Snickerdoodles

Ah, cinnamon... so delicious. The nice thing about these cookies is that you can easily adjust the level of cinnamon. The worst part of baking these cookies is that sugar burns and the smoke alarms do not approve of this fact. That can be avoided by making the cookies smaller and turning on the oven vent fan.

Snickerdoodles are not very photogenic

We have now reached cookie recipe 5 of 11. This cookie is a more recent addition to my Christmas cookie baking spree. I don't even make it yearly. I sometimes have trouble with the snickerdoodles getting rock hard. Luckily they turned out  nicely this time. I'm guessing the trick is to not over-bake!

Snickerdoodles (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C butter (softened)
1/2 C shortening
2 eggs
2 t cream of tartar
1 t baking soda
2 1/4 C flour
2T sugar
2t cinnamon

Cream together the sugar, butter, and shortening.

Add the eggs and mix them in nicely.

Toss in the cream of tartar and soda. Mix it all up. Let the flour join the party and let it mingle thoroughly.

In a separate bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. You can adjust the amount of cinnamon depending on the preference of the sugar (or your tastebuds, which ever).

Take the cookie dough and make balls that are mostly the same size. Roll these balls in the cinnamoned sugar. I wanted larger cookies, so I made boulders of cookie dough.

The dough will melt down into a flat disk, so place the dough balls at least 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Further apart if you made boulders.

Bake at 400 for 8 to 10 minutes for tablespoonish sized balls and 16 minutes or so for boulders. The time will vary. After the dough melts into the nice disk shape, they will be fluffy. The cookies are finished baking when the fluff falls out. Don't over cook them or you will make rocks instead of cookies.

Remove immediately from the baking sheet and cool on a cooling rack. The bottom of the cookies will look burnt if you used a lot of cinnamon or made large cookies. This is fine. It gives it a bit of a caramelized flavor.

This Cake Is Bananas

Do you know how amazingly delicious banana cake is? Why didn't anyone tell me? This banana cake is tasty like banana bread, just about a thousand times better. The cinnamon icing is an awesome touch. Seriously, go bake this cake and eat a lot of it. You won't regret it. Well... if you are allergic to bananas you might.

Can you guess how many recipes I have that contain bananas? No, no. More than that. Goodness, don't be silly. It's around 23. So, now you've been warned.

Banana Cake (cinnamon icing below) (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2/3 C butter (softened)
1 1/2 C sugar
2 egg yolks
1 C mashed bananas
1 t vanilla
2 C flour
1 1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 egg whites
1/2 C hot water
1 t baking soda

Do these things first and set aside: Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mash 1 cup of bananas (approximately 2 bananas). Heat 1/2 C water in the microwave, leave in microwave until needed. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

Cream together the butter, sugar, egg yolks, mashed bananas, and vanilla. You can cream these together all at once or you can add one ingredient at a time.

Add the flour mixture and mix until well combined. Add the baking soda to the hot water, stir with a spoon to ensure that it is completely dissolved. Mix the hot soda water in with the batter.

Fold the egg whites into the batter. Do not over mix!

Pour the cake batter into a 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Check it around 25 minutes by poking it with a toothpick. If the toothpick comes out clean, it has finished baking.

Let cool completely in pan or remove the cake from the pan (after a few minutes) and cool on a cooling rack.

When the cake is nearly cooled, make the following cinnamon icing.

Cinnamon Icing
2 T butter
1/4 C milk
2 C powdered sugar
3/4 t cinnamon

Heat the milk and butter over low heat until butter is completely melted and the milk is steamy. Place the powdered sugar and cinnamon in a bowl.

When the milk is warmed, pour approximately half of the milk mixture into the powdered sugar. Mix well. Add more milk until it is a consistency you like. It may seem runny, but the icing will cool quickly and thicken quite a bit. I'm guessing I used around 2/3 of the buttery milk.

Pour and spread the cinnamon icing on the banana cake

Cookie Press Cookies (AKA Spritz Cookies)

Cookie press (or spritz) cookie dough is basically a soft butter cookie dough that is used in a cookie press. The cookies are then decorated with sugars or maraschino cherries and baked. An alternative is to bake the cookies and then decorate with a sugar icing. The dough can be colored or flavored. There are many possibilities. I took the easy way (by request) and sprinkled colored sugars on the cookies before baking.

I can’t think of any time I’ve made these cookies that isn’t Christmas time.  My cookie press came with 16 or so different disks to make cookies with. As a result, I’ve only ever used the Christmas themed disks. This time I went for pumpkins, umbrellas, hearts, pinwheels, and butterflies!

Cookie Press Cookies (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

2 C butter or margarine

2 C sugar

4 egg yolks

1 t vanilla

4 C flour

Cream together the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla.

Mix in 2 cups of flour with the mixer. Remove the mixing bowl from the mixer and mix in the remaining flour by hand. If the dough seems too sticky, slowly add more flour.

Place cookie dough into the press according to the directions that came with it. Make cookies!

Bake the cookies for 10 minutes at 400 degrees. The edges of the cookies will be lightly browned (and so will the bottoms!). Let cool for a minute before transferring the cookies to the cooling rack.

Crumb Cake

Just like the fudge recipes, I have over 10 recipes for crumb or coffee cakes. They are all very different from each other. I wish I could talk to the people who wrote up the recipes to see if I'm doing it right... because this crumb cake turned out rather dense. I do like it, however. I think it is mainly due to the "dash of  nutmeg". This crumb cake has a very Christmas-y taste.

The recipe says to bake this for "about 1 hour", but I only baked mine for 40 minutes. I think baking it for a shorter amount of time may allow it to retain more moisture. The batter is very thick and sticky, so I'm not sure. Let me know if you try this recipe and how it turns out!

Crumb Cake(Printer-friendly PDF Version)
1 C sugar
3 T melted butter
2 eggs
1 C milk
1 t vanilla
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
dash of nutmeg
3 C flour

Cream together the sugar, butter, and eggs.

Stir in the milk and vanilla. Add the baking powder, salt, dash of nutmeg, and flour. Mix well. Pour batter into a 8 inch x 12 inch pan

Crumb Mixture
6 T sugar
4 T melted butter
4 T flour
1 T cinnamon

Mix together. Sprinkle on top of the batter.

Bake at 350 for "about 1 hour" or until done. (Keep an eye on it so it doesn't over bake!)

Chocolate Crinkles

These cookies are amazing if you like chocolate. They almost taste like brownie bites covered in powdered sugar. I actually prefer these instead of brownies!

This recipe comes from a cookbook that a friend gave me many, many years ago. I have made these every Christmas since receiving the cook book. They are pretty awesome, you should give this recipe a try!

Chocolate Crinkles (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
4 oz unsweetened baking chocolate (melted, cooled)
1/2 C vegetable oil
2 C sugar
2 t vanilla
4 eggs
1/2 t salt
2 t baking powder
2 C flour
a small bowl full of powdered sugar (around 1/2 a cup)

Put the chocolate, oil, sugar, and vanilla in a mixer. Mix well until it is well blended and gritty.

Mix in the eggs one at a time. This will make the batter smooth.

Add the salt, baking powder, and flour. The salt is important to add since it helps bring out the chocolate flavor! Mix until well blended. The dough will very soft and sticky.

Place the cookie dough into a plastic storage container and chill completely in the refrigerator. I usually chill the batter overnight. Three or four hours should do fine, though.

After the dough is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator. Acquire your bowl full of powdered sugar.

Roll the cookie down into balls and cover them completely with powdered sugar. I recommend filling three cookie sheets with cookie dough balls and then placing the container of dough back in the refrigerator. The dough will be soft and sticky quickly!

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet for a minute before removing to a cooling rack. The cooling for a minute is optional, but makes them less likely to fall apart!

The cookie sheet will probably have a circle of baked cookie residue on it after you remove the cookies. Gently scrape this off before adding more cookie dough to it.

I think this made approximately 5 dozen cookies.

Note: I use the Nestle pre-melted baking chocolate.