring until almost incorporated. Stir in the raisins with a spatula.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking pan with a silicone baking mat.

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide into two pieces. Shape each piece into a log approximately 12 inches long and about 3/4 inch tall. Place side by side on the prepared baking sheet, leaving about 3 inches between the logs. Square off the logs slightly so that they are rectangular.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the logs start to brown along the edges. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the baking sheet for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, move the cookie logs to a wire rack. In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and apple cider until it is the correct drizzling consistency. Drizzle over the cookie logs while still warm, using a crosshatch pattern. Allow the drizzle to set before cutting into bars. I cut each log in half lengthwise, then cut into bars.

Recipe from New England Today: Food

Flourless Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

For the first time in about a year and a half, I have an in-person meeting at work. We are about to open, although with limited hours, and I am sure that there will be a lot of adjustments that need to be made. We always meet before we open, as things change from year to year. In order to bake for all my work friends, I went looking for dairy and gluten free recipes. While I was assured that I didn’t need to bother, I love trying to find just the right recipe.

I have vegan butter, so that makes it easy to substitute for dairy in recipes, and I have dairy free chocolate chips, but I do have to avoid recipes with condensed milk, cream cheese, and those sorts of ingredients. Avoiding gluten takes more thought, but I do have gluten free flour mixture. There are also cookies that simply don’t contain flour, like these cookies. These use oats, which I learned can be processed in plants that process gluten, so you should be careful.

With all of the right ingredients on hand, these were quick to put together. The dough is quite sticky, but that’s to be expected with no added flour. These cookies are on the oily side, but it’s just good to know that. Since I baked one batch at a time, I refrigerated one batch while the other was baking. I think that the refrigerated cookies turned out a little better, even though they were only in the refrigerator for 15 minutes. These cookies are soft, but that is expected in a flourless cookie. The flavor of peanut butter and chocolate is amazing, and the oats add a little bit of needed structure.

Flourless Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup peanut butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2/3 cup chocolate chips, dairy free
Salt, for finishing

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the peanut butter, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla on medium until smooth. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the oats and baking soda. Stir in the chocolate chips.    

Scoop onto the prepared baking sheet and slightly flatten the cookies with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 9-12 minutes, until the edges of the cookies begin to brown. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Sprinkle the cooling cookies with additional salt.

Recipe from Ambitious Kitchen

Coconut Orange Sugar Cookies

Like most of the world right now, I am at home. This poses some problems for a library, as many of the services we offer are face-to-face. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have lots and lots of electronic resources, so part of what we’re working on is making sure that folks can connect with the resources that we offer electronically. One idea was to find a cookbook in our e-resource collection and make a recipe. I love a challenge, so I went to find a recipe right away.

Pardon me for a minute, but I am going to go all librarian on you. I did some searching, and if you search for “cookbook” as a keyword, you find all sorts of non-cooking items. No, I don’t want a book on Java or HTML. How annoying! I switched up my search and searched for “cookbook” as a LC subject heading and I got much better results. I bake cookies, so that guided my search. I ended up finding a recipe in our book from the EBSCOhost Community College Collection: The Grit Cookbook: World-Wise, Down-Home Recipes.

I also needed to find a recipe that I had the ingredients on hand, and this recipe calls for simple ingredients. The only change I made was using orange juice (3 tablespoons) instead of orange juice concentrate (2 tablespoons) and milk (1 tablespoon). Who has orange juice concentrate on hand? In my case, the orange was perhaps slightly less pronounced, but you can still taste and smell orange. I used sanding sugar on the top since I had that, but you could also use traditional sugar. These cookies look a bit plain, but they are really flavorful!

Coconut Orange Sugar Cookies

1/2 cup vegan butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 tablespoons orange juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-1/2 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Sanding sugar

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and eggs on medium until light. Add the orange juice, and vanilla and mix on medium to combine. Stop the mixer and add the flour, baking soda, and salt and stir on low until almost combined. Add the coconut and stir on low until incorporated. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Spray the bottom of a drinking glass with nonstick cooking spray and dip in sanding sugar. Flatten the cookies with the bottom of the drinking glass, until about 1/3” thick.

Bake for 8-10 minutes, until slightly browned along the bottom edges. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from The Grit Cookbook: World-Wise, Down-Home Recipes by Jessica Greene and Ted Hafer

Apple Cinnamon Cookies

At work, I have folks who can and can’t eat different foods. One of my friends can’t have dairy, and she is terribly kind and says it’s ok that I don’t always bring dairy-free treats. I love to bake with butter, and it can be hard to substitute. For some cookies, it’s no problem, and there are great vegan butters out on the market now. I try to make dairy-free occasionally, and my husband also found dairy-free white chocolate and butterscotch chips, so I need to get baking! I also have a gluten-free friend at work, and I am going to start wrapping my head around that.

These cookies come from a vegan blog and made some very simple changes that worked for me. My friend can eat eggs, so I used regular eggs. I also used granulated sugar instead of coconut sugar. I shredded my apples and when writing up the recipe I noticed I could have used chopped apples. I think that’s why the cookies in the original blog photo had more chunks and bumps than mine. Mine look plain, but they are tasty.

These are not difficult to make, but I read the comments and thought that adding oats would be ok. Some of the comments noted that the dough was really soft, so oats would help. I also noticed that folks like to make substitutes, and that can greatly impact a baking recipe, since baking is science. My substitutes were nearly identical, so I figured I would be ok. It’s a good lesson to be very thoughtful when making substitutions when baking, because a lot can go wrong.

Apple Cinnamon Cookies

3/4 cup vegan butter, room temperature

1-1/2 cup sugar

1 egg + 1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla

3/4 cup shredded or chopped apple

1-3/4 cup flour

1 cup oats

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

Cinnamon Sugar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the vegan butter and sugar on medium until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, and apple and stir to combine. Add the flour, oats, salt, and baking powder and stir until combined. Shape the dough into 1-1/4” balls and roll the balls in cinnamon sugar. Place on the prepared baking sheet and flatten slightly.

Bake for about 12 minutes, until the cookies are barely browned along the edges. The cookies will be pale. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Vegan in the Freezer