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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Chocolate mint swirl candycane cookies

It all started with a bunch of leftover candycanes. I crushed them up thinking I'd bake with them. It has been a while and I have only used a bit.
Then for a potluck I thought I'd make red velvet cupcakes...but thought it would be too easy...so I used my new pinterest account (I know I know I am behind a decade or so) to hunt up red velvet...and then red...and then came across a recipe for mint chocolate swirl cookies by Alton Brown (I love Good Eats).
But...I only had white baking chocolate. And I sill wanted redness and candycane involvement so I just tweaked it to get the following delicious minty cookie. It is a nice moist sugar cookie with strong mint flavour and faint chocolate flavour. Delicious.


Basically the recipe is altered and ended up as follows:

The basic sugar cookie recipe was made as listed, but not chilled the same way at all:
Sift together 3 c flour, 3/4 t baking powder and 1/4 t salt.
In mixer blend 1 c soft butter and 1 c sugar until fluffy. Beat in 1 egg and 1 T milk. Add in dry slowly on low speed and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl.

Immediately after making the dough I divided it in half and made the 2 halves as follows:
-Mint half had 1 t peppermint extract and 1/2 c crushed candycane mixed in using the mixer.
-Chocolate half had 3 oz white chocolate melted and added along with 1 t cocoa (sifted) and about 1 t red colouring to make it nice and red.

I rolled the dough halves out to 1/4 inch think between wax paper to ~the same long rectangle shape (~6" high and 18" long) and then put the two layers on top of each other and gently pressed them together. Then I carefully rolled it up into a log, which I wrapped in wax paper and then saran and put in the freezer for about an hour until nice and firm. Then I rolled the log in a few sprinkles and cut cookies about 1/2 inch thick ( and about 2 inches around) onto cookie sheets lined with baking paper. Baked at 375 for 12 minutes. After 1 minute on the tray, they cooled on a wire rack.
So. Good. :)

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Christmas baking 2012

Long time no post.
Seems life is a rather bit exciting and I'm enjoying the eating and the cooking. There are so many really awesome recipe blogs out there, that I just can't do justice to what I'm making in the kitchen...well not in the time I'm willing to offer it at the moment. Being done grad school has given me all this free time, and documenting it seems so much like work it'll be a while before I feel like more elaborate postings again...

But, I did have to post today.
I just finished a long day of happy christmas baking, making the vanillekipfl (Byrun's mum's recipe) and the peanut butter surprise cookies that I've posted before. There are two new ones this year: Gingerbread lemon sandwich cookies and....dum dum dum...
Jammy Dodgers.
I used this recipe and they are absolutely delicious. I've never had a jammy dodger before.
I'm hooked.


After all that cookie dough I think I need bigger pants...