Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 12

Yay!  The final day!  So where are the cookies, you may ask??  Well, I may have to pull out the "pregnancy card" for the last batch of cookies.  My family knows exactly what the pregnancy card is, because I have been using it all week -- its one of the (few) benefits.  Gregg and I are set to fly home today, so it looks like no cookies will be baked today.  I may get some energy and bake some when I get home tomorrow.  We shall see!  

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 11

Two Egg Break-In Pie

aka

Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie

Ok, so clearly this whole cookie blog has gone downhill, since I am now blogging about baking a pie instead of cookies.   Also, we are still working out the kinks in Mom's new computer so I don't know if I will get a picture up.

I guess I will blame it on the movie The Waitress (not a good movie, but one cute part is that she creates funny names for all the different pies she is making).  I call this Two Egg Break-In Pie because midway through baking I realized we had eaten almost all the eggs for breakfast that morning, and we needed two more.  It was Christmas day, so everything in Columbia was closed.  We decided to in all likelihood violate the unwritten "key to neighbor" code, and zip over to CheChe and Charlies and take some of their eggs; they were having Christmas day dinner out with CheChe's family.  But of course, as we are trying to work the key in the lock, they come to the door to see who is trying to break in.  They are back home already, and we are so busted!  

PS -- The secret of the lemon squares is that the picture is actually a picture of a picture in a book.  Could you tell?!?  We ran off with the lemon squares so quickly after baking that I didn't have time to get an actual picture, so I had to make do! 

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 10

Lemon Squares

Lemon squares are always a good cookie to bring to a party -- and this Christmas Eve we had the annual gumbo gathering at CheChe and Charlie's, so I brought them.  They were from Rose's cookie book again -- the taste was good but the ratio of shortbread to lemon curd was off.  We needed more lemon curd and less shortbread.  I think next time I am going to try Cooks Illustrated's version.  There is another secret about these lemon squares, but I'm not telling what it is until tomorrow... !! :)

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 9

Bourbon Balls

I have to admit that I choose these cookies because they were a "no bake" cookie.  Simply crush and combine the various ingredients, then roll them into a gooey ball, then dip in powdered sugar. Maybe I also choose these because they contain alcohol -- off limits for me but a bit in cookies and I don't feel guilty.  We had some top of the line bourbon available for the holidays -- Basil something -- so I used that.   The other main ingredients were pecans, cocoa powder, vanilla wafers, nutmeg, cinnamon and powdered sugar.  Make the balls really small because they are rich!  (But guess what?  NO butter!!)

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 8

Peanut Butter Cups

These cookies are an old favorite. I had to give up hope on the "stained glass" cookies I was planning, due to the fact that I was clearly overextending myself. (To make those, I would have had to painstakingly cut individual shapes out of sugar cookies with an exacto knife...maybe next year :)) These dietetic cookies came out great as usual. I had my sous chef Gran help me with the unwrapping and pressing in of the Reeses candy. The cookies are destined to be part of a great buffet dinner for 15 family and friends tonight. Since I will be sober once again for another holiday gathering -- wish me luck!!

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 7

Neiman Marcus Peppermint Bark Chocolate Chip Cookies

The making of these cookies was delayed by the search to find the peppermint bark, then interrupted by an emergency trip to Charlotte to pick up stranded brother number two, but they were finally done right before we all left for dinner. Of course we all ate them as a pre-dinner appetizer! The recipe is apparently a famous chocolate chip cookie fom Neiman Marcus turned into a holiday cookies with the addition of peppermint bark. You can find the recipe here. The crowd here may not be the most difficult to please, but everyone chowed down on these cookies!

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 6

Savory Cheese Dollars

I made these with my mom while we were waiting for Dad to come back from the airport with Devin and his fiancee. They were so easy and so good! Possibly the easiest cookies I have ever made, with only three ingredients -- cheese, butter, and flour (then add salt, pepper, cayenne pepper etc. to taste). They were warm out of the oven by the time everyone arrived. The other fun thing about these cookies is that we tried out Mom's new convection oven for the first time. It is definitely an oven that comes with an instruction manual -- there are lots of digital buttons and beeping and flashing but we still managed to cook the cookies to perfection. :)

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 5

Decorated Holiday Cookies

I was way into these cookies last year, and I planned for them to be my only "repeat" because I liked them so much. This year, not so much. I don't know why -- they just seemed so ...tedious. Maybe because I am carrying around a soccer ball in my stomach and I just wanted to sit down rather than stand in the kitchen. :) Whatever it was, it showed up in the results. Last years were much prettier (I don't know how to link to just Day 5, so just scroll down to see Day 5's pictures.)

But I brought them, along with the melty moments and the blondies to our monthly cooking club gathering last night. The cooking club rocked the kitchen, as always. We are a cool club, if I do say so myself. I would highly recommend starting or joining a cooking club to anyone out there who is interested -- its a lot of fun! Moving away from the cookies for a moment, here are some pics from lasts nights get-together.

(Risotto with peas topped with pea pesto)

(Goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon)

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 4

Blondies



What makes a cookie a cookie? Blondies are described in Cooks Illustrated's "The New Best Recipe Book" as being a cross between a brownie and a chocolate chip cookie. Thats a pretty apt description -- so I think I will call them a cookie even though they are in a bar shape. These blondies are soft and carmelly tasting. Buried inside are semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and pecans. I had planned to holiday-ify them and add cranberries, but due to the Nor'easter that swept through NYC this weekend, my motivation to hit the grocery store waned and I made do with what was already in my pantry. Still yummy!

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 3

Melty Moments



This recipe comes from the book Rose's Christmas Cookies, which I got it last year during the holiday season. These cookies are really good. The actually do, as the name implies, seem to melt in your mouth. They did not have an auspicious beginning though. These were the only cookies I have ever made where I did not lick the dough off the beaters. The dough did not taste good at all -- maybe because of the high content of corn starch?? (By the way, what is corn starch? I really don't have a clue.) Anyway, being completely turned off by the dough I thought the cookies were going to be big losers -- but so far they are my favorite this year. The recipe calls for them dipped in chocolate, but I couldn't even do it. Thats how good they are -- I'm even afraid chocolate might ruin them!! As if!!

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 2

Key Lime Coolers

Today I went to "the old lady of baking" for a recipe -- that would be Betty as in Crocker. I wanted to try Key Lime Coolers. People usually buy these southern Christmas time cookies, and I think the #1 seller is the Byrd Cookie Company. You can see their version here. I made Betty's home version -- its here. I was intrigued to bake something with "the refreshing and cool taste of citrus cookies." Yum. Plus its rating was 4 out of 5 spoons.

These are pretty good! I do like tart and tangy cookies. I had to do some math, because I quartered the recipe. I can't overload myself so early in the 12 Days! 1/4 recipe made about 1.5 dozen cookies. Just about right to get me through to tomorrow!

Twelve Days of Cookies, Day 1

Lacey Susans

Welcome back everyone! I decided I am doing the 12 days of cookies project again this year, and who knows, maybe every year -- cuz it is really fun!! It may be just an excuse to eat loads of butter, and of course this year I can say that I need to eat loads of butter for two! :) Double the fun!

Speaking of butter, my first cookie is loaded with it. Its a lacey susan, and I think you can see from the pic how it got its name. Its a yummy, easy cookie. To me, its basically a chocolate chip cookie with less flour and more butter. That ratio makes it nice and thin and crispy and brown and buttery. The other thing I like about this cookie is that it is deceptively large. That is, one whole cookie is actually a very small amount of dough. I used a small one teaspoon size dollop per cookie and they really flatten out and become pretty large. So, I can have, like, three, and it is really comparable to just one regular chocolate chip cookie. Or so I tell myself. :)