Cinnamon Oatmeal Espresso Cookies

 

In looking through recipes to find something different, something that isn’t a bar cookie as I have made a lot of those recently, I certainly strayed far from my goal. I ended up picking these cookies, with browned butter, oatmeal, cinnamon, espresso, and brown sugar and I don’t think that I could have found a more fall-like cookie. Oh well, that’s really what I like anyway. I did find a recipe better suited to the summer season, but I couldn’t find all of the ingredients (yet).


I likely also chose these cookies as they look a lot like Mother’s Iced Oatmeal Cookies, which are a favorite. They have more flavors of browned butter and espresso and are a bit darker, but they do have a lot of similarities. I happened to have some dark brown sugar on hand, which I did use in these cookies. It made some difference, as the molasses flavor is stronger, but if you only have light brown sugar that would be just fine.

Browning the butter takes a couple of extra minutes, but I have new pans and it is much easier to monitor the butter than my old pans! I made the dough then refrigerated it, closer to 90 minutes, but any time in the refrigerator is what is needed. I also shaped the cookies all at once and refrigerated the dough balls unless they were in the oven baking, as my kitchen is fairly warm. These cookies are so tasty- all the flavors come together but no one flavor is overpowering, which was a concern I had. You taste the espresso, the brown sugar, the oats, and they all come together to make a lovely cookie.

Cinnamon Oatmeal Espresso Cookies
1 cup butter
1 ½ cups packed dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla 
2 cups flour
1 ¾ cups 
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoons espresso powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon reserved brown butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2-3 tablespoons milk

Brown the butter: cut the butter into  chunks and place in a small saucepan. Heat the butter on low, swirling the pan frequently. Once the butter has melted, continue swirling the pan, until the butter begins to turn amber and smells nutty. It can burn quickly, so make sure you watch carefully. Transfer the browned butter to a large mixer bowl and 1 tablespoon to a separate small bowl (for the icing). Allow the butter to cool for 10 minutes.

Once the butter has cooled, add the brown sugar to the mixer bowl. Mix in medium until the mixture looks like wet sand. Add the eggs and vanilla and stir again on medium to combine. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour oats, baking soda, espresso powder, cinnamon, and salt. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, stirring until the dough is cohesive. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes. 

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

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

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until set. Be careful not to overbake the cookies. Allow the cookie to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Once the cookies are cool, make the icing: in the bowl with the reserved browned butter, add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Add 1 tablespoon of milk and begin whisking, adding additional milk until the icing is the proper, runny consistency. Brush the icing on the cooled cookies and allow the icing to set for 10 minutes.

Recipe from Ambitious Kitchen

Charleston Chewies

While it is spring now and I feel like I should be making something with the flavors of spring, we sure have had a lot of rain lately. We get a day or two that is nice but then the rain returns! I have some clothes that are ready for warmer weather; I do hope that I eventually get a chance to wear them.

Instead of spring I stick with traditional flavors like brown sugar and nuts. I had two different recipes that I was looking at, and asked my husband which to make. His answer was to make the Charleston Chewies as he’s had them before and they are great. Well, ok then! I even had dark brown sugar on hand, which is unusual!

These cookies are different in that you make them in a saucepan. I didn’t use my mixer at all, which is so strange! Melting the brown sugar and butter took care of any hardness that my sugar had, just be careful and don’t splash it all over the counter. My hand got tired mixing everything together as it dough was heavy and thick. They baked up easily and they cut like a dream. They have a great pecan/brown sugar flavor. I wonder how these compare to the cookies my husband had before?

Charleston Chewies
1 cup butter
16 ounces dark brown sugar
3 eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
Powdered sugar

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick spray.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir until the butter and sugar melts together, 1-2 minutes. Remove the pan from the stove and allow the mixture to cool 5-10 minutes.

Once the mixture is slightly cooled, add the eggs, one at a time, whisking after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and stir to incorporate. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and chopped pecans and stir until the dough comes together. The dough will be very thick. Pour the dough into the prepared pan, smoothing the top evenly.  

Bake for 25-28 minutes, until the bars begin to brown along the edges. Remove from the oven and allow the bars to cool.

Dust the cookies with powdered sugar before cutting until squares.

Recipe from Pizzazzerie

Butter Rum Blondies

At work recently, there was the dilemma of extra butter. There was a pound of butter there, and I think it may have been opened, but maybe only a tablespoon had been used. I kept meaning to ask about it, and it was not getting any newer sitting in the refrigerator, so I asked around. While we aren’t 100% sure about the origin of the butter, I said I would be happy to take it and transform it into cookies. I am sure you aren’t surprised that was an acceptable idea!

The butter was salted butter, which is different than I typically use, but it isn’t too hard to adjust for salt in a recipe or two. For this recipe, using salted butter, I simply left out the additional ½ teaspoon of salt. I am not normally someone who leaves out salt, as that adds a lot of flavor, but there was salt in the butter, the toffee chips, and so on. I figured I would be fine.

These bars are quick and easy to come together. I wanted to make sure that these contained no chocolate, and usually the store carries two types of toffee bits: with and without chocolate coating. I had ones with chocolate so I picked up some chocolate-free ones to have on hand. I was worried that these would look a little plain, but they were beautiful when they came out of the oven and cut so easily!

Butter Rum Blondies
¾ cup butter, melted
½ cup sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
½-1 teaspoon rum extract
1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup toffee bits
Additional toffee bits, if desired

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

In a large mixer bowl, mix the melted butter, sugar, and brown sugar until combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and rum extract. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Fold in the toffee bits.

Spread the dough into the prepared pan. If desired, top with additional toffee bits.

Bake for 23-26 minutes, until golden. Allow the cookies to cool completely before cutting into squares.

Recipe from The Country Cook

Brown Sugar Toffee Bars

I had built up a fair number of recipes to post but I was getting to the point where I needed to start baking some treats! It starts to get hard this time of year when there are many commitments, weekend trips away, and that sort of thing, so I rely on having some recipes ready to go. I have a lot of recipes planned, but then figure I will change this thing or that, which makes deciding what to bake a bit more challenging.

These bars don’t call for much that is different, but does require rice flour. I didn’t have that on hand, and I was surprised at how difficult that was to find at some grocery stores! There are different types of rice flour, and they do vary so that was more complex. Since I needed such a small quantity, I ended up going to the local organic/community market and they had rice flour in their bulk section, which was exactly what I needed. The rice flour gives the shortbread base that classic sandy texture.

When you bake these bars, the shortbread is thin, but I didn’t have any trouble covering the base of the pan. I have had much more difficulty with other recipes! I do think I baked the shortbread base a bit too long, and likely should have taken it out of the oven after 25 minutes. As a result, my bars are quite crunchy. They taste wonderful, but they do have that crunch!

Brown Sugar Toffee Bars
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ tsp almond extract
1½ cups flour
½ cup rice flour
¼ tsp salt
12 ounces chocolate chips
4 ounces sliced almonds, finely chopped

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

Beat the butter on medium in the bowl of a mixer for 2 minutes. Add the brown sugar and beat on medium until light. Add the almond extract and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, rice flour, and salt. Press the dough in a thin layer into the prepared pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until firm along the edges. (Keep the oven on.)

Once you have removed the shortbread from the oven, immediately sprinkle the chocolate chips in an even layer over the bars. Return the bars to the oven for 3 minutes.

Remove the bars from the oven and spread the chocolate into a smooth layer. Sprinkle the bars with chopped almonds.

Allow the bars to completely cool before cutting into bars. It helps to refrigerate the bars right before cutting.

Recipe from Sweet Recipeas

Penuche Fudge

I had planned to make six different varieties of fudge this year, but as I made recipes, and talked to people, I kept adding ideas of recipes that I wanted to make. One that was particularly interesting was brown sugar or penuche fudge. It seemed a lot different that other recipes I made, and the recipes seemed really interesting. I decided I would try this recipe for penuche, a new experience for me!

There are many different recipes online, but I chose this one from Taste of Home. While Taste of Home recipes aren’t terrible extravagant, they do usually work well, and that was what I needed. This fudge is made on the stove with a candy thermometer, but I have done that before, so I wasn’t worried. Once the mixture reaches the temperature, you take it off the heat, add a few ingredients, and let it cool to 110 degrees. This does take some time but leaves it so you can do other things.

I beat the mixture for what seemed like a long time, but I wasn’t sure how thick the fudge should get. It didn’t lose its sheen, after a long time, so I put it in the mixer on low for a bit. I’m not sure if this helped or not, but it seemed to set once I refrigerated the fudge. The fudge is a little soft, but the flavor is great. The brown sugar flavor is very pronounced and the fudge is sweet, but the flavor is fantastic.

Penuche Fudge
2 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup butter, diced
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans

Line a 9” pan with aluminum foil and spray the foil with nonstick spray.

In a large saucepan, combine the brown sugar, sugar, milk, corn syrup, and salt. Over medium heat, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reaches 234 degrees. Remove from the heat and top with the butter and vanilla. Do not stir.

Allow the mixture to cool, without stirring, until the temperature reaches 110 degrees. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it starts to thicken. Add the pecans and continue beating until the mixture is very thick and starts to lose its sheen. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and refrigerate until set.

Once set, lift the foil from the pan and cut into small squares.

Recipe from Jhana Seidler via Taste of Home

Brown Sugar Biscoff Bars

It’s almost time for holiday baking, but there are still a couple of weeks before I fully change to making festive treats. I will be doings things a it differently this year, but I will say more about that later. There is still this and next Friday where I will post non-holiday cookies. I will be honest though, I look at a lot of cookies that are called holiday cookies and I don’t think they seem festive. I guess if you only bake once per year, then anything you bake is festive?

These are quick and simple bars, but the flavors make up for their simplicity! I like using Biscoff or Cookie Butter Spread in cookies, and I have made a couple of different recipes. This recipe felt like something I had made before, but I hadn’t, so I was excited to try these. The biggest delay in making these cookies is waiting for the crust to cool a bit before adding the topping, but I guess I can wait 30 minutes.

These bars have a very simple base, which is par-baked and then topped with filling. I didn’t stress about getting the base super smooth and even, since no one will see that in the end. The filling is primarily egg and brown sugar, with a small amount of Biscoff for flavor. When I cut these, they were just about the stickiest thing ever, and the filling reminds me of a pecan pie. Yum! They do become less sticky over time, but these bars honestly didn’t last very long since they are so tasty!

Brown Sugar Biscoff Bars
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

3 eggs
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
1/2 cup Biscoff/cookie butter spread
1/2 cup flour

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

In a large bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt on medium until combined. Press into the base of the prepared pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Allow the base to cool for 30 minutes.

Once the base has cooled, using the same mixing bowl, beat the eggs, brown sugar, Biscoff spread, and flour on medium until smooth. Pour the mixture over the cookie base.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the middle is set. Allow to cool before removing from the pan and cutting into squares.

Recipe from Handle the Heat

Coffee Cake Cookies

I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, but it’s been so busy at work and of course everything else is busy too. It is nice to be baking, as it does bring some normality. Fall is my favorite season and so many of the flavors of fall are my favorites. I pinned this recipe a while ago but knew it would be perfect for fall. It’s October, and the leaves are changing, so it is time!

I was interested in turning the flavors of a coffee cake into a cookie. I only have experience with one other cookie that you roll in streusel; they are great, but they are super messy to make. I was hopeful that these would be less messy, and they are to a degree. My dough was fairly wet, so I didn’t need to use whipped egg white to adhere the streusel to the cookies, but there are many factors that could change the nature of your dough. Using the egg whites would add another element of messy, but what can you do?

This recipe makes about three dozen cookies that are a good size. The original recipe said that you’d make 18 cookies, so they must have been very large! This recipe makes way too much streusel, which is my experience when you cover cookies with streusel. It’s best to have too much, then you don’t have to worry about running out. I wish I would have made the icing thicker, but it still worked. These cookies smell so much like snickerdoodles, which are my favorite. These do taste a lot like coffee cake, with that wonderful, sweet streusel!

Coffee Cake Cookies
2 3/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg + 1 yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla

4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
Egg whites, whipped (if needed)

1 cup powdered sugar
About 2 tablespoons milk

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

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, and baking soda; set aside. Melt the butter in the microwave, in 30 second increments. Transfer the melted butter to a large mixer bowl. Add the sugar, brown sugar, egg and egg yolk, and vanilla. Stir on medium until smooth. With the mixer running low, gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until the dough comes together.     

Make the streusel: melt the butter and then transfer to a medium bowl. Add the flour, sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Mix the ingredients until the streusel comes together into irregular clumps.

Scoop the dough into balls, each about 1-1/2 tablespoons. If the dough is dry, dip the dough into whipped egg whites and then coat the balls with streusel. Place on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 16-18 minutes, rotating the baking sheet halfway through the baking time. The cookies will be set and beginning to crack when they are baked. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool.

Once the cookies are cool, make the icing: in a small bowl whisk the powdered sugar and milk together to form a smooth icing. Add additional powdered sugar or milk if required. Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from The kitchn

Pecan Crinkle Cookies

I’ve recently added some responsibilities at work, and it has certainly been a big change. I hope that over time I’ll get more used to these roles, but my calendar and timing have altered significantly. I will make dough, refrigerate it, and then plan to bake it later. But sometimes later doesn’t happen, or I will end up baking the cookies a day or two later. It’s just going to be that way for a while.

These cookies called for walnuts, but I use pecans in baking, always. I think they taste better, and we get pecans from a nice farm in Georgia. We usually run out about the time a new crop is available, which is perfect. You could use any sort of nut that you would like in this cookie, and it would add its own unique flavor. I have some cinnamon sugar hazelnuts that I think would be great!

You start with toasting the pecans, and this is a step that you don’t want to skip. Toasting the pecans will make your kitchen smell wonderful but watch carefully so they don’t burn. The dough is very easy to make, and then needs to be chilled for a few hours. I made mine at lunchtime and figured I would get back to it and I didn’t until a day later. Oh well. These cookies do crack while baking, and the main difference is that they are slightly thinner if you flatten the dough before baking. These are very tasty cookies with the flavors of pecans and brown sugar, hard to go wrong with that!

Pecan Crinkle Cookies
1 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted
½ cup butter
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2-1/2 cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

Once the pecans are chopped, toast them in the microwave, stirring frequently. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until light. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt, mixing until combined. Fold in the chopped, toasted pecans.

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

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

Remove the dough from the refrigerator and shape into tablespoon-sized balls and place on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until cookies are set and have cracked. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Sarah Cool, via 12 Tomatoes

Cracked Brown Sugar Cookies

I came across this recipe and thought it looked so good. The post with the recipe talked about how tasty the cookies are and how they get devoured in her house. That’s hard to pass up, so I wanted to make these fairly soon. I was a little puzzled that the original recipe said that it made five dozen cookies, with only two cups of flour, but I make cookies the size I want, and it makes what it makes! In the end, this recipe made a little over three dozen cookies.

This recipe very specifically calls for dark brown sugar. I see that in recipes all the time, and I usually only have light brown sugar on hand. As the brown sugar was the main flavoring of these cookies, I wanted to use what the recipe called for. I could have bought dark brown sugar, but I looked online and found information that said I could use light brown sugar and some additional molasses to equate to dark brown sugar. That worked for me! (I used half a tablespoon of molasses for ½ cup of light brown sugar.)

This recipe has you make and shape the cookies, but then chill them in the refrigerator. I imagine that you could skip this step, but I think the cookies baked up better since they were cold. These cookies are extremely thin, but that makes them so crunchy. And buttery, and just wonderful. These are so good, and my kitchen has that faint molasses smell that makes me think of the holidays. These cookies are hard to beat, and I can’t wait to make them again!

Cracked Brown Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Additional sugar

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar, and dark brown sugar until light. Add the egg and vanilla and stir to incorporate. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cream of tartar. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, mixing until the dough comes together.

Shape the dough by tablespoons and roll in additional sugar. Place the prepared cookies on a plate and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

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

Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until the cookies are crackly. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Foodie Chicks Rule

Hot Buttered Rum Cookies

Hot Buttered Rum is a favorite at the holidays. It can very a lot, so when you find a version you like it is a good idea to stick with it. One restaurant near us made a great version, but then one year my husband and I noticed that it was no longer on the menu. Figuring that perhaps they had not added specialty drinks yet, we asked. The server and they checked, but they came back and said that it contained an ingredient with trans-fat, and would no longer serve it. While I guess I am happy that they take this approach, there is nothing healthy about Hot Buttered Rum.

When I found this recipe for Hot Buttered Rum cookies, I figured they would be great. The original recipe called for one roll of refrigerated cookie dough. I think sugar cookie dough is so easy to make that I simply make my own, and that is reflected here. The scratch recipe makes more than the needed 16 ounces, so I did not use all of the dough I made. I did refrigerate my sugar cookie dough as I figured that the recipe expected that the dough would be cold and firm, so I figured an hour in the refrigerator would help.

I will say that mixing extra ingredients into sugar cookie dough was challenging! It certainly was quite the workout for my mixer, but it did well in the end. Rolling cookies in brown sugar is different, but you want to make sure to remove any extra brown sugar on the baking sheet, as that will burn. I used rum extract instead of rum in these cookies, but I think rum would have been better. I think the extract has a slight medicinal flavor, but it is subtle. The cookies are flavorful and the brown sugar coating provides a different texture for these cookies.

Hot Buttered Rum Cookies
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon Cream of Tartar
1 cup crushed gingersnap cookies
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoons cinnamon
Zest of one orange
Additional brown sugar

1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon rum or rum extract

Make the sugar cookie dough: in a large mixer bowl, combine the powdered sugar, butter, egg, and vanilla on medium, beating until combined. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and Cream of Tartar, mixing until a dough forms. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for one hour.

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

Break up the chilled cookie dough into a large mixer bowl. Add the gingersnap crumbs, ginger, cinnamon, and orange zest to the bowl and mix until the ingredients are incorporated.

Shape the dough into balls and roll in the brown sugar, evenly coating the dough and making sure there is no excess brown sugar on the baking sheets.

Bake for 12-14 minutes, until golden. Allow to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
    
Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze: in a medium bowl whisk together the powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons milk and rum/rum extract. Whisk until smooth, adding additional milk if the glaze is too thick. Drizzle the glaze over the cookies and allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Pillsbury. Sugar Cookie recipe from The Betty Crocker Cookbook.

Pecan Praline Cookies

When I think of fall baking, pecans are one of the quintessential items. I know that we are nowhere near fall, but I gravitate to that sort of baking all the time, and I have to challenge myself to pick items that better represent the spring and summer. Of course, it will likely get to the point sometime this summer that it will be too hot to turn on the oven. I hate that, mainly because I don’t like the heat too much. Thankfully it has been sunny, but we aren’t there yet.

We like to get pecans from Pearson Farms in Georgia. They specialize in peaches and pecans. We’ve never ordered peaches from them, but annually buy their pecans. We buy Elliot pecans, which are very petite. They are great for baking as you can leave them whole, or they are very easy to chop. Recently my husband purchased some of their other items: pecan pralines and maple pecan crumbles. Those two ingredients would lend themselves perfectly to recipes.

Most pecan praline cookies try to mimic the flavor of pralines, but I found this recipe that I felt would work with the pralines I had. If you don’t have pralines, they would be just as good with natural pecans! They are a little fussy to place the pecans on top of each cookie, but just know it will be a little messy. The icing is great, and not quite as tricky as making caramel. It does cool very quickly, so you can’t take any extra time once your icing is ready. These are a lovely, sweet cookie, and my house smelled deliciously like fall while I was making them!

Pecan Praline Cookies
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup coarsely chopped pralines (or pecans)

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup powdered sugar

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

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar on medium until well combined. Add the egg and vanilla and beat on medium until incorporated. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir until the dough comes together.

Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets, using about 1 tablespoon of dough for each cookie. Flatten each cookie slightly with the palm of your hand. Place a small amount of chopped pralines on top of each cookie, pressing the nuts into the dough.

Bake for 9-12 minutes, until set. The cookies will be fairly large and will flatten as they cool. Allow the cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Make the icing: in a medium saucepan, combine the brown sugar and heavy whipping cream. Heat on medium-high, stirring constantly, until the mixture boils. Continue stirring a boil the icing for two minutes. Remove from the heat.

Off of the heat, add the powdered sugar to the icing and whisk to combine. Once the icing comes together, immediately drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from The Melrose Family

Brown Sugar Hazelnut Bars

It’s no surprise to folks who follow my blog, but I love chocolate and hazelnut together. In going through older recipes of which I had taken photos, I came across this recipe. Many of the recipes are from Christmas issues of magazines, but they don’t necessarily seem all that Christmassy to me. I think at times when you take things out of the context of the holidays, then cookies just seem like regular cookies. I knew I would have a winner with chocolate and hazelnuts!

This recipe uses a very small amount of ingredients for a 9” x 13” pan. I halved this recipe, and it was even less! I baked the half recipe in an 8” square pan, which has slightly more area, but it’s as close as I could get. There is enough dough to cover the pan in a thin layer, and it really it quite thin. I knew it would bake quickly so I adjusted the baking time to 15 minutes, and then added another 2 minutes for a nice golden brown. If you do make a full recipe, you’ll need to watch the baking time.

Since the bars are so thin, you don’t have to wait very long for the bars to cool and proceed to the topping. None the less, I made these bars in stages, which made very quick work of them. I think the dough was ready before the oven got to temperature, and then I topped them with Nutella and chopped hazelnuts right when I finished eating lunch. It may seem like these bars are simple, but they are so tasty. Again, you can’t go wrong with chocolate and hazelnuts!

Brown Sugar Hazelnut Bars
¾ cup butter, room temperature
½ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
½ cup Nutella
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and chopped

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and salt on medium until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, stirring until the dough just comes together. With floured hands, press the dough into the prepared pan in an even layer.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.

Once the bars are cool, spread with the Nutella and top with the chopped hazelnuts. Remove from the pan and cut into bars.

Recipe from Good Housekeeping

Jammie Dodger Blondies

 

If you are an American, it is probably unlikely that you know what Jammie Dodgers are. They are a classis British sandwich cookie, filled with raspberry jam. There are variations, of course, filled with all sorts of different jam fillings, but raspberry is most common. You can’t go wrong with a cookie filled with raspberry jam, and I had no doubt I would be able to find them at the British store.

But the British store was out of them! My husband suggested that I use cookies filled with raspberry and custard cream, as they are quite similar. These were regular sized cookies, so I did a quick calculation to see that I needed about 125 grams. I used a little more than that, but this isn’t so precise. It does seem to make a lot of dough for the pan, but my pan is slightly smaller, so perhaps that is the issue. Mine is close but shallow, which likely didn’t help.

This is a simple blondie recipe (and I also have a variation with custard creams!) and it’s almost a cross between a cake and a blondie. Other than needed to measure to get the correct quantity of cookies, they are simple to make. Browning butter can be tricky, as it can burn so fast, but I didn’t brown mine all that much and they are still good. The sugars can almost be anything, as it calls for brown sugar and brown muscovado sugar. I had some muscovado sugar, but I found it later. I used light and dark brown sugar and it was fine. Muscovado sugar is more granular, and you could also use regular (caster) sugar. This recipe wasn’t picky, but the bars are still fabulous!

Jammie Dodger Blondies 

200 grams butter 

250 grams light brown sugar  

100 grams dark brown sugar 

200 grams white chocolate, chopped and divided 

 24 mini Jammie Dodgers, or 125 grams similar cookies, divided 

 3 eggs 

1 teaspoon vanilla 

275 grams flour 

¼ teaspoon salt

In a small saucepan, heat the butter on low until melted and begins to smell nutty. Add the light and dark brown sugar and half of the white chocolate and stir over the heat until everything is melted. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.

Separate the Jammie Dodgers in halves. Chop half of the Jammie Dodgers and leave the remaining cookies whole. Set aside.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a 20 x 30-centimeter (or similar) pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Transfer the butter/sugar mixture to a large mixing bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, while beating the mixture on medium. Stir in the vanilla. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour and salt.

Fold in the remaining chopped white chocolate and the chopped Jammie Dodgers. Spread the mixture into the prepared pan and top with the remaining Jammie Dodgers.

Bake for 25-20 minutes, until the bars pull away from the edge of the pan and a thin knife inserted in the bars comes out almost clean. Cool before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Olive Magazine

Crispy Pecan Thins

I have been baking for a long time, but there are some recipes that I made before I had this blog and before I had some of the equipment that I have now. It’s interesting, as I am sometimes reluctant to try those things again. I especially had issue with sticky and delicate cookies, as I didn’t have proper silicone baking mats. I’ve never used parchment, except in rare instances, so that wasn’t really an option. It’s interesting as my British husband uses parchment all of the time.

One of the recipes that I think I made a long time ago was brandy snaps or a similar sort of cookie. You use a tiny bit of dough and you get paper-thin cookies. These aren’t really brandy snaps, as they contain no brandy. I think they are only brandy snaps if you roll the cookies and then fill them with brandy whipped cream.

This is a variation, where you make the cookies and add finely chopped nuts. I used pecans as I had those on hand, while the original recipe called for peanuts. You could use whatever nut you have on hand. I thought that pecans and cinnamon went together well, but you can always adjust the spice you used I faithfully used one teaspoon of dough and it made perfectly round cookies. I rolled a couple of cookies around the handle of a wooden spoon, and that worked but you have to leave them to cool a bit while around the spoon handle. These cookies turned out well, especially with the silicone mats. My only complaint is that these cookies are very oily. I could try with less butter, which seems like would help.

Crispy Pecan Thins  

½ cup butter, cut into squares

I cup packed brown sugar

1/3 cup Golden Syrup

¼ cup finely chopped pecans

1 cup flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

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

In a medium saucepan, place the butter, brown sugar, and Golden Syrup. Heat on medium until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

While the mixture is cooling, finely chop the pecans. Once the mixture is slightly cooled, stir in the chopped pecans, flour, and cinnamon.

Drop teaspoonfuls of dough onto the prepared baking sheet, 6 cookies per sheet, leaving room for the cookies to spread.

Bake for 5-6 minutes, until bubbling, and no uncooked dough remains in the centers of the cookies.

Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes and then carefully remove with a small metal spatula to a wire rack. If desired, wrap some cookies around the handle of a wooden spoon, making round cookies. Allow the cookies to cool completely.

Recipe from Sprinkles and Sprouts