Lovin' From the Oven

Day 11: S’mores Cookie Bars

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Day 11 of my 12 Days of Cookies: Time for a little variation. Who says a cookie has to be round? These are probably on my list of top 3 things that I’ve EVER baked, believe it or not. They’re just that good. I mean, s’mores are delicious as is.. but baking them into a cookie bar? Absolutely genius. They are the best when warm, because everything inside it is still gooey and you really get the whole campfire feeling. You can microwave these for about 10-15 seconds prior to eating them so you melt the chocolate & warm the marshmallow. For those of you that don’t know what a s’more is, it’s basically a popular campfire treat that consists of a roasted marshmallow and a chunk of chocolate (usually Hershey’s) sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker. The roasted marshmallow melts the chocolate when being sandwiched, and voila, you’ve got yourself one of the most delectable treats known to mankind. Seriously, I can’t even begin to tell you how good these are.

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Day 11: S’mores Cookie Bars

Yield: 16 bars

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 1/4 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
  • 1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
  3. Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. 2 king-sized Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff. Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together).
  4. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.
https://lovintheoven.com/day-11-smores-cookie-bars/

Day 10: Gingerbread Men

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Day 10 of my 12 Days of Cookies: More cookies made especially for the holidays.. gingerbread men! Now, I am not a fan of molasses and most recipes for gingerbread men actually require more than 1/2 cup of molasses. The recipe that I use only has a mere 2 tablespoons of it. If you like more of a molasses flavor in your cookie, then I wouldn’t recommend using this recipe. I also got too lazy to decorate these with all of the baking that I’ve been doing, so my cookies ended up being rather plain. You can also under bake these cookies a bit so they stay softer, or sub some white sugar with brown sugar.

You can use any royal icing recipe to decorate these cookies; You can even use frosting, if you prefer. For these cookies, I used: 1 egg white, 1 cup of powdered sugar, and about 1 tsp of vanilla. My other royal icing recipe can be found HERE, at my previous post with sugar cookies. Another helpful tip when making these is to roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment or wax paper. It makes such a less of a mess!

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons molasses
  • 3 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, mix well. Mix in molasses. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, & salt, mixing til well combined. Chill dough for at least 2 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease cookies sheets. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to 1/4″ thick. Cut into desired shapes, place inch apart on cookies sheets.
3. Bake for 9-10 minutes.

Day 9: Peanut Butter Blossoms

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Only 4 more days til Christmas! Eeeekk that means I have to do all of my bulk baking for my gift baskets/boxes tomorrow. I’ll be in the kitchen all day long, so expect the end of my countdown within the next two days. I baked these cookies for my friend’s fondue party that she was throwing, and everyone LOVED them! Even on top of all the food we ate for the cheese & chocolate fondue (trust me.. we had A LOT! For the cheese fondue: wedge fries, ham, broccoli, cauliflower, bread, pretzels, & tomatoes. For the chocolate fondue: strawberries, pineapples, bananas, pretzels, & rice crispy treats.), people still had room for these cookies. They even smuggled some home for the road! That must mean that they’re good.

Day 9 of my 12 Days of Cookies: Peanut Butter & chocolate… almost as good of a combination as mint & chocolate. These cookies take a bit more effort, but are totally worth it in the end. They are extremely soft cookies (my favorite), yet they can hold up when being stacked upon one another. The peanut butter ratio is the perfect amount.. not too overwhelming, but you definitely taste it. The Hershey’s kiss just tops it off.. give someone a kiss this Christmas!

You can vary this recipe by omitting the kiss if you wanted just a plain peanut butter cookie. You can also change your kind of kiss (swirled, filled, white chocolate, dark chocolate.. the list is endless!) to better suit your taste. There are a TON of different kinds out there! You can even do red and green swirled ones for the holidays. I halved this recipe and made a little over 2 dozen.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup softened butter
  • 1 cup peanut butter
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/3 cup white sugar for decoration
  • 2 (9 ounce) bags milk chocolate candy kisses, unwrapped
  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together the shortening, butter, peanut butter, brown sugar, and 1 cup white sugar until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and stir in the milk and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the peanut butter mixture until well blended. Shape tablespoonfuls of dough into balls, and roll in remaining white sugar. Place cookies 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.
  3. Bake for 10 to12 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from oven, and immediately press a chocolate kiss into each cookie. Allow to cool completely; the kiss will harden as it cools.

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