Cadbury Mini Egg Cookies
If it seems like Easter snuck up on us this year, you’re right. Depending on the timing of the full moon and the equinox each year, Easter can fall on a Sunday anywhere between March 24 and April 25. So even if it doesn’t yet feel like spring, hippity hoppity, Easter’s on its way and time for spring baking! To get warmed up, and while deciding what to make for Easter day, I made these two versions of what Constellation Inspiration calls “the best Easter cookies.” A fudgy brownie version and a crackle verson both with Cadbury Mini Eggs. I had to make both to determine which one was truly the best.
World Peace Cookies
I may have just made the world’s best tasting cookie. It’s part chocolate sable and part chocolate shortbread. World Peace Cookies have been on my list to bake for a very long time. I woke up a couple days ago and suddenly remembered them. The horrific loss of life and atrocities currently going on in the Middle East may have subconsciously been telling me that today was the day I would finally make World Peace Cookies.
Homemade Marshmallows in Salted Toasted Rocky Road Ice Cream
My journey to rocky road ice cream began on a (yes another) rainy and dreary spring weekend when I was trying to come up with a new cookie to send to my marshmallow-loving sister for her birthday. I’d recently fell in love with making meringue (and wielding my kitchen torch), plus s’mores cookies seem to be having a moment. In the past I’ve made a copycat version of a local bakery’s s’mores cookie that has a whole graham cracker baked along the bottom of a chocolate chip cookie and topped with a marshmallow, but I wanted something different. I turned to my copy of 100 Cookies (#90 to be exact), to see what Sarah Kieffer would do. Turns out that she rolls balls of chocolate chip cookie dough in crushed graham crackers mixed with sugar and melted butter. Then she suggests turning to page 284 and making homemade marshmallows for the tops – and toasting them. Decision made. I was making these cookies. And left with too many marshmallows, I naturally had to make rocky road ice cream. It’s a bit of a “when you give a mouse a cookie” conundrum. Anyhow, all good paths lead to ice cream. While the jury may be out on the s’mores cookies, the marshmallows were definitely superior to mass-manufactured, and the case is closed when it comes to Salted Toasted Rocky Road Ice Cream.
Lemon Meringue Cookies
Whenever I see a lemon meringue pie, I picture my mom half a century ago opening the oven door and carefully placing her meringue-topped pie in the oven to toast. Sadly, lemon meringue was never my favorite pie and I stayed far away from that wobbly egg white concoction on top. I don’t remember even trying this pie as lemon and rhubarb were not high on my list as a kid. I’m pretty sure that mom’s lemon pie of yesteryear consisted of cook-and-serve lemon Jell-o pudding. Child me always went for the pies topped with whipped cream over meringue. However, I didn’t realize that not all meringue is created equal! The adult me loves lemon desserts. With spring in the air, I decided to make lemon meringue cookies. This sounded perfect since I didn’t need an entire pie. However, I didn’t pay attention to the meringue part of the recipe until I was whisk-deep into making it. Consequently, it took me three tries to make my meringue.
Olive Oil Sugar Cookies with Blood Orange Glaze
I don’t let a Valentine’s Day go by without making at least one special sweet. The first thing I made this year is a fancy schmancy adult take on sugar cookies from one of my favorite cookie queens Sarah Kieffer. I cut her olive oil pistachio sugar cookies into hearts, dunked them in a blood-orange glaze and dusted the corners with pulverized freeze-dried strawberries and pistachios.
Red (& Green) Velvet Christmas Sugar Cookies
Every year I like to make a new holiday cookie. When I saw the vivid colors of Sarah Kieffer’s take on Red (and Green Velvet) Sugar Cookies, I couldn’t resist. I knew I had to make these bright Christmas-colored beauties. Sarah’s Baking for the Holidays book has a recipe for red velvet cookies, but she takes it a step further in this recipe and bakes the cream cheese into the cookies. And if you prefer your velvet green over red, there’s a mint variety as well. Put these out on Christmas Eve and you’ll be Santa’s favorite.
Baking all the Christmas Cookies
Family and friends aside, Christmas isn’t Christmas without the decorating, gift buying/wrapping and cookie baking. I’m happy to say that my decorating and most of my shopping were done the first week of December. So while I waited for the supply chain to deliver (or “find” in the case of Fed Ex) my goods, I sorted through many a cookie recipe to distill my 2021 baking selection and make my list of ingredients in preparation for the Brandt family cookie party (aka fiasco or chaos depending on your perspective). A houseful of loud, apron-clad women (and a few men) gathered at one of my sister’s houses last weekend. A medley of Christmas carols, holiday movies and KitchenAid mixers competing in the background made for a crazy-fun day in the kitchen. We made and sampled Salted Chocolate Gingerbread Men, Lemon Sables, Peanut Butter Cup Cookies, Salted Chocolate Chunk Shortbread, Glazed Ginger Cookies and the obligatory Frosted Sugar Cookies.
Peanut-Butter Brownie Cookies from 100 Cookies
Move over pumpkin, the neighborhood kids want peanut butter and chocolate for Halloween. A recent article in USA Today shares data from CandyStore.com that says America’s favorite overall Halloween candy is Reese’s Peanut Buter Cups. What’s not clear is if all the Reese’s variations are included in this count. In case you haven’t noticed, Hershey’s couldn’t stop at peanut butter cups (available in mini, regular and king size). Anyone who’s ever seen the E.T. movie has a soft spot for Reese’s Pieces. Today, you can lure E.T. with peanut butter cups stuffed with Reese’s Pieces, pretzels, potato chips, and even crunchy cookie bits. I was always partial to the Nutrageous bar, which is hard to find in stores. All this to say that I’ve been craving some peanut butter and chocolate and so turned to my 100 Cookies book. There it was on page 45, Sarah Kieffer’s #9 cookie called Brownie-Cookie with the option of dolloping a spoonful of peanut butter on top before baking. I was hooked. All I needed now was some more peanut butter in my chocolate. I added Reese’s Pieces, M&M’s Peanut Butter candies and some googly eyes. And a fine Halloween cookie was born.
French Silk Pie Bars
I’ve seen many mentions of and recipes for “French Silk Pie” in cookbooks and online over the years and never really gave it much thought. After all, I have a chocolate cream pie made of melted candy bars in my recipe vault handed down from a family member that’s a crowd pleaser and super easy to make. So, what led me to make French Silk Pie Bars? It all started a few months back when I posted my Brown Sugar Cookies followed by Neapolitan cookies, both from Sarah Kieffer’s 100 Cookies book. With so many cookies in the cookiesphere, I proposed the idea of making a new cookie each month and asked for requests. In response, my friend Nancy suggested Cookie #63 - French Silk Pie Bars. (What?! A cookie that involves pie crust?) Being easily distracted, sadly I did not follow through on making a new cookie in June or developing a list. (Please send me your requests now!) But I’m happy to report that I’m back on track (barely). Thanks to Nancy’s visit on July 29, I snuck in the French Silk Pie Bars as the July cookie.
Neapolitan cookies (times two)
There’s something nostalgic about Neapolitan ice cream. I remember my dad opening up and unfolding the rectangular cartons of the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice cream and cutting big slices that consisted of equal portions of each flavor. Neapolitan actually refers to belonging to, or characteristic of Naples, Italy. The associated tri-color may have originally included pistachio (instead of chocolate) to represent the colors of the Italian flag. To this day, there seems to be a debate on the correct order of flavors and the correct order to eat the flavors! When we lived in Arizona, my nanny would buy Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches for the kids. They would methodically eat one flavor at a time. White or vanilla was winter; chocolate or brown was fall; and strawberry or pink was summer. Kids’ imaginations are great. I guess we didn’t have spring in Arizona—winter went straight to summer apparently in their minds! Regardless of which order you prefer the three flavors to appear in your Neapolitan treats, to me, it’s more about the nostalgia than the actual taste. When I saw Neapolitan Cookies #70 in Sarah Kieffer’s 100 Cookies book, I knew I had to make them.
Brown sugar cookies with brown-butter cream cheese frosting
I’m so excited to share my new cookie discovery with you all — Brown Sugar Cookies! Everyone is familiar with sugar cookies. Plain, sprinkled, frosted. Rumor has it that The Pioneer Woman’s husband prefers sugar cookies made from tubes of store-bought refrigerator dough. And you’re probably lying if you say you don’t like those soft, frosted sugar cookies with sprinkles sold in the bakery section of your local grocery store. And then there’s the Pillsbury sugar cookie dough that comes in different shapes for the holidays. Soft and chewy. Pretty tasty actually. So you may be wondering, does anyone need another sugar cookie recipe? The answer is yes. Most definitely. Yes.
Cookies for Santa
If you’re like me, this year you may have felt like the tradition of baking and exchanging Christmas cookies wasn’t quite the same. After all, it’s about more than just the cookies. It’s the nostalgia. Spending time together, sharing and passing down recipes and making memories. It’s about teaching the younger generation to create in the kitchen, and of course, feed Santa’s sugar tooth. Sharing baked treats with neighbors, friends and family is a big part of why we bake, bake, bake during the holiday season. Baking Christmas cookies actually dates back to medieval times when it originated as a way to share gifts when visiting friends and family. In the 17th century, the Dutch and German brought Christmas cookies and cookie cutters to the United States, changing the cookie game!
Peanut-Butter Monster Mash Cookies
With this year’s Halloween already being dubbed “quarantine-oween”, trick-or-treating won’t look quite the same. The good news is that families and businesses are coming up with creative ways to safely celebrate the holiday including handing out pre-packaged candy from a distance and setting up grab-and-go tables. Small in-house parties limited to immediate family or school-bubble buddies will most likely be popular this year as well. Luckily, little monsters and zombies can still experience the fun of choosing a costume (with a great mask) and indulge in the candy and sweets associated with Halloween. No need to go door-to-door. Instead, send the kids to the kitchen. Turn on Monster Mash and bake up a batch of Peanut-Butter Monster Mash Cookies.