Eggnog Biscotti

I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas. Did you guys get everything you wanted? Did you guys try and return anything yesterday? My dad did that once, forgetting it was the day after Christmas; he said it was the worst experience ever.

I myself had a really nice Christmas. I made pancakes for my family, opened some awesome presents (I got several cake pans that I can’t wait to use), made some bread rolls (which will be on here later), and ate way too much of some really amazing food. I’m not a leftovers person at all, but I’ve been munching on several pieces of leftover ham and bread rolls.

Speaking of leftovers, here is a really amazing recipe to use up that leftover eggnog in your fridge.

I’ve actually never had straight-up eggnog before, but I love the flavor. I ordered some eggnog from the dairy farm my family gets our milk from intending to actually try it, but once again I chickened out of drinking it. I didn’t want all that eggnog to go to waste, so I decided to find a recipe that used eggnog.

I searched, and searched, but none of the recipes looked all that great, and most the time my searches yielded homemade eggnog recipes, which didn’t help at all. Then I came across these eggnog biscotti cookies. I haven’t made biscotti in such a long time, and the glaze on top of the cookies looked delicious, so I went with it.

Oh my freaking god! These things are seriously the most amazing crunchy holiday cookies in the entire universe! I truly mean this. I think I may order another pint of eggnog just so I can make this biscotti recipe again. Even without the eggnog glaze, which you really shouldn’t leave out, this biscotti has the most amazing eggnog taste.

I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your holidays.

Eggnog Biscotti

Adapted from Oh She Glows

Makes about 21 biscotti sticks

Ingredients

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp. ground nutmeg

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup canola oil

½ cup eggnog

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggnog, oil, and vanilla. Pour the eggnog mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix ingredients until they start to come together. Use your hands to mix the ingredients completely.

Divide the dough into two equal parts (I used a scale to do this). Form each half into a ball. Place on the prepared baking sheet and press to flatten. Use your hands to form each dough ball into a 10x5 inch rectangle (mine may have been a little longer and wider... I tend to not measure rectangles when baking).

Bake the logs for 25-30 minutes. Allow logs to cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes. Slice the logs at a 45 degree angle. Place the slices on their sides and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Flip the logs and bake for another 5 minutes. Allow biscotti sticks to cool completely before glazing.

To make the glaze: combine 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, 2 tbsp. eggnog, and ½ tsp. ground nutmeg. The glaze will be thick. Place the glaze into a ziplock bag and cut a very small tip out of the corner. Pipe the glaze over top of the biscotti. 

Molasses Cookies with Ginger Cream Cheese Filling

I wanted to share this with you on Monday, but after reading so many posts about the victims of Newtown, Connecticut, I didn’t think I could. I was going to make a post saying how my heart goes out to the friends and families of the victims as well as the community of the city, but I couldn’t talk about such tragedy with something happy such as sandwich cookies. I know I’m kind of doing that now, but I feel I should say at least something. So make sure to hug your loved ones just a little longer and harder this holiday season.

I have so many baking ideas for this holiday season, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it all. I’ve even bought eggnog (something I have yet to try, but love the smell of so far) and I don’t even have a recipe for anything with eggnog!

One thing that I can cross off my holiday baking list is gingerbread. I did not make traditional gingerbread men; instead I made gingerbread sandwich cookies! These things are truly amazing. I think I had five (or was it six?) the day I made these. I was a bad girl, but they just kept getting better and better!

The cookie is so soft and bakes up super big and puffy! The gingerbread flavor is really out of this world. Last year I made traditional gingerbread men, but I didn’t really like them because the cookies were crunchy, and if you’re new to this blog, you’ll need to know I had flat and crunchy cookies. Flat and crunchy have no purpose when it comes to cookies.

The ginger cream cheese frosting is the most amazing thing ever. I think cream cheese frosting is my favorite frosting ever because it’s never too sweet, like I find buttercream frosting to be. I couldn’t really detect the ginger in the frosting, but you can see the ginger flecks, and that looks real pretty.

These cookies are actually the first sandwich cookie recipe I have made. There is something so calming about sitting in front of a row of cookies and a bowl of frosting.

Molasses Cookies with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

From The Pastry Affair

Makes 16 sandwich cookies

Ingredients

Molasses Cookies

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking power

¾ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

2 tsp. ground ginger

¼ tsp. ground cloves

½ cup dark brown sugar

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs, room temperature

1/3 cup unsulfured molasses

Ginger Cream Cheese Filling

2 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

3 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

½ tsp. ginger

Pinch of salt

1 cup powdered sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set aside.

To make the cookies: Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices in a medium bowl. Set the bowl aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream together the brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until fully incorporated. Pour in the molasses. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed; the mixture will look a little curdled. Decrease the mixer’s speed to low and gradually add 1/3 of the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Repeat until all the flour has been incorporated. Take a medium-small cookie scoop (I used one that’s about 1 ¼-1 ½ inches in diameter) and portion out the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Space the dough about 2 inches apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes (mine were perfect at 7:55 minutes). Cool the cookies on the tray for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining dough. Allow the cookies to cool completely before filling.

To make the filling: beat the cream cheese and butter until completely incorporated. Add the ginger and salt. Gradually add the sugar. By that I mean at a tbsp. or two at a time. Powdered sugar is a pain to clean when it flies everywhere. Refrigerate the filling for 5-10 minutes. Pile a tsp. or two onto the flat bottoms of half the cooled cookies. Place the remaining unfrosted cookies on top of the frosting. Keep cookies in the fridge in a sealed container.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies

I always forget how much I love gingerbread until the holidays roll around. The funny thing is, like pumpkin puree, I don’t like the smell of molasses. However, it makes one very scrumptious treat!

Now, I’m sure a lot of you are seeing dozens of cookies floating around all the food blogs out there, and I’m not going to be the exception. I love holiday baking, and I’m starting with these awesome cookies.

I came across these chocolate gingerbread cookies while flipping through my holiday cookie edition of Better Homes and Gardens. I couldn’t remember from last year If I liked gingerbread cookies all that much, so I ended up buying (and eating) a package of Pepperidge Farms gingerbread cookies. Once I was reminded how much I lived the flavor of gingerbread, I knew I was going to be making these.

These cookies were real simple to make and even easier to eat. I found myself saying that I would take only two this time, and every time I put my hand in that Santa cookie jar, I pulled out three without fail. I highly suggest making these for a Christmas Cookie Exchange, a gift to family and friends, or even just for the heck of it.

Chocolate Gingerbread Cookies
Adapted from BHG 100 Best Cookies 2011

Ingredients
1 stick butter
¾ cup brown sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup molasses
1 egg
2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 ½ cups semi sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a cookie tray with parchment paper and set it aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until nice a fluffy looking. Add the baking soda, ginger, allspice, and salt. Beat until combined. Beat in the molasses and egg until combined. Don’t worry about the mixture looking chucky and quite frankly gross-looking, it’s going to turn out ok. Slowly add in the flour. Once all the flour has been mixed in, beat on medium-high for about 30 seconds. Turn the speed back down to medium-slow and beat in the chocolate chips.
3. Using a small cookie scoop, portion out the dough onto the lined cookie tray. Careful not to over crowd them. Bake for about 6-8 minutes, you want the cookies to be soft when they come out of the oven. Place the cookie tray on a cooling rack and cool for about a minute of the tray. Take the cookies off the tray and place them on the cooling rack for the duration of the cooling process.

Gingerdoodles

When school is in, I hardly ever have time to bake and by the time I’m done baking something, the sun has gone down and I can’t take any pictures. Now, I know that I could take pictures the next day, but I work every other day, which means no picture taking. However, now that school is out for Winter Break, I can bake to my heart’s content, and take pictures of the things I make, which is part of the fun I think.

And because I am free from school, and it is the holiday season, I’ve been making cookies all week long! They’re not all for me, but for my dad’s side of the family. Last year I filled holiday boxes with cookies and sent them to my aunt and her family, and my grandma, and this year I thought I’d do the same. Let’s start off with these spicy Ginglerdoodle Cookies I found on Lauren’s Latest.

Gingerbread is like one of the essential holiday cookies. It’s not Christmas until you bite into a soft gingerbread man. Even though I love my gingerbread men, I hate rolling out dough. Well, I guess I don’t hate it, I just hate the decorating part that comes after it. I’m generally a patient person, but for some reason, I just can’t deal with making the royal icing and then sitting down for hours just decorating a cookie. That and I don’t have the skill to decorate cookies, oh well.

So these are kind of like Snickerdoodle cookies… ok maybe not so much like them, but they are tossed in sugar before they are baked and they crinkle as they spread. That crackled top really makes for a pretty cookie.  And the spices combined with the molasses takes this cookie over the top with warm holiday feelings.

Gingerdoodles

from Lauren’s Latest
makes about 3.5 dozen

Ingredients
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground cloves
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
½ tsp ground ginger
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup sugar
½ cup dark brown sugar
1 egg, room temperature
¼ cup molasses

¼ cup sugar for rolling

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper; set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking soda, and spices; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and molasses. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and continue to beat for another 2 minutes or until the ingredients are fully mixed.  Reduce the speed to low and slowly add in the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Once all the flour is incorporated, turn the speed to medium and beat for 20-30 seconds.
3. With your hands, roll the dough into 1 inch balls. Place the remaining sugar in a bowl. Roll the cookie dough balls into the sugar a couple at a time. Place on the prepared baking sheet about 1 ½ inches apart. Bake for about 6-8 minutes. Take the cookies out of the oven and let them cool for about 2 or 3 minutes on the ray before moving them to a cooling rack for further cooling.