Funfetti Sandwich Cookies

 

 

I don’t really have any interesting stories to share alongside today’s goody, so I’ll just do a little rambling if that’s ok with you. If it’s not ok with you then I guess just scroll down for the recipe…?

1.      I’ve started doing yoga once a day. The first day, it absolutely kicked my butt, but after a few sessions it got easier. I didn’t think I was going to like it because when I was like 13 or so my dad made my sister and me do an in-home yoga session. Long story short, it was painful and in no way relaxing. But the place I go to now is so much fun. I actually look forward to it every day! And shouldn’t exercise be fun?

2.      I’ve been reading a lot lately. Mostly because I know I won’t be able to read more than one book for pleasure in the upcoming year because of school. While staying at my aunt’s house for two and a half weeks I finished three books for a total of around 900 pages. One of the books I’ve recently finished is Dear Girls Above Me by Charlie McDowell. I’m basically recommending it to anyone and everyone. It is seriously that good. It’s not insightful or deep or anything like that. It is a quick read meant to be funny, and boy is it! I can’t remember how many times I actually laughed out loud at this book.

 

3.      I’m moving. Yay! Well yay and nay. Yay because I’ll be moving down to South Carolina and so I’ll be closer to family and I won’t have to worry about flying back and forth for school breaks. Nay because I’m going to miss my buddies here. I’ve lived half of my life in Colorado; it’s where I grew up and I’ll be sad leaving my home. Oh and snow, I’ll be missing my snow. Snow is good for the soul (as long as you’re not sitting outside in it)

4.      I made these sandwich cookies a little while ago. They were tasty, even my sister was into them! I set a couple out for the people who were looking at my house and by the time the appointments were over, every single one was gone. The realtor said they were a real hit with the kids that passed by. These are colorful and soft and just a good little snack or after dinner treat.

 

Funfetti Sandwich Cookie
Slightly adapted from Tracey’s Culinary Adventures
Makes 13 good sized sandwich cookies

Ingredients
Cookies
1 cup cake flour
1/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/8 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
7 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
½ cup + 2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, room temperature
2 tbsp. nonpareils or sprinkles

Buttercream Filling
½ tbsp. milk
¼ tsp. pure vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
5 tbs. unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup powdered sugar
2 tsp. nonpareils or sprinkles

Directions
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flours, baking soda, and salt. Beat the room temperature butter on medium-high speed until creamy. Pour in the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Mix in the melted butter, vanilla, and egg until completely combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Turn the mixer speed to low and gently add the flour. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl to get all of the flour incorporated. Once the flour has been mixed in, fold in the nonpareils.

Chill dough for a good 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Using a medium-small cookie scoop (mine is about 1 ½ inches in diameter) portion out the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Make sure to space to cookies about 2 inches away from each other, they will spread a bit. Chill the cookie dough portions for another 10-15 minutes.

Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are slightly golden brown. Cool cookies on the pan set over a wire rack for 5 minutes before removing to allow to cool completely. Repeat with any remaining dough.

To make the filling: mix together the milk, vanilla, and salt together in a small bowl. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth. Turn the mixer speed down to low and gently add in the powdered sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the milk mixture. Turn the mixer speed back up to medium-high and beat until fluffy. Fold on the nonpareils.

To assemble: match cookies in pairs by size. Spread about half a tablespoon onto the flat side of half the cookies. Press the flat side down of the remaining cookies onto the filling.

Hidden Kiss Cookies

It’s New Years Eve. Have you guys made resolutions for next year? Are any of them to be healthier? Stop eating sweets? Spend 5 hours on the treadmill everyday in an effort to shed those holiday pounds? You’re definitely not alone if you aid “yes.” I too have made a “be healthy” resolution: to stop stuffing my face when I’m procrastinating. The thing about having your own room in college has great advantages, but with those advantages comes disadvantages. I can’t tell you how many times I have at in my room eating my stash of granola bars and Goldfish trying to put off homework as much as possible. Well no more… hopefully.

Anyways, here is a recipe that will probably send you running for the hills. Hey, I got you running, that’s a good start for exercising, right? 

These here are Hidden Kiss Cookies. It’s basically a soft-as-ever butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss stuffed in the center. These really are the perfect treat. I took some to my friend’s reunion/ugly sweater party before Christmas and not a single cookie was left. Everyone said they were amazing and I felt sort of bad because I didn’t even bring all the cookies, assuming everyone would eat the other sweets everyone brought to the party.

If you aren’t one of those cookie haters that appear at the beginning of the year, please make these cookies. They are darling little things.

Hidden Kiss Cookies

Adapted from Once Upon a Cutting Board

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup powdered sugar

½ a large egg, room temperature (beat egg in a small bowl and measure out half)

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

24 unwrapped Hershey’s Kisses

2 tbsp. sugar

Directions

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the butter and POWDERED sugar (Yes, you read that right. This recipe uses powdered sugar, not regular granulated sugar). Beat on medium speed until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until well combined.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Turn the mixer’s speed to low and add the flour mixture in two additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

Scoop a little less than 1 tbsp. of dough into your hand. Roll the dough into a ball and flatten. Place a single Hershey’s Kiss in the center. Mold the cookie dough around the kiss. Roll the dough between your hands to form a sphere. Repeat with the remaining dough. If the dough is too soft to work with, refrigerate the un-scooped dough for about 10-15 minutes. Refrigerate cookie dough for 10-15 minutes. Keeping the dough chilled will ensure to dough wont fall away from the kiss while baking.

While you wait for the dough to chill, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Place about 2 tbsp. of granulated sugar into a shallow bowl. Gently roll each cookie in the sugar. Place cookie dough on prepared baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes. I like my cookies very soft so I baked mine around 9-10 minutes; the cookies were still a little soft when I took them out of the oven.

Cool cookies on the sheet for about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Sugar-Dusted Drop Sugar Cookies

Finals are done, I’m on break, and I’m reunited with my stand mixer; everything is now good.

But I have been procrastinating. I’ve had bakers block for the past few weeks due to those 5 hour calculus study sessions, but when I got home I had no idea what to make.

I know I wanted to make something festivy and Christmasy for you all, but I honestly had no idea what to make. Then I remembered sugar cookies are both festive and easy! Well, the traditional sugar cookie isn’t easy; it’s labor intensive and I didn’t want to do too much, so I found a recipe for drop sugar cookies. 

These are as easy as making chocolate chip cookies. Just cream the butter and sugar, add some egg yolks (which gives these a nice pale yellow color) and vanilla, mix in your flour mixture, scoop, roll in sugar and plop onto a tray.

The edges hold firm as the center is nice and soft. The raw sugar crystals lend a little bit of a crunch factor that is really nice too. I have never used raw sugar before, so I wasn’t totally sure how it was going to turn out. But after crunching down on the sugar crystals I realized I like the raw sugar coating more than sugar cookies rolled in regular white sugar.

Today also marks the 12^th week of 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats. I have been bad and haven’t participated in the countdown for several weeks. That’s what college does to you, it takes away from the important things in life. I kid… sort of. So here is my contribution to the last week of the 12 Weeks of Christmas Treats. Thank you Brenda for hosting such a fun blog hop!

Sugar-Dusted Drop Sugar Cookies 
Slightly adapted from Dramatic Pancake
Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients
3-4 tbsp. raw sugar (for rolling)
½ cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
2 egg yolks, room temperature
¾ tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. cream of tartar

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. Place the raw sugar in a bowl and set aside

Cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed in the bowl of a stand mixer until light in color and fluffy in texture. Beat the egg yolks in one at a time. Add the vanilla. Scrape the bowl down as necessary.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar. Go back to the stand mixer and turn the speed down to low. Add half of the flour mixture and beat. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, repeat with remaining flour mixture. Turn the speed up to medium and beat until the dough sort of comes together like play-dough.

Portion out the dough by using a small/medium cookie scoop. Release the dough and roll the tops of the dough in the raw sugar. Place cookie dough sugar side up onto the prepared baking tray. Bake for 9-10 minutes or until the tops have become slightly crackled. Cool on the tray for two minutes before removing onto a cooling rack.

Brown Sugar-Sugar Cookies

I made cookies.

Ok, well that isn’t really giant, earth-shattering news, but cookies make people happy, right?

This week is the start of the annual two week state testing what-cha-ma-call it in Colorado. I’ve had to take that stupid test for eight years…EIGHT YEARS! It’s pure torture; the prompts are dumb and it’s just not a fun test. Last year was the first year that I didn’t have to take the state test, but I had to go to ACT prep classes. This year I am totally FREE! So what do I do? I make brown sugar-sugar cookies.

Yup. I absolutely love the taste of brown sugar. I think it is God’s gift to the baking world. It makes everything taste so warm and homey. Mmm. I’m not much of a sugar cookie gal, but when I found these on Joy’s site and just fell in love with the idea of having a sugar cookie, but have it taste like brown sugar.

The cookie dough is kind of crumbly, but when packed it forms nicely together. The cookies are soft but firm at the same time. Joy also added cinnamon and ginger to amp up the flavor profile. As the cookies baked, the whole house smelled of spice, and as soon as I opened the oven door, a wave of cinnamon passed through, which made me sigh in delight.

My family seemed to really like the cookies, even my sister, who as I’ve mentioned before, never eats anything I make. I will admit, though, that these are not my favorite cookies. I have to be in a certain mood, and outside has to be just right for me to enjoy a spice cookie. But, when I want to feel warm and cozy, I’ll probably bake these up again.

Brown Sugar-Sugar Cookies
From Joy theBaker
Makes 26 cookies

Ingredients
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger
6 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
½ cup + 2 tbsp dark brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 egg yolk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, and ground ginger; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add in the egg yolk and vanilla and beat on medium for another minute or two.
3. Slow the mixer speed down to low and add the flour mixture all at once. Mix until all of the flour mixture has been incorporated. Turn the mixer on medium and beat for another 30 seconds or so. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.  
4. Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes. Once the dough has chilled, use a cookie scoop to portion out the cookie dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Make sure to space the cookies about two inches apart. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes before moving them onto a cooling rack.

Bewitching Sugar Biscuits

Happy Independence Day to everyone in America. I hope all of your BBQs and cookouts went well and everyone enjoyed the fireworks. I always like watching the fireworks here. Some of the fireworks even blow up in different and fun shapes, like I remember last year there was a purple octopus! I’m not entirely sure how you get a firework to blow up like that, but that would be so cool if the actual rocket was shaped like an octopus! So, again, I hope everyone had a splendid evening and made delicious things like burgers, ‘dogs, corn on the cob and more. Which brings me to why I am posting today.

Today was such a hot, hot, HOT day. I’m pretty sure it got very close to 100 degrees. However, this did not stop me from turning on the oven, so sir-e-bob. Today I bring you sugar coo-er biscuits from my Harry Potter cookbook. Yes, I know Harry Potter is British and it’s kind of ironic to make something from the country we are celebrating our independence from, but I don’t care.

These “biscuits” are your basic sugar cookie, I think at least. When baked, these beauties are the perfect size and are slightly crisp, but not overly so. I think I may have mentioned once or twice that I am not a thin cookie kind of person, but I will make an exception for these biscuits because they are just addictive to eat. And I was not disappointed in the size of the cookies either. Usually cookies tend to not spread as much as I would like and I end up getting a smaller cookie. That is not the case with these cookies, a two-ish inch cookie cutter will give you about a three inch cooked cookie, which makes for a happy girl. ;)

I have to warn you though, the dough needs to be verrrrrry well chilled or otherwise the dough will just get warm and unrollable. I should know; I waited just a tad to long while rolling out the dough and the first batch I could only get four cookies onto the sheet because the rest of the dough was getting too soft to be rolled out and transferred onto the baking sheet. I kept having to put the dough in the freezer and roll it out and hope that it wouldn’t get to hot. What may also help is after chilling the dough, as quick as you can, cut the cookies out and then put the rounds onto another pan to be transferred into the freezer, that way, the actual cookie is chilled as well. Despite the tiny bit of frustration I experienced with the chilled dough (probably to do with the heat outside) these are a delicious addition to anyone’s biscuit (cookie) repertoire.

Sugar Biscuits
from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook
makes about 4 dozen

Ingredients
3 cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
2 sticks butter, soft
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
Extra sugar to dust the top of the cookies with

Directions

1. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and the sugar together. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Once the two ingredients have combined and become light and fluffy looking, beat in the eggs one at a time, making sure that each egg has been fully incorporated before adding the next. Next, beat in the vanilla extract.
3. Turn the electric mixer down to the lowest speed. Gently add in the flour mixture and mix until combined. Once almost fully mixed, turn the mixer onto medium-high and beat for 15-30 seconds. Divide the dough into two portions and wrap each portion into individual pieces of plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours.
4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Remove one chilled dough ball and quickly roll it out into ¼ inch thickness. Using a cookie cutter, cut out pieces of dough and place them on the cookie sheet. This is where things got a little tricky. You see, its probably best to divide one dough ball half into two and then roll that portion out as the other portion chills. Then stamp out the cookie and place on the baking pan. Lightly dust the tops of the dough with sugar.
5. Bake for 12 minutes. I personally think this would be too long. I baked mine for 10 minutes and they came out perfect, however, they become a little tougher as they sit out, so if you want a really soft cookie, go for 8 or 9 minutes. Note: These are Hagrid’s cookies and they are supposed to be a little doughy, so if you want them like Hagrid, roll the dough to about ½ inch thickness and bake for about 10 minutes max. Remove the cookies from the oven and place on a cooking rack for about 3 minutes. Then transfer the actual cookie onto a cooling rack for the duration of the cooling process. Repeat steps 1-5 until all of the dough has been used up.

Holiday Baking: Sugar Cookies

People like different kinds of cookies. There are the soft and chewy people then there are the thin and crisp cookie people and then there are the inbetweeners. Well, I like my cookies to be soft, not crunchy (most of the time). You may be thinking, “Did Becca mistype the title? Is this a chocolate chip cookie post?” The answer is no, it is not. I’m talking about sugar cookies. I don’t like crisp sugar cookies at all! In fact, I’ve seen so many thin and crispy sugar cookies I lost all hope that no one but these guys made soft sugar cookies. Then I came across The Girl Who Ate Everything. She was doing a 12 days of cookies and day 7 happened to be a soft sugar cookie recipe. Well the sky opened up for me because if these cookies were good, that meant that I would never have to deal with another crisp sugar cookie ever again. And let me tell you these sugar cookies are delicious. They are soft and cake-like which I love. I think the sugar could have been increased just a little but other than that I think they were great!

This dough was also really nice to work with after it had

chilled in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Christmas shapes! :)

These cookies turned out so nice and fluffy. Loved them!

Soft Sugar Cookies
I made abut 44 cookies from this
slightly adapted from 12 Days of Cookies
on The Girl Who Ate Everything

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, well beaten
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon milk
2 – 2 1/2 cups flour (I needed 3 cups)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fand line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy, then add each egg in one at a time, making sure they are incorporated thouroughly
3. Mix in the salt, baking powder, vanilla and milk. Once incorporated add in the flour 1/2 cups at a time until the dough is soft, but not sticky.
4. I needed to chill the dough for about 20-30 minutes
5. On a floured surface roll the dough out and cut into shapes.
6. Bake for 6-8 minutes for a soft sugar cookie.

Nutrition Facts

serving size: 1 cookie
Calories 65.6 Total Fat 2.2 g Saturated Fat 0.1 g Polyunsaturated Fat 0.0 g Monounsaturated Fat 0.1 g Cholesterol 15.1 mg Sodium 53.1 mg Potassium 13.7 mg Total Carbohydrate 10.5 g Dietary Fiber 0.3 g Sugars 4.7 g Protein 1.1 g