Lovin' From the Oven

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.

Day 7: M&M Cookies

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Day 7 of My 12 Days of Cookies: M&M Cookies. I thought it would be fun and festive to finally add some Christmas color into my cookies. These are the standard Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe with M&M’s replacing the chocolate morsels. The result? Ehhh these were just ok. I think now that I’ve found my elite chocolate chip recipe, nothing else compares. Don’t get me wrong, these are always fun to look at that, though… with all the festive colors. They would look great in a basket given for the holidays!

I used some leftover Halloween candy for these cookies. I had an assortment pack of M&M’s, with peanut, regular, and mini M&M’s. I had to pick out all the red & green ones and left a huge bowl of M&M’s on the island in the kitchen, up for grabs for whoever walks by. What’s your favorite? Mine are definitely the peanut butter M&M’s. Sidenote, I think the mini M&M’s taste ten times better than regular sized M&M’s even though they’re the same.. why? I have no idea. I think all foods that are made miniature just taste better. Period.

The original recipe can be found HERE

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2 cups M&M’s (I used a mixture of mini and regular M&M’s)

Directions:
PREHEAT oven to 375° F.

COMBINE flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

BAKE for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

* May be stored in refrigerator for up to 1 week or in freezer for up to 8 weeks.

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