Speculoos & Chocolate Button Cookies for Santa

I have a Christmastime confession for you. Are you ready?

Many years ago when I was selling cookies, I was so exhausted from making Christmas cookies for other people that we set out a store-bought cookie assortment for Santa at our house.  How terrible is that?  A cookie maker feeding store-bought cookies to Santa?

I remember it clearly because as kiddo took each cookie from the package to place on Santa's plate, he took a bite out of each one. ;)  (He is his mother's child.)

This year Santa is getting these: Speculoos & Chocolate Button Cookies.  
(That is if I don't eat them all first.)

They feature my all-time favorite bittersweet chocolate for eating straight: Lindt Dark Swiss Bittersweet Chocolate Bar.  I keep it in my "chocolate basket" in the pantry at all times.  The size of the pieces just happen to be perfect for the cookies.

Speculoos:  I know it sounds funny, but I bet you've eaten it before.  You know those crunchy cinnamon cookies they serve on Delta Airlines?  Those are Speculoos cookies; the brand is Biscoff.  You can also buy Speculoos spread....which is like peanut butter MADE FROM COOKIES.  Look for Biscoff brand or Trader Joe's Cookie Butter.

The cookies are a little crispy around the edges, chewy in the center, covered in cinnamon-sugar, and topped off with the perfect piece of Lindt chocolate.  It's the chocolate that just catapults them from really yummy to ohmygoodness so delicious.

Let's make them.

Speculoos & Chocolate Button Cookies

{yield: 40 cookies}

1 & 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, cut into chunks
3/4 cup Speculoos spread
1 teaspoon cinnamon sugar, plus more for rolling
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
2 TBSP milk
2 Lindt Bittersweet Chocolate Bars, divided into pieces (you'll have leftover chocolate)

Cinnamon-Sugar (if you don't have it on hand)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 TBSP cinnamon (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 375.  Line cookies sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl and set aside.

Cream the butter and Speculoos spread together until smooth.  Beat in the sugars.  Add in the egg and milk and beat until combined.

Add in the flour mixture on low, in three additions.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Roll into 1 to 1.5 inch balls, then roll through the extra cinnamon-sugar.

Bake for 9-10 minutes or until done.  Remove from the oven and let sit on the cookie sheet for 1 minute.  (The cookies will be slightly poufy when they come out of the oven, then deflate.)

Press a piece of chocolate onto the top of each cookie.

Remove the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Serve to Santa.

PS...I have it on good authority that if you put a few Lindt LINDOR truffles out with the cookies, Santa leaves extra goodies.

{This post was sponsored by Lindt Chocolate.  Thank you, Lindt.}

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 
Eat lots of cookies!

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Stove Top Pasta with Sausage and Peppers #WeekdaySupper

      A few months ago I made penne with sausage and peppers and it was delicious.  The flavors were great and it was an easy weeknight meal.  The only problem was that it baked in the oven so it took longer then I wanted it to.  I wanted to try a stove top version that was ready in under 25 minutes.  That's why this pasta dish is perfect for #WeekdaySupper.

      I also added in some onions and fresh tomatoes to this recipe which really enhanced the flavor.  The sauce was so creamy and delicious and the spicy andouille sausage worked well against the cream cheese in the sauce.  I think I might like this version better then the baked version!

Stove Top Pasta with Sausage and Peppers (adapted from Quick Recipes and Kitchen Tips)
12 oz. bow tie pasta
1/2 lb. andouille sausage
1 T. olive oil
1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1 small onion, thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 t. Italian herbs
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
24 oz. jar marinara sauce
4 oz. cream cheese, cubed


1.  Cook the pasta according to the package directions.  Drain and keep warm.

2.  Crumble the sausage into a large skillet and saute for 5-6 minutes or until it has browned.  Add the olive oil, red pepper, green pepper, and onions to the skillet and saute for 4-5 minutes.

3.  Add the garlic cloves, Italian herbs, and tomatoes to the pan and cook for 3 minutes.  Stir in the marinara sauce and cream cheese.  Mix until the cream cheese is melted.  

4.  Serve the sausage and peppers sauce over top of the bow tie pasta.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese if desired. 

Check out the lineup of #WeekdaySupper for this week:

Monday - Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks - Stovetop Pasta with Sausage and Peppers

Tuesday - Sue's Nutrition Buzz - Roasted Salmon & Mango Salsa Lettuce Wraps

Wednesday - In The Kitchen With Audrey and Maurene - Spaghetti and Better Jarred Sauce

Thursday - Happy Baking Days - Spiced Pumpkin Soup

Friday - Alida's Kitchen - Roasted Red Pepper Pasta

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Candy Cane Cake

Candy Cane Cake

This cake is a favorite of mine to bring to Holiday dinners and parties especially if they are all ages celebrations. Understandably kids will be quite happy with one of the cupcakes especially but most adults go mad for them too. It's no wonder, with such a moist scratch cake topped with plenty of peppermint marshmallow frosting that the sight of it brings out the wide-eyed kid in everyone. Merry Christmas everyone!

Candy Cane Cupcakes

Candy Cane Cake

Recipe by Barry C. Parsons

Candy Cane Cake - this outstanding scratch cake is a kid favorite around here at Christmas time. My kids make the cupcakes to take along to their seasonal parties and they are very often the first items to get gobbled up.

Prep time: Approximately 20 minutes
Cook time: 35 minutes
Total time: Approximately 1 hour.
Yield: One 9 inch double layer cake or 3 dozen cupcakes

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup vegetable shortening at room temperature
• 2 tsp peppermint extract
• 3 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1/4 cup crushed candy canes
• 1/4 cup mixed red and green candy sprinkles
• 6 roughly chopped candy canes

Directions

1. Grease and flour two 9 inch cake pans and line the bottoms with 2 circles of parchment paper.
2. Sift together both flours, baking soda. baking powder, salt and sugar, Set aside.
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer beat together the vegetable oil, shortening and peppermint extract. Beat well at high speed with whisk attachment until light and fluffy
4. Beat the eggs in one at a time.
5. Fold in the dry ingredients alternately with the buttermilk.
6. I always add dry ingredients in three divisions and liquid ingredients in 2 divisions. It is very important to begin and end the additions with the dry ingredients. Do not over mix the batter. As soon as it has no lumps in the batter, fold in the 1/4 cup crushed candy canes and sprinkles, then pour into the two prepared 9 inch cake pans.
7. Bake at 325 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning out onto wire racks to cool completely.
8. I've frosted this cake with Marshmallow Frosting with a little peppermint extract added but any good vanilla frosting is great on this cake. You can substitute a little peppermint extract to taste in your favorite frosting recipe but add just a little at a time, it's potent stuff. Find the marshmallow frosting recipe with our Black and White Cake.
9. If making cupcakes I find that making 1/2 of the frosting recipe is sufficient.
10. Sprinkle the roughly chopped candy canes over the top of the cake or cupcakes.

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30+ Gingerbread Recipes

     Can you believe Christmas is only 3 days away?  I feel like this year it has come faster then ever before.  I don't know if it's because Thanksgiving was late this year or because I did a crazy amount of baking in December.  How much baking?  Well I ended up taking 24 holiday orders which totaled 41 dozen decorated sugar cookies, 9 dozen other cookies, 2 dozen fudge, 6 dozen hot cocoa on a stick, 8 dozen chocolate covered pretzels, and a few miscellaneous items.   Needless to say, I'm ready for my days off this week!

      Since Christmas is almost here, I wanted my last round up of the year to be holiday themed.  Nothing says Christmas like gingerbread and I've gathered quite a lot of delicious recipes!  The funny part is, I've never made anything gingerbread before last week!  As I was looking through my recipe index I couldn't believe I've never made anything with gingerbread flavor because I sure to eat a lot of it!

Gingerbread Recipes

1.  Gingerbread Cut Out Cookies from bake.love.give

2.  Gingerbread Molasses Cookies from Running to the Kitchen

3.  Chocolate-Stuffed Gingerbread Cookies from i heart eating

4.  Gingerbread Monkey Bread

5. Gingerbread Cupcakes from Organized Island

6.  Double Ginger Apple Gingerbread from Healthy.Delicious

7.  White Chocolate Gingerbread Biscotti from Chocolate Moosey

8.  Gingerbread Cupcakes from Shugary Sweets

9.   Gingerbread Spice Caramels from bake.love.give

10.  Gingerbread Baby Cakes from Karen's Kitchen Stories

11.  Spicy Chocolate Ginger Guys from Snappy Gourmet

12.  Three Ginger Gingersnaps from bake.love.give

13.  Gingerbread Pancakes from i heart eating

14.  Gingersnap S'mores from Healthy.Delicious

15.  Gingerbread Spice Syrup (for Gingerbread Lattes) from An Edible Mosaic

16.  Gingerbread Men Cookies from Chocolate, Chocolate, and More

17.  Apple Butter Gingerbread Loaf from Dizzy Busy and Hungry

18.  Gingerbread Cupcakes with Orange Icing from Noble Pig

19.  Gingerbread Popcorn from An Edible Mosaic

20.  Cocoa Ginger Crisps from Chocolate, Chocolate, and More
21.  Gingerbread Donuts with Vanilla Bean Glaze from All Day I Dream About Food 
22.  Gingerbread Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting from Busy in Brooklyn
23.  Apple and Red Currant Cobbler with Gingerbread Topping from Kitchen Tested
24.  Gingerbread Rice Krispie Treats from Shugary Sweets
25.  Gingerbread Waffles from The Kitchen is My Playground
26.  Gingerbread Cinnamon Rolls from Love From the Oven
27.  Gingerbread Pancakes from Growing up Gabel
28.  Chocolate Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting from Chocolate Moosey
29.  Gingerbread Waffles with Maple Pecan Syrup from Canadian Tire Kitchen Crew
30.  Gingerbread Whoopie Pies from diethood
31.  Gingerbread Cake with Whiskey Frosting from Savour Flare
32.  Gingerbread Toaster Pastries with Bourbon Pear Filling from Eat the Love
33.  Holiday Gingerbread Loaves from Canadian Tire Kitchen Crew

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Winter Whites

Winter Whites

Here is the last of my remaining holiday treat ideas that didn't quite make it to the blog before Christmas. This is another old family favorite no-bake recipe. Again, my dear old Mudder is the guest chef because I stole these out of her freezer to take the pic! Thanks Mom!

Originally published Jan 7, 2010.

2013 update. The new photo above shows a batch of Winter Whites made by my teenage daughter Olivia, who now keeps us well supplied with this family favourite during the holidays. She loves to eat these straight from the freezer!

In a medium saucepan over medium low heat combine:

¾ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Very quickly whisk in

3 beaten eggs

and cook for about a minute whisking constantly. Remove from heat and add quickly fold in:

3 cups graham wafer crumbs

1 cup coconut

2 ½ cups mini marshmallow

In a 9x13 inch baking pan, line the bottom of the pan with graham wafer crackers. Spread the prepared mixture evenly over the crackers and chill well for a couple of hours or overnight. Top with whipped cream, cut in squares and serve. These freeze very well but you might like to use a non-dairy whipped topping if you want to freeze them with the cream already on them. If not, freeze them without the whipped cream and just add it before serving.

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Caramel stuffed snickerdoodles

Historically, I have never been a big proponent of stuffing cookies with other things. It's not that I don't like eating them, because I do, but my big issue is that it just tastes too long. I have a hard time shaping the dough around the filling since my cookies don't usually turn out as pretty as I'd like. Also, my cookies tend to spring leaks so they get pretty ugly (and messy).

I made an exception to this and on a whim decided to bake up some caramel stuffed snickerdoodles. I hadn't made any snickerdoodles this year and thought that a caramel stuffed one would be mighty tasty. I already had pre-packaged caramels in the pantry so I used those. The hardest part about making these cookies was unwrapping the caramels - the shaping part was easy since the dough was pliable and forgiving.

This was the second type of cookies that I sent to my recipient for the online cookie exchange. I heard that she and her fiance enjoyed them both. One bad thing about these cookies is that the caramel hardened pretty quickly so they were quite chewy. I'd recommend eating these cookies while they are warm (you can always microwave them for 15 seconds to soften them up if needed). One other nitpicky thing is that the caramel leaked to the bottom of the cookie. If you want to help prevent them from leaking, you can turn the cookies upside down while they are cooling.

Hope the tips I provided above are helpful. These were very yummy cookies, and I'd definitely make them again.
Caramel stuffed snickerdoodles

• 2 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
• 1 cups (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 36 unwrapped caramels (you can use homemade as well)
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl. Put butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Mix in eggs. Reduce speed to low; gradually mix in flour mixture.

Stir together cinnamon and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar in a small bowl. Using a cookie scoop (or a spoon), scoop out portions of dough and flatten them with your hand. Place an unwrapped caramel in the middle and wrap the dough around it completely. Then shape dough into balls and roll in cinnamon sugar. Space 3 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, 12 to 15 minutes (mine baked for 12). Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored between layers of parchment in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

Yield: I halved the recipe above, used a medium cookie scoop and got 18 cookies

Source: Adapted from my snickerdoodle post

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Beep! Beep! It's Christmas!

 
Guys, I've had this cookie cutter for YEARS.  It intimidated me.  Every year after Christmas I would think to myself, "next year, I'll use that cutter."  And, the next year rolled around and I just couldn't get the design quite right.

This year, though, the King Arthur Flour holiday catalog featured...Christmas Truck Cookies!!!  (After my last post, you guys might think all I do is sit around reading catalogs.)

Armed with inspiration from King Arthur Flour, I broke out my cookie cutter and went to work.

To make Christmas Tree Truck cookies, you'll need: 

 

• truck cookies, using this recipe (similar cutter here...and on sale!)
  
• royal icing tinted with AmeriColor super black, super red (two shades), egg yellow, grey (made with black), leaf green, chocolate brown, and bright white
• disposable icing bags
• squeeze bottles
• decorating tips (#2, #3) and coupler
• meringue powder
• small paintbrush
• white sanding sugar

Use a #2 tips to outline the wheels (black) and truck body (darker red).. Reserve some of this red piping icing for later.

Thin the black, light red, grey and yellow icings with water, a bit at a time, stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a thick syrup.  You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand two." Four is too thick, one is too thin.  Count of 2-3 is good.  Cover with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a rubber spatula to pop any large air bubbles that have formed. Transfer to squeeze bottles.

Fill in the outlines with thinned icing.  Use a toothpick to guide into corners and pop large air bubbles.


Let the cookies dry for at least one hour.


Use a #2 tip to outline the wheel wells (fenders?) in the darker red icing.  Pipe a line across the truck body and one for the door.


Thin the dark red icing as above and fill in the outlines.

Use a #3 tip to add centers to the wheels in white.  

Let the cookies dry uncovered, 6-8 hours, or overnight.

Once the cookies are completely dry, combine equal parts meringue powder and water, and brush the mixture onto the wheel wells and piped detail lines. Sprinkle on the sanding sugar and shake off the excess.

Use a #2 tip to pipe branches for the trees in green.  I made one layer, then when back over and added several more on top.

Use a #2 tip to add a truck with brown icing.

Do you have any cookie cutters stashed away that intimidate you just a little bit?  

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