Chocolate Ginger Marble Cookies

I’ve already planned out my baking for post-Thanksgiving and December, but there is a little time left for posting before the busy season begins. When I had looked at my mom’s Better Homes & Gardens magazine, I found several recipes that I wanted to try. One I made at the end of October, and this ginger/chocolate cookie was the other one that I couldn’t wait to make. I was intrigued by the swirly-ness of the cookies.

This recipe is a little more time-consuming than some of the other recipes I make. You make a dough, then divide it into two halves. One half is the chocolate half, and the other is the spiced half. I was happy that the candied ginger was a part of the base cookie recipe! I used a little less chocolate than was specified, since I decided to grate the chocolate bar and that was very tiring! Grating the chocolate distributes it within the dough better, so I knew that the flavor wouldn’t be impacted that much.

The original recipe had you shape each half of the dough into rectangles, then cutting each into 30 pieces. I simply weighed the dough and figured out how much each piece should weigh. Yes, this takes some time, but it worked better for me. You then pair up a piece of each type of dough, smoosh it together, pinch it into two, turn and stick it back together, then roll them into a ball. It sounds like a lot, but it was fun to shape the cookies and then see how they looked after baking. These turned out great! They have a good ginger flavor, but I would add even more ginger next time.

Chocolate Ginger Marble Cookies
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup finely chopped candied ginger
2 teaspoons ground ginger
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
Sugar

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

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir in the candied ginger. In a separate bowl, combine the ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. 

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until light. Add the egg and vanilla; mix again to combine. With the mixer running on low, add the flour mixture and stir until combined.

Divide the dough in halves. Add the spice mixture to one half of the dough. Mix the cocoa powder and chocolate to the other half of the dough. Weigh each piece of dough and divide each into 30 even pieces or shape each piece of dough into a rectangle approximately 5” x 6” rectangle and cut into 30 pieces.

Combine one piece of spiced dough and one piece of chocolate dough together and pinch and roll the dough to make a marble effect. Roll the dough in sugar and place on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the cookies with the bottom of a glass coated in sugar, until the cookies are about 1-3/4” across.

Bake for 10-13 minutes, until the cookie begins to brown on the bottom. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Better Homes & Gardens, October 2025

Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies

I, like so many folks out there, have a lot of candy in the house. I do try and find recipes that use candy of different forms, but there are only so many recipes. I see a lot of brownie recipes that call for chopped candy, and they do tend to work best as the caramel in candy bars can spread during the baking process. Still, I wanted to make cookies, so I chose these peanut butter cookies with Snickers.

The original recipe said that you can chop up Snickers bars or use Snickers baking bites- but since I am trying to use up candy that’s in the house, I chopped up the Snickers that I had. To try and minimize the risk of caramel spilling out, I refrigerated the bars before chopping them into pieces. I was hopeful that this would help!

I think that cutting the candy bars straight from the refrigerator was a good idea. I made half a recipe (of the ingredients listed here) and made about three dozen cookies. One batch I shaped the cookies and then refrigerated them for a little over 10 minutes. That worked well, but it wasn’t significantly different than the batches that weren’t chilled at all. A couple of areas of messy caramel, but not bad at all. These smelled wonderful while baking, and the combination of Snickers, in a peanut butter cookie, with crunchy peanuts was excellent!

Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies
1-1/2 cups peanut butter
1 cup butter, room temperature 
1 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla 
1-3/4 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt 
2 cups chopped Snickers Bars 
1/2 cup peanut butter chips
1/2 cup peanuts

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

In a large mixer bowl, beat on medium the peanut butter, butter, sugar, and brown sugar until creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix again to incorporate. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold in the chopped Snickers, peanut butter chips, and peanuts with a spatula.

Shape the dough into 1 tablespoon balls and place on the prepared baking sheets.

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

Recipe from Love from the Oven

Cranberry Apple Butter Oat Cookies

I have a list of recipes that I plan to bake before my big holiday baking starts. I have a lot of Halloween candy in the house, but when it came time to bake, I just didn’t feel like chopping up candy for the cookies. Some days I am just tired! Hopefully I will get to those soon, as I certainly don’t need to eat all of that candy. I looked through the recipes that I have saved and came across this oat cookie.

I thought that I had some cranberry apple butter on hand, that my husband and I had recently picked up at a local festival. I did have that and I thought that would add an interesting twist to this recipe. You can use apple butter, but this is apple butter with a little extra flavor. Anything with apple butter is going to be a bit soft and sticky, and that was true for these cookies.

The original recipe said that it would make 3 dozen cookies, and I questioned that since it used 5 cups of flour/oats. I ended up making a little over 4 dozen cookies, and I don’t think that I would have wanted them to be any larger. They are sticky, so flattening them worked best with a slightly damp palm of my hand. They don’t look remarkably different once you bake them, but they are set. I baked mine closer to 13 minutes, and they remained soft. These have a great oat flavor, and I like the subtle addition of cranberry to these cookies.

Cranberry Apple Butter Oat Cookies
2 cups flour
3 cups oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup cranberry apple butter
2 teaspoons vanilla

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

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter, sugar, and brown sugar. Mix on medium until the mixture looks like damp sand. Add the eggs, cranberry apple butter, and vanilla and mix again on medium until smooth.

With the mixer running on low, add 1/3 of the flour/oat mixture, mixing until nearly combined. Add another 1/3 of the flour/oats and mix, then add the remaining flour/oat mixture and stir until the dough comes together. The dough will be soft.

Scoop the dough into the baking sheet using a 1 tablespoon scoop, making dough balls about 1-1/4” in diameter. Flatten the cookies slightly. 

Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the cookies are soft but set. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Sweet, Savory & Sassy

Nutella Pumpkin Spice Bars

I find most of the recipes I use online, and that is always the first place that I look when I am finding a recipe to use up an ingredient. My husband and I often visit my Mom to help her with things around the house. Recently when we were there, I came across a Better Homes & Gardens magazine that had a fantastic muffin pictured on the cover. There were other great recipes in the magazine, and my mom said she had read it already, so I brought it home.

I can’t think of the last time I found a recipe in a magazine, but this recipe was one that I knew would be good. While pumpkin isn’t my favorite ingredient, I tried to make at least one pumpkin recipe per year. These, with Nutella, sounded fantastic. The recipe was pretty easy to assemble, although swirling chocolate/Nutella into batter can be a challenge. This time it went fairly well, as you heat up the Nutella in advance to make it more supple.

The batter for these bars is nice and smooth. Canned pumpkin is difficult to measure, so I measured it by weight. That’s a good tip for anything difficult to measure or is super sticky (peanut butter, etc.). Pour the batter in the pan, swirl with Nutella, then bake. I wasn’t sure how long to bake the bars; I opted for the longer time. Still, these bars are soft and cake-like, which is what I expect for most recipes with pumpkin. I do like the spice flavor of these, and combined with Nutella, make a very tasty bar cookie!

Nutella Pumpkin Spice Bars
1-1/3 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup canned pumpkin
½ cup vegetable oil
½ cup sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup Nutella

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with aluminum foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat together the pumpkin, vegetable oil, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Beat on medium until smooth. With the mixer running on low, gradually add flour mixture, until the mixture is not lumpy.

Spoon the batter into the prepared baking pan, smoothing the top. Place the Nutella in a bowl and microwave for 30-60 seconds to soften. Drizzle the Nutella over the batter and then using a thin knife, swirl the Nutella into the pumpkin batter. 

Bake for 18-20 minutes, until a thin knife inserted into the batter comes out clean. Cool for at least an hour before removing from the pan and cutting into bars.

Recipe from Better Homes & Gardens, October 2025

Oatmeal Date Smash Cookies

I am a big fan of King Arthur Baking, and have even taken a couple of classes from them at their location in Skagit Valley. They came up with a list of fall bakes and I noted down quite a few of those recipes! One was this oatmeal date cookie, and I hadn’t baked with dates in a while. I wasn’t familiar with “smash” cookies, but you partially bake them and then smash them down with a spatula and then finish baking.

While I didn’t change the ingredients in these cookies, I did change the size of the cookies. The original recipe called for making the cookies 80 grams, and the entire recipe only made 8 cookies. Those would be really huge cookies! I knew I wanted to make more regular sized cookies, so I made the cookies 25 grams, which yielded 28 cookies. 

Changing the size also impacted the baking time, which initially was to bake for 15 minutes, then smash the cookies, then return them to a turned-off oven for 5 minutes. Well that works for 8 cookies, but not in my case. I kept the oven on the entire time, baked for 8-9 minutes, smashed them, then baked for a couple more minutes, which made for lovely golden cookies. The combination of oats and dates is perfect for this time of year, when the weather starts to turn (and all you want to do is stay home and bake).

Oatmeal Date Smash Cookies
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
3/4 cup coarsely chopped dates

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Add the egg and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, add the flour mixture and stir until the flour almost disappears. Stir in the dates, making sure the dough comes together.  

Shape the cookies: divide the dough into balls, each weighing about 25 grams. Place on a parchment-lined tray. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate at least several hours.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats. 

Place the chilled dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, leaving room between each cookie. I found that placing 10 cookies on each sheet allowed for plenty of room. 

Bake for 9 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and smash/flatten the cookies with a spatula. Return the cookies to the oven and bake for an additional 2-3 minutes, until golden. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from King Arthur Baking

Cinnamon Chai Blondies

They are doing a lot of road construction around our area, and I have gotten to the point that I almost don’t want to go anywhere. First, they closed the road to the left of our place. That’s back open but now they have closed the road to the right. That is more inconvenient in some ways, as now I have to take a different route to work. And there are many more stoplights to contend with. I’m just hopeful that all of these closures will make the area better in the end.

I’m in the house and when I am home, I want to bake. For this recipe, I wanted something homey, but I also knew that I wouldn’t be taking them elsewhere. I looked for a small batch recipe, and this recipe was perfect. The blondies are a simple brown sugar blondie, then you top it with a mix of chai-inspired spices. The original recipe called for ¼ teaspoon of cardamom, which isn’t my favorite, so I simply added some additional ginger.

These baked up well but sank a little as they cooled. Sometimes that means that they needed to bake more, but I would be hesitant to do that with these blondies, which seemed perfectly baked. You want these to have a soft texture, so baking more would likely dry them out. Some bakers noted that they were unable to find cinnamon chips, which can be a challenge. I tend to order them online, where they are consistently available, as I love cinnamon chips and I’m happy to use them whenever I can!

Cinnamon Chai Blondies
½ cup butter, room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
1¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup cinnamon chips

2 tablespoons sugar
1½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon ginger
⅛ teaspoon nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon cloves

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line an 8” square baking pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar on medium, until the mixture is light. Add the egg and vanilla and mix again on medium to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until the dough just comes together. Fold in the cinnamon chips with a spatula. 

Spread the dough in the prepared pan. Make the chai topping: in a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Sprinkle the chai topping over the unbaked blondies.

Bake for 20 minutes, until the bars begin to brown along the edges. Allow the blondies to cool before removing them from the pan and cutting into bars.

Recipe from The Salted Sweets

Butterscotch Spice Crinkles

It seems like the weather has gotten cooler and now all I want to do is bake fall things! Anything that is ginger or spiced is what I want to make. While I honestly do use these warming spices throughout the year, it’s even more acute during the fall. I have recently been to local fairs and have some interesting ingredients that I now need to find the right recipe. I do love this time of year!

Butterscotch is a flavor that used to be very popular, but I don’t think that it is as common as it once was. Most of the time, I see butterscotch used in combination with other ingredients, such as it’s use the Harry Potter classic Butter Beer. I have used butterscotch before, in shortbread and in combination with oats. This combines butterscotch with spices, perfect for fall.

I like this recipe a lot since it comes together so quickly; you don’t need to refrigerate the dough or any nuance like that. I had picked up butterscotch chips previously, and that is the only uncommon ingredient. I had these baked up right after I got home from work, I felt so efficient! These cookies are on the sweet side, but after the first bite the sweetness and the spices meld together to make a lovely fall cookie. 

Butterscotch Spice Crinkles
1 cup butter, room temperature

1/2 cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
11 ounces butterscotch chips
Powdered sugar

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

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and brown sugar on medium until light. Stir in the egg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until the flour almost disappears. Add the butterscotch chips and mix until the dough comes together.

Shape the dough into 1-1/4” balls and roll the dough balls in powdered sugar. Place on the prepared baking sheets. Flatten the cookies slightly with the palm of your hand. 

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

Recipe from Let’s Dish