One Dirty Little Secret Cookie…

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childhood cookies, childhood memories, jimmies, rainbow sprinkles, sprinkles, sugar cookie, the best cookie ever

These have been my go-to cookie through the holiday season!

Sugar cookies are a childhood favorite for most and the best part about them is that they are essentially a blank canvas, uninhibited by colors or other flavors, it is an incredibly basic cookie so it has to be a good one! But on the flip side of that coin, if there is just one other ingredient you want to highlight, it is best paired with this simple sugar cookie recipe!

A good cookie has that caramelized, crunchy outer ring, that chewy, soft interior, and beautifully golden sheen on top. Anything inside it or on top of it is a bonus.

Simply stated, that is.

I have a rather large stash of rainbow jimmies that we have been sprinkling on top lately, or just rolling them in sugar – they make for a great treat with my morning cup of tea!

These have simply been the little things we have been baking on the fly around here and trust me when I say, no one can just eat three….

Ingredients:

• 2/3 C shortening (can be substituted with butter if you like) 
• 2/3 C butter, at room temperature (either salted or unsalted)
• 1-1/2 C sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter)
• 3-1/2 C all-purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350F / 180C and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the butter, shortening and sugar together until light, fluffy and pale – about five minutes.

Combine the eggs, one at a time into the butter mixture and then the vanilla extract, until well mixed.

In another bowl, quickly whisk together the baking powder, salt and flour then on low speed, mix together the wet and dry ingredients until the dough comes together.

Roll into walnut sized balls, placing them about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Lightly press them flat with your fingers or the buttered bottom of a glass. At this point, sprinkle on any jimmies or candies or any other decorations you like.

Bake for about 8-12 minutes until the edges become golden. Cool on the baking sheets for about 2-3 minutes before cooling on a rack.

Chocolate Snowflake Cookies!

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chocolate cookies, chocolate crinkle cookies, chocolate lava cookies, crinkle cookies

This is certainly a bit late being posted, but I had to share this one!

(These have also been known as Chocolate Crinkle or Chocolate Lava Cookies but I feel like these look more like snowflakes – at least the pattern in the powdered sugar makes in them…. each one is different and lovely in it’s own way!)

I love when my friends and family ask me to bake them treats – I take advantage of the opportunity to bake something that I haven’t made in a long time or something new that I have been looking for the perfect occasion to bake “it” for and this was just such a day!

The only request was that it was “something chocolate.”

No problem!

I had these on my list to bake and give out for Christmas treats for awhile and my friend needed something to take to a work party on the Friday before Christmas and I wanted to make sure I had something special baked up to leave out for our Abel & Cole driver who would be delivering our Christmas box the next day early in the blistery, windy, frosty morning.

There have been gluten-free versions of this going viral on Facebook and Pinterest and while they are great for the gluten-free crowd, I have no problem with gluten and managed to find a just regular recipe for them.

And thank goodness I did. These were UH. MAZE. ING.

I would suggest making these with the best cocoa you can. There was still a few bars of 84% cocoa chocolate bars at the store when I went and I used a bit of my Valhorna powdered chocolate that I picked up in Paris last year for these and it was pretty much outta this world!

Each bite coats your lips in soft, snowy powdered sugar followed by the little crunchy bits of the granulated sugar that all melts together with the soft melty chocolate pillow that is the cookie… it is a special treat to share with anyone! Just be sure to make a lot because after just one cookie, I guarantee you will reach for another.

And another.

Just when you have left the room, someone will sneak in and take a few.

When you return, you will probably eat another one.

And you can see how quickly this situation could spin out of control and leave you cookie-less…

Just be sure you make “enough!”

Note: I refrigerated the dough overnight since I whipped up the cookie batter after dinner one night and didnt have the chance to bake them all out. This made it easier to scoop up balls of dough, although it was still rather sticky and I had to rinse my cookie scoop a couple of times once it began to get too tough to scoop and drop the balls of dough.

Also, if you drop the scoops of dough directly into the granulated sugar and roll them into “perfectly” round balls in the sugar, it makes it less of a sticky mess for your hands and you achieve the desired result with less trouble.

Ingredients:

• 8 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1-1/4 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 C unsweetened Dutch process Cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp coarse salt
• 1/3 C (4oz) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1-1/2 C light brown sugar, packed
• 2 L eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 C whole milk
• 1 C granulated sugar
• 1 C powdered sugar

Melt the chocolate in a bowl and let cool to room temperature.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder & salt in a bowl.

Beat the butter & brown sugar together until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla until combined. Then beat in the chocolate.

Slowly mix in half the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Mix in half of the milk, stirring to combine, then the remaining flour, then the last of the milk.

Put the dough in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight, with plastic wrap pressed against the surface of the dough, until firm.

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Roll the dough into small balls. Roll each ball in granulated sugar then powdered sugar and place on parchment lined baking sheets about two inches apart.

Bake until the surface cracks, about 14 minutes, rotating the pans halfway through the baking time. Let cool on the baking sheets for about five minutes before moving them to a cooling rack.

Store in an airtight container – if they last long enough to make it to a container…