Showing posts with label holiday cookies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday cookies. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie—Buttery Jam Cookies

Buttery Jam Cookies - A Perfect Holiday Treat Buttery Jam CookiesThese cookies are a cross between a biscuit and a cookie. The jam part of the equation is from the jam that's in the batter. But by adding a bit of extra homemade cinnamon crabapple jelly after baking, they transformed from cookie to breakfast treat without [any] guilt. The hint of ginger in them is nice, and maybe a few more spices like nutmeg, allspice or cardamom would be even tastier next time.

A few of us on Twitter were talking about the differences between muffins and cupcakes. One you eat before 11 am and the other after 11 am. One without buttercream frosting before 11 am and the other with frosting after 11 am. These cookies are another treat you can justify before 11 am if you add the jam or jelly and think of them as scones or biscuits instead of cookies!

I sprinkled some of the cookies with cinnamon sugar ("toast dope"). I also tried baking them in a madeleine pan, but they were too cakey for my liking. I even tried forming them into a heart surrounded by two candy canes. Cute and tasty but not so pretty. My favorite version was sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and a dollop of homemade jam (or in my case, homemade crabapple cinnamon jelly).

Recipe: Buttery Jam Cookies

Makes: about 45 cookies

Ingredients for Buttery Jam Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon salt
1 stick unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons milk
½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ cup apricot jam (or your flavor of choice)

You can find the recipe for Buttery Jam Cookies in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan or here. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! 

Buttery Jam CookiesTasting Notes
These cookies are a perfect little breakfast treat! They are easy drop cookies that don't spread much during baking. I could also see them as a base for thumbprint-style cookies. They're an all around easy cookie for your holiday cookie line-up.

Recipe for Next Week (December 23)
Real Butterscotch Pudding on page 386 chosen by Donna of Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases.

Other Christmas cookie ideas:
Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies
Linzer Sablés
Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread Cookies
Lenox Almond Biscotti
Rugelach

Other pretty Buttery Jam Cookies I found this week (before the onslaught of 300+ TWD bakers):
• Nemmie from Cast Sugar also made some beautiful piped versions




Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Tuesdays with Dorie—Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies - Classic Cutout Cookie Recipe Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar CookiesMore cutout cookies this week. This time we're making sugar cookies. I find the hardest part about sugar cookies is decorating them!

A video
Here's a video that gives lots of ideas for decorating sugar cookies.

Or, just sprinkle some colored sugar on top (like I did)!

A book
In my reading this week, I found a new book to add to my Christmas list: Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste. From the author's blog, I found her recipe for Sugar Cookies. It has the same ingredients as Dorie's, but in slightly different quantities.

A television show
I also watched Alton Brown's "The Cookie Clause" episode. 

Recipe: Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies


Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies

Dorie's

2 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Dirty Sugar Cookies

3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup of shortening (or 2 sticks of butter)
1¼ cup sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

You can find the recipe for Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar Cookies in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan or here. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! Thanks to Ulrike of Küchenlatein who chose the recipe for this week and will post the recipe.

Grandma’s All-Occasion Sugar CookiesTasting Notes
Mine were crunchy, which is how I like them. Not doughy. If you like them nice and soft, roll them thicker or bake them less. Sugar cookies on their own are dull, so a sprinkle of sugar or some Caramelized Butter Frosting helps. A sprinkle of "toast dope" (cinnamon sugar) is nice too and transforms them into a cookie more similar to snickerdoodles.

Recipe for Next Week (December 16)
Buttery Jam Cookies on page 80.

Other Christmas cookie ideas:
Linzer Sablés
Brown Sugar-Pecan Shortbread Cookies
Lenox Almond Biscotti
Rugelach