Lovin' From the Oven

Day 10: Toffee Walnut (Heath Bar) Cookies

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I hope everyone had a great Christmas! So I definitely didn’t complete my goal in blogging about 12 cookies before Christmas, but I’ll finish it by the end of the month.. Promise! I got so wrapped up in baking for the holidays that I didn’t have time to take a breather and take pictures/blog. For Christmas, I ended up baking 24 dozen cookies for my family and close families to me. I know, crazy, right? I used two ovens and baked for 4 hours straight. I made all the dough the night before so I could just bake all of yesterday. There were a total of 6 different types of cookies and the result was well worth it!

Day 10 of my twelve days of cookies: Heath Bar cookies! These are hands down my boyfriend’s favorite cookie. He adores toffee and even sneaked a ton to save for himself for later. I found the recipe over at Simply Recipes and adapted it just a tiny bit with the amount of vanilla. This made just over 4 dozen cookies for me, since I made a slightly bigger cookie than normal. These cookies are some of my favorites as well, since the walnut and toffee just go hand in hand.

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped Heath Bar pieces (Eight 1.4 ounce bars)
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine Heath Bar pieces and chopped walnuts. Set aside.

2 Cream butter until fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy (a couple minutes). Beat in eggs one at a time, and vanilla.

3 Alternatively mix in the Heath Bar mixture and the flour mixture, a third at a time, until well blended. Chill cookie dough for at least 30 minutes (better an hour).

4 Preheat oven to 350°F. On cookie sheets lined with parchment paper or Silpat, spoon out the cookie dough in small 1-inch diameter balls (size of a large marble). Place dough balls 3 inches away from each other on the cookie sheets. (Make sure there is plenty of room between the cookie balls, and that the cookie balls aren’t too big. These cookies spread!)

5 Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown. Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes. Then transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

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PS.. I just had to share with you what my boyfriend got me for Christmas. It came in this lovely white box…and when you open it up, there’s a little black bag inside of it…
and inside the little black bag, is this beauty!:
It’s the YSL mail ring, which is the style I’ve been obsessed with as of late! I’m dying to track down a YSL mail bag and wallet. But yeah.. LOVE IT! I got him an SB600 external flash for his Nikon. How nerdy, I know. What did you guys get for Christmas? Any fun goodies?

Day 9: Chocolate Bliss Kisses

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So lately I’ve been addicted to watching Food Network Challenges and Unwrapped. The latest food network challenge that I watched was the one where they had to make a bridge out of cereal. It makes me think… have they run out of ideas on what to make? I mean, bridges… really? Oh well, it still beats most of the other stuff that plays on TV now and days. Hah.. listen to me, I sound like some old woman.

Life has kind of become monotonous for me. It’s the same routine, over and over again. Now that I know for sure I’m not going to be back in school in January (Dang you CSUN for screwing up my app!! Sorry, I’m still bitter), I’d like to take advantage of the free time I have. I really want to take another trip somewhere. Anyone have any suggestions for a good foodie town to visit?

Day 9 of my twelve days of cookies: I knew I wanted to make something with Hershey’s kisses, but I didn’t want to do the normal peanut butter blossoms since I realized I wasn’t a fan of peanut butter cookies. I saw this recipe from Dragon’s Kitchen and had to give it a shot. They turned out very light and vanilla-y. Perfect. One of my friends claimed that they tasted like vanilla ice cream. The use of powdered sugar in place of granulated sugar makes the cookie base very fluffy and light. I was caught off guard at first because there were no eggs involved, but don’t fright! They turned out just fine. This recipe makes approximately 3 dozen cookies.

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
  • 1 1/2 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 36 Hershey Kisses, unwrapped

Directions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
  2. Cream the butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.
  3. Sift salt and flour together. Add to the butter mixture. Stir until dough forms.
  4. Scoop dough and shape into 1 inch balls. Place the balls 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet.
  5. Bake for 12-14 minutes just until set and the bottoms begin to turn a light golden brown. Remove baking tray from the oven and immediately top each cookie with a Hershey kiss, pressing down lightly.
  6. Cool cookies on the tray for 2 minutes. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

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Day 8: White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

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Eeeeek! 5 more days until Christmas (just in case you didn’t know already). Good thing I only have my boyfriend to shop for and that’s already been taken care of. Well, I also got my dad a Ronald Reagan bomber jacket from my work which he absolutely adores. I think it’s cute how much he loves his Ronald Reagan gear. I even bought him an air force one plane toy for him! He stared in awe at it for a solid minute and said that this was all he wanted for Christmas. How precious!

Day 8 of my twelve days of cookies: I adapted this recipe from allrecipes. I seriously love that website. You can find a recipe for ANYTHING and know that they’ve been tried and true. I tend to lean toward the recipes the have a lot more ratings, cause you know it’s gotta be good to have that many people try them out. Anyways, I took these to a dinner party and they raved about them! They were soft with the perfect amount of sweetness. The white chocolate balances out the cranberries nicely and it’d be a great addition to your Christmas cookie list!

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 3/4 cup white chocolate chips
  • 1 cup dried cranberries

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until smooth. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Combine the flour and baking soda; stir into the sugar mixture. Mix in the white chocolate chips and cranberries. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto prepared cookie sheets.
  3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. For best results, take them out while they are still doughy. Allow cookies to cool for 1 minute on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

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