Cookies
Is there ever a wrong time to bake cookies? They're great for bringing to food-sharing parties, for sending off to friends and relatives who want something yummy from home, to share with neighbors.
Here are six cookie recipes to bake up for gift giving, general sharing, or just plain eating, including Perfect Black and White Cookies and Soft & Chewy Gingerbread Men. Enjoy!
GRANDMA'S PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
This was one of my grandmother's recipes, along with the oatmeal cookie recipe that follows. You can find them in my e-cookbook, Off The Wall Cooking.
Ingredients
1/2 C butter
1/2 C peanut butter
1/2 C sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1-1/4 C flour
3/4 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Directions
Cream butter and peanut butter together. Add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Add egg. Sift flour once before measuring. Sift flour, soda, baking powder, and salt together and add to creamed mixture. Chill dough well, then form into balls the size of walnuts. Place balls on lightly greased baking sheet. Flatten with fork dipped in flour, making criss-cross pattern. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
GRANDMA'S OATMEAL COOKIES
Another one of my grandmother's recipes. When it came to baking, cookies were her specialty. You can also find these in my e-cookbook, Off the Wall Cooking
Ingredients
1 C flour
1 C brown sugar
3 C quick cooking oatmeal (NOT the instant oats!)
1 C butter or margarine
1/4 C boiling water
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
Directions
Mix flour and brown sugar. Add oatmeal; stir. Melt butter; add to dry ingredients. Mix baking soda into boiling water; add to other ingredients, stirring well. Place batter into loaf pan, lined with aluminum foil and place in freeze for several hours. Slice and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
Oatmeal Cookie dough, taken from the freezer; showing first cuts before baking
Then cut down the center, like so:
Placed on parchment paper-covered baking sheet, for easier handling
OLD FASHIONED SUGAR COOKIES
This comes the Food Network Kitchen.Total Time: 4 hr 40 min; Prep: 10 min; Inactive: 4 hr; Cook: 30 min; Yield: 3 dozen cookies, depending on the size of the cutters; Level: Easy
To view this online, click here.
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Colored sugar and milk, for decorating, or Royal Icing, recipe follows
Royal Icing:
2 pounds confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons meringue powder (egg white powder)
Food coloring, as desired
Directions
Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a second large bowl and mix well. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture 1 cup at a time. Chill the dough for 3 to 4 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment. Roll out the dough and cut it into shapes with cookie cutters or a knife. Place the shapes on the prepared cookie sheet. If decorating with colored sugar, brush the cookies with milk and sprinkle with colored sugar (if using royal icing, leave unfinished). Bake until the cookies are just beginning to brown around the edges, 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies.
Remove the cookies to a rack to cool completely. If using royal icing, decorate the cookies as desired.
Royal Icing:
Combine the confectioners' sugar, meringue powder and 3/4 cup water in a large bowl. Mix slowly with an electric mixer until stiff enough to form peaks; the icing should be pure white and thick, but not fluffy and bubbly. If the frosting is over-beaten, it will get aerated which makes it harder to work with. If this happens, let the frosting sit to settle, and then use a rubber spatula to vigorously beat and smooth out the frosting.
Add up to 1 tablespoon food coloring and mix with a rubber spatula until the color is uniform. Gels are best with royal icing. You don't want to thin them with liquid colors. Be careful of adding too much color, which reduces the sheen of the frosting and can break down the consistency of the frosting over a couple of days. Store the icing at room temperature, covered, with plastic wrap on the surface.
Yield: 3-1/2 cups icing
SOFT & CHEWY GINGERBREAD MEN
While gingerbread men are frequently seen as a holiday cookie, there's no reason you can't bake (and share) this any time of year. This comes from The Baker Chick. Adapted this recipe from Baking Illustrated, this recipe makes about 30 3-inch cookies.
To view this online, click here.
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (6 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened slightly
3/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
In food processor workbowl fitted with steel blade, combine the flour, sugar, spices, salt, and baking soda and process until combined, just a few seconds.
Add the butter pieces and pulse until mixture is sandy and looks like a fine meal- no big clumps. (This only took about 15-20 seconds.)
With machine running, gradually add molasses and milk; process until dough comes together.
Scrape dough onto work surface; divide in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll 1/4-inch thick between two large sheets of parchment paper. Leaving dough sandwiched between parchment layers, stack on cookie sheet and freeze until firm, 15 to 20 minutes. (Alternatively, refrigerate dough 2 hours or overnight.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Remove one dough sheet from freezer; place on work surface. Peel off top parchment sheet and lay it back in place. Flip dough over; peel off and discard second parchment layer.
Use cookie cutters to cut dough into men or other shapes. Transfer dough to prepared cookie sheets 1 inch apart.
Gather scraps and chill while you cut out the second sheet of dough. You can keep re-using the scraps, but may need to add some flour and continue to chill the dough. If the dough gets really soft, freeze the whole sheet for 10 minutes before baking.
Bake cookies 8 to 11 minutes or until the edges are set- do not overbake. Cool cookies on sheets 2 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.
Decorate with icing once cooled!
HOLIDAY SUGAR COOKIE CUPS
This is from Betty Crocker, and begins, "You may be the head elf in the kitchen, but if you want to get the little helpers involved, try these Holiday Sugar Cookie Cups. These deliciously cheerful treats are made with Betty Crocker™ Sugar Cookie Mix for that classic sugar cookie flavor, transformed into a red and green bite-sized confection. Don't forget to top it off with Betty Crocker™ Rich & Creamy Frosting. They're festive, fun and an easy way to pass down a holiday-making memory."
Prep Time: 30 minutes; Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes; Servings: 36
To view this online, click here.
Ingredients
1 pouch (17.5 oz) Betty Crocker™ sugar cookie mix
Butter and egg called for on cookie mix pouch for drop cookies
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons red, green and white candy sprinkles
1 container Betty Crocker™ Rich & Creamy vanilla frosting
1-1/2 teaspoons Betty Crocker™ red gel food color
Directions
Heat oven to 375°F. Spray 36 mini muffin cups with cooking spray.
In large bowl, mix cookie mix, softened butter and egg with spoon until soft dough forms. Stir in 1/4 cup candy sprinkles. Shape into 36 (1-1/4-inch) balls. Place in mini muffin cups. Press indentation in center of each with end of wooden spoon.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Immediately repeat indentation into center of each cookie with end of clean wooden spoon to make 1-inch opening, cleaning off end with paper towel when needed. Cool in pan 20 minutes. Loosen edges with small knife if needed. Remove to cooling rack. Cool completely, at least 30 minutes.
In small bowl, place half of the frosting. Tint red with food color. Place large piping bag fitted with medium star tip on its side. Using large icing spatula, spoon remaining vanilla frosting so it covers half of the length of side of piping bag. Carefully spoon red tinted frosting on top. Insert tip into indentation in each cookie cup. Squeeze bag to fill opening, and pipe about 2 heaping teaspoons per cookie cup. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons sprinkles. Store loosely covered at room temperature.
Expert Tips
Have only one mini muffin pan? Refrigerate remaining dough while baking first batch. Cool pan about 10 minutes, then bake rest of dough, adding 1 to 2 minutes to bake time.
Color and sprinkles can be customized for holidays or different events—use your imagination!
LEMON MERINGUE COOKIES
This is from Dorie Greenspan at The New York Times cooking e-newsletter. Dorie wrote, "Like their inspiration, lemon meringue pie, these cookies have three elements. They’re built on simple, slice-and-bake French shortbread cookies, rich, buttery and flavored with vanilla. The shortbread base is almost classic, except that the cookies are baked in muffin tins, so they’re straight-sided and deeply golden brown. The 'filling' is lemon curd, and the topping is crunchy bits of meringue. You get crumbly, velvety and crackly, sweet and tart in every bite. These cookies were created for an imaginary friend, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the hero of 16 Louise Penny novels, and a man who considers lemon meringue divine."
Yield: 24 cookies; Time: 2 hours
This was featured in "A Lemon Meringue Cookie Good Enough to Be Imaginary", and can be found online at https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021686-lemon-meringue-cookies.
Note: If you didn't click on the link to the featured article that this cookie recipe came from (or if you did, but didn't read the article), you really should read it. Dorie Greenspan's article is well worth the read; heck, it's worth several reads. Maybe make up a batch of these, then sit back to enjoy both cookies and the article. (Thanks for both, Dorie!)
Ingredients
For the Meringue:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg white, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon distilled vinegar (or lemon juice)
Pinch of fine sea salt
For the Shortbread:
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into chunks and brought to room temperature, plus more for greasing the muffin tin
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
About 1/3 cup store-bought or homemade lemon curd
Preparation
Make the meringue: Heat oven to 250 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, stir together both sugars.
Working with an electric mixer, beat the egg white, vinegar and salt on medium-high speed until the mixture forms soft peaks, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, beating after each addition. Once the sugar is incorporated, beat 2 minutes more; you’ll have stiff, glossy, white peaks. Put the meringue on the baking sheet and spread it 1/4-inch thick. (It will cover only a small part of the sheet.)
Bake the meringue undisturbed for 35 minutes. Turn off the heat, prop open the oven door and let it dry for 1 hour. When you’re ready to use it, chop it into pieces about the size of chocolate chips. Precision doesn’t matter.
Make the shortbread: Working with a mixer (use the paddle if it’s a stand mixer), beat the butter, both sugars and the salt on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until smooth but not fluffy. On low speed, beat in the yolks, one at a time, followed by the vanilla. Add the flour in three additions, mixing on low until the dough comes together in large clumps. Turn out the dough and knead it into a ball. Cut the ball in half.
Shape each half into a 6-inch log. Wrap it and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (You could also freeze it for up to 2 months; leave it on the counter for 1 hour before baking.)
When you’re ready to bake the cookies, heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 1 or 2 muffin tins with butter (or nonstick baking spray).
Slice each log into 12 rounds (each 1/2-inch thick); drop one into each muffin cup. (If you don’t have enough tins, you can work in batches.)
Bake for 21 to 23 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown around the rims. Transfer the tin(s) to a rack, cool for 5 minutes, then lift the cookies out and onto racks; cool to room temperature.
Just before serving, top each cookie with lemon curd, then top with ample chunks of meringue, pressing them into the curd. The meringue will keep in a cool, dry place for a few days, and the cookies can be kept at room temperature for about 3 days. But once you top the cookies, they’re best eaten soon after.
Here are six cookie recipes to bake up for gift giving, general sharing, or just plain eating, including Perfect Black and White Cookies and Soft & Chewy Gingerbread Men. Enjoy!
GRANDMA'S PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
This was one of my grandmother's recipes, along with the oatmeal cookie recipe that follows. You can find them in my e-cookbook, Off The Wall Cooking.
Ingredients
1/2 C butter
1/2 C peanut butter
1/2 C sugar
1 egg, well beaten
1-1/4 C flour
3/4 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
Directions
Cream butter and peanut butter together. Add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Add egg. Sift flour once before measuring. Sift flour, soda, baking powder, and salt together and add to creamed mixture. Chill dough well, then form into balls the size of walnuts. Place balls on lightly greased baking sheet. Flatten with fork dipped in flour, making criss-cross pattern. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes.
GRANDMA'S OATMEAL COOKIES
Another one of my grandmother's recipes. When it came to baking, cookies were her specialty. You can also find these in my e-cookbook, Off the Wall Cooking
Ingredients
1 C flour
1 C brown sugar
3 C quick cooking oatmeal (NOT the instant oats!)
1 C butter or margarine
1/4 C boiling water
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
Directions
Mix flour and brown sugar. Add oatmeal; stir. Melt butter; add to dry ingredients. Mix baking soda into boiling water; add to other ingredients, stirring well. Place batter into loaf pan, lined with aluminum foil and place in freeze for several hours. Slice and bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.
Oatmeal Cookie dough, taken from the freezer; showing first cuts before baking
Then cut down the center, like so:
Placed on parchment paper-covered baking sheet, for easier handling
OLD FASHIONED SUGAR COOKIES
This comes the Food Network Kitchen.Total Time: 4 hr 40 min; Prep: 10 min; Inactive: 4 hr; Cook: 30 min; Yield: 3 dozen cookies, depending on the size of the cutters; Level: Easy
To view this online, click here.
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Colored sugar and milk, for decorating, or Royal Icing, recipe follows
Royal Icing:
2 pounds confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons meringue powder (egg white powder)
Food coloring, as desired
Directions
Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a second large bowl and mix well. Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture 1 cup at a time. Chill the dough for 3 to 4 hours.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment. Roll out the dough and cut it into shapes with cookie cutters or a knife. Place the shapes on the prepared cookie sheet. If decorating with colored sugar, brush the cookies with milk and sprinkle with colored sugar (if using royal icing, leave unfinished). Bake until the cookies are just beginning to brown around the edges, 10 to 15 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies.
Remove the cookies to a rack to cool completely. If using royal icing, decorate the cookies as desired.
Royal Icing:
Combine the confectioners' sugar, meringue powder and 3/4 cup water in a large bowl. Mix slowly with an electric mixer until stiff enough to form peaks; the icing should be pure white and thick, but not fluffy and bubbly. If the frosting is over-beaten, it will get aerated which makes it harder to work with. If this happens, let the frosting sit to settle, and then use a rubber spatula to vigorously beat and smooth out the frosting.
Add up to 1 tablespoon food coloring and mix with a rubber spatula until the color is uniform. Gels are best with royal icing. You don't want to thin them with liquid colors. Be careful of adding too much color, which reduces the sheen of the frosting and can break down the consistency of the frosting over a couple of days. Store the icing at room temperature, covered, with plastic wrap on the surface.
Yield: 3-1/2 cups icing
SOFT & CHEWY GINGERBREAD MEN
While gingerbread men are frequently seen as a holiday cookie, there's no reason you can't bake (and share) this any time of year. This comes from The Baker Chick. Adapted this recipe from Baking Illustrated, this recipe makes about 30 3-inch cookies.
To view this online, click here.
Ingredients
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup (6 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces and softened slightly
3/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons milk
Instructions
In food processor workbowl fitted with steel blade, combine the flour, sugar, spices, salt, and baking soda and process until combined, just a few seconds.
Add the butter pieces and pulse until mixture is sandy and looks like a fine meal- no big clumps. (This only took about 15-20 seconds.)
With machine running, gradually add molasses and milk; process until dough comes together.
Scrape dough onto work surface; divide in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll 1/4-inch thick between two large sheets of parchment paper. Leaving dough sandwiched between parchment layers, stack on cookie sheet and freeze until firm, 15 to 20 minutes. (Alternatively, refrigerate dough 2 hours or overnight.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Remove one dough sheet from freezer; place on work surface. Peel off top parchment sheet and lay it back in place. Flip dough over; peel off and discard second parchment layer.
Use cookie cutters to cut dough into men or other shapes. Transfer dough to prepared cookie sheets 1 inch apart.
Gather scraps and chill while you cut out the second sheet of dough. You can keep re-using the scraps, but may need to add some flour and continue to chill the dough. If the dough gets really soft, freeze the whole sheet for 10 minutes before baking.
Bake cookies 8 to 11 minutes or until the edges are set- do not overbake. Cool cookies on sheets 2 minutes, then cool on a wire rack.
Decorate with icing once cooled!
HOLIDAY SUGAR COOKIE CUPS
This is from Betty Crocker, and begins, "You may be the head elf in the kitchen, but if you want to get the little helpers involved, try these Holiday Sugar Cookie Cups. These deliciously cheerful treats are made with Betty Crocker™ Sugar Cookie Mix for that classic sugar cookie flavor, transformed into a red and green bite-sized confection. Don't forget to top it off with Betty Crocker™ Rich & Creamy Frosting. They're festive, fun and an easy way to pass down a holiday-making memory."
Prep Time: 30 minutes; Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes; Servings: 36
To view this online, click here.
Ingredients
1 pouch (17.5 oz) Betty Crocker™ sugar cookie mix
Butter and egg called for on cookie mix pouch for drop cookies
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons red, green and white candy sprinkles
1 container Betty Crocker™ Rich & Creamy vanilla frosting
1-1/2 teaspoons Betty Crocker™ red gel food color
Directions
Heat oven to 375°F. Spray 36 mini muffin cups with cooking spray.
In large bowl, mix cookie mix, softened butter and egg with spoon until soft dough forms. Stir in 1/4 cup candy sprinkles. Shape into 36 (1-1/4-inch) balls. Place in mini muffin cups. Press indentation in center of each with end of wooden spoon.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light golden brown. Immediately repeat indentation into center of each cookie with end of clean wooden spoon to make 1-inch opening, cleaning off end with paper towel when needed. Cool in pan 20 minutes. Loosen edges with small knife if needed. Remove to cooling rack. Cool completely, at least 30 minutes.
In small bowl, place half of the frosting. Tint red with food color. Place large piping bag fitted with medium star tip on its side. Using large icing spatula, spoon remaining vanilla frosting so it covers half of the length of side of piping bag. Carefully spoon red tinted frosting on top. Insert tip into indentation in each cookie cup. Squeeze bag to fill opening, and pipe about 2 heaping teaspoons per cookie cup. Sprinkle with remaining 2 teaspoons sprinkles. Store loosely covered at room temperature.
Expert Tips
Have only one mini muffin pan? Refrigerate remaining dough while baking first batch. Cool pan about 10 minutes, then bake rest of dough, adding 1 to 2 minutes to bake time.
Color and sprinkles can be customized for holidays or different events—use your imagination!
LEMON MERINGUE COOKIES
This is from Dorie Greenspan at The New York Times cooking e-newsletter. Dorie wrote, "Like their inspiration, lemon meringue pie, these cookies have three elements. They’re built on simple, slice-and-bake French shortbread cookies, rich, buttery and flavored with vanilla. The shortbread base is almost classic, except that the cookies are baked in muffin tins, so they’re straight-sided and deeply golden brown. The 'filling' is lemon curd, and the topping is crunchy bits of meringue. You get crumbly, velvety and crackly, sweet and tart in every bite. These cookies were created for an imaginary friend, Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, the hero of 16 Louise Penny novels, and a man who considers lemon meringue divine."
Yield: 24 cookies; Time: 2 hours
This was featured in "A Lemon Meringue Cookie Good Enough to Be Imaginary", and can be found online at https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1021686-lemon-meringue-cookies.
Note: If you didn't click on the link to the featured article that this cookie recipe came from (or if you did, but didn't read the article), you really should read it. Dorie Greenspan's article is well worth the read; heck, it's worth several reads. Maybe make up a batch of these, then sit back to enjoy both cookies and the article. (Thanks for both, Dorie!)
Ingredients
For the Meringue:
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons confectioners’ sugar
1 large egg white, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon distilled vinegar (or lemon juice)
Pinch of fine sea salt
For the Shortbread:
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), cut into chunks and brought to room temperature, plus more for greasing the muffin tin
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
About 1/3 cup store-bought or homemade lemon curd
Preparation
Make the meringue: Heat oven to 250 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a small bowl, stir together both sugars.
Working with an electric mixer, beat the egg white, vinegar and salt on medium-high speed until the mixture forms soft peaks, about 3 minutes. Add the sugar mixture 1 tablespoon at a time, beating after each addition. Once the sugar is incorporated, beat 2 minutes more; you’ll have stiff, glossy, white peaks. Put the meringue on the baking sheet and spread it 1/4-inch thick. (It will cover only a small part of the sheet.)
Bake the meringue undisturbed for 35 minutes. Turn off the heat, prop open the oven door and let it dry for 1 hour. When you’re ready to use it, chop it into pieces about the size of chocolate chips. Precision doesn’t matter.
Make the shortbread: Working with a mixer (use the paddle if it’s a stand mixer), beat the butter, both sugars and the salt on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until smooth but not fluffy. On low speed, beat in the yolks, one at a time, followed by the vanilla. Add the flour in three additions, mixing on low until the dough comes together in large clumps. Turn out the dough and knead it into a ball. Cut the ball in half.
Shape each half into a 6-inch log. Wrap it and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. (You could also freeze it for up to 2 months; leave it on the counter for 1 hour before baking.)
When you’re ready to bake the cookies, heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 1 or 2 muffin tins with butter (or nonstick baking spray).
Slice each log into 12 rounds (each 1/2-inch thick); drop one into each muffin cup. (If you don’t have enough tins, you can work in batches.)
Bake for 21 to 23 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown around the rims. Transfer the tin(s) to a rack, cool for 5 minutes, then lift the cookies out and onto racks; cool to room temperature.
Just before serving, top each cookie with lemon curd, then top with ample chunks of meringue, pressing them into the curd. The meringue will keep in a cool, dry place for a few days, and the cookies can be kept at room temperature for about 3 days. But once you top the cookies, they’re best eaten soon after.
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