Oatmeal coconut cookies

Natasha asked for these cookies a few weeks ago, oatmeal coconut, the kind your mom would have made if she made them.  I couldn't find a recipe that was exactly what I wanted, so I adapted and I need to put it here before I forget!  So there you go Tash, now you can make them too.


Oatmeal coconut cookies

3 c old fashioned oats

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1 cup of butter

2/3 cup white sugar

2/3 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

3/4 cup coconut

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Combine dry ingredients (oats, flour, soda, powder and salt) together in a medium sized bowl.

In a large bowl (by hand!) combine butter and sugars and vanilla.  Stir until well combined.  Add eggs and mix.

Stir in the flour a bit at a time (to avoid a mess) then add coconut.

Drop onto cookie sheet lined with silpat or parchment in large tsp full.  Bake for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown and center isn’t wiggly or to wet anymore.  Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes and move to cooling rack.  Keep dough refridgerated between baking.

Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies

Week four of ten weeks of Christmas cookies.  HOW CAN IT BE WEEK FOUR ALREADY??  Sorry, I’m just a little worried about where my time has disappeared to.  Has anyone seen it?

I made these little, very unassuming bites of Christmas three days ago.  I had sort of a bake-a-thon-alyssa-has-gone-crazy day.  I love those.  I just bake everything that’s made my To Bake list in the last few days and give it all away.  

These freeze really well, so they, or some variation of them will be in my treat boxes. 

Cranberry orange shortbread cookies

Go here and see pictures that are a million and ten times better than mine!

The cranberry adds an awesome chewy contrast to the crisp cookie and the orange is Christmas in a fruit.  They’re easy and fun and versatile.  Enjoy.

Makes enough for two people to consume in a few days, maybe 18-24 cookies.  The recipe doubles very easily.

92 g (1/2 c + 2 T ) butter, room temperature

75 g (1/4 c + 2 T) icing sugar

1 t vanilla 

1/4 t almond extract

1/2 T orange zest

1/4 c dried cranberries, chopped

120 g (1 c) flour

1/8 t baking powder

small pinch of salt

Beat butter with mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamed, about 1 1/2 minutes.  Slowly add the icing sugar, beating until smooth.  Add vanilla, almond extract, orange zest and cranberries and beat until smooth.  

On low speed mix in flour, baking powder and salt until blended. 

Form dough into a log about 1 1/2 inches wide and wrap with plastic wrap.  Refrigerate  for at least one hour.  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with parchment or silpat.  Remove plastic wrap and slice 1/4 to 1/2 an inch thick rounds.  Space at least one inch apart.  They don’t spread much.  Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly browned.  

Snowdrop cookies

It’s time for week three of ten weeks of Christmas cookies.  I decided on snowdrop cookies, which I think are a classic during winter.  Around these parts however, there is no snow coming for a very long time.  We are lucky when we get snow here, maybe that’s why I look forward to it so much, it’s a treat when it comes.  Last year we had one day of snow.  One day, that’s it.  Here have an 10% chance of a white Christmas which I find is a very disheartening statistic.  So I try not to think about it and hope for the best.  If all else fails, eat a cookie.

Yesterday morning I woke up in a very good mood.  It was the first day, the start of the Christmas season.  I’m loving it!  I’m giddy every time I walk into a store.  Christmas is coming.  The chocolates are starting to appear on shelves, the lindor boxes, the chocolate oranges.  And this morning I got a text message “starbucks has their Christmas cups”  my knees nearly buckled I was so happy.  A Christmas fanatic I may be, hate me if you must but I’ll enjoy every last minute of it.

Chocolate Snowdrop Cookies

These have a wonderful crispy cracked exterior with a fudgey, dense and chewy interior.  These can satisfy your chocolate craving on multiple levels.

125g (4 oz) unsweetened chocolate, chopped

60g (1/2 c) butter

235g (1 1/2 c) flour

45g (1/2 c) dutch process cocoa powder 

2 t baking powder

1/4 t salt

4 eggs

500 g (2 c) sugar

1 t vanilla

280g (1 1/2 c) mini semisweet chocolate chips

60 g (1/2 c) icing sugar

Place chocolate and butter on top of a double broiler.  Heat stirring often until the two melt.  Set aside to cool slightly.  In a bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.  Set aside.

In a mixer or large bowl combine eggs, sugar and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed for 3 minutes until thick and light in colour.  Beat in the melted chocolate mixture until blended.  Add the dry ingredients and beat until incorporated.  Mix in the chocolate chips.  

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 or more hours until you can roll the dough into balls.  

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and line baking sheets with parchment or silpats.  Roll about a tablespoon of dough in your hands and then in icing sugar.  Place on prepared sheets about 3 inches apart.  In between batches put the dough back in the fridge to cool.  If you don’t, the dough will stick to your hands and become a huge mess.  

Bake for 13-17 minutes until the tops are puffed and crinkled and feel firm when lightly touched.  Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool.  These can last a few days at room temperature until the texture is compromised.  These can also be frozen.

Linzer Cookies

This is week two of 10 weeks of Christmas cookies.  I’ve gotta say this is a wonderful way for me to justify a lot of Christmas baking!  I’m allowing myself to start thinking about it and am really enjoying putting so much thought behind it.  I saw these cookies on an awesome new (to me) blog called Eat Live Run.  The author makes everything she posts so much fun to read.  Her pictures though are what made me add these to the list and while mine aren’t near as pretty they’ll do.

Every time I see the name Linzer I think about how much I’d love to be in Austria for Christmas.  It’s even on my life list, yes I do have one, it’s two pages long and makes me so happy to read.  It’s full of wonderful things that appeal specifically to me.  One day I might show it to you.  I’ve done four of the things on it already, made my own yogurt (LOVE), got married (also LOVE), drove down the west coast (a good chunk of it), and learned to scuba dive (well I tried it and I’ll never be able to actually do it).

These cookies are nutty and buttery and down right delectable.  Something my grandmother would have made me.  They’ve got texture from the nuts, I can never get my hazelnuts finely ground enough, but that’s probably just my problem and I think it makes them interesting.  They soften with jam in them overnight so that they’re chewy in your mouth and the raspberry jam (homemade of course) is just a perfect compliment to the hazelnut (I made hazelnut pancakes with raspberry syrup twice in the last month, so they’re a winning combo for us.)

Next time I make these, for the boxes, I’ll make them much smaller and remember that re-rolled scraps will shrink so don’t use them.

Linzer Cookies from Eat Live Run

Mine made 16 big cookies (note to self need new cookie cutters)

240g (2 c) flour

200 g (1 c sugar)

5 oz (1 c) toasted and ground hazelnuts

1 egg

8 oz (1 c) butter 

1/2 t vanilla

1.5 t cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

1/2 t salt

Cream together butter and sugar until creamy and light.  Add egg and vanilla while mixing until well combined.  

Mix together dry ingredients in medium sized bowl.  Add to butter sugar mixture until just combined.  Pat dough into two disks, wrap with plastic wrap and chill for 2+ hours (otherwise it’s all sticky).

Preheat the oven to 350 and flour a surface and rolling pin liberally.  Working quickly roll the dough onto counter, don’t make them to thin, about 1/2 a cm will do.  Punch out with cookie cutter and place in oven for 12 minutes until edges start to brown.  Once the cookies are transfered to a cooling rack, roll out the other half of the dough this time cutting out the center of the cookies for the top layer. 

When the cookies are all done and cooled, sprinkle icing sugar on the top layer cookies and spread jam on the bottom layer cookies.  Sandwich together and enjoy!

As the recipe points out these cookies can be made in advance and frozen before topping with jam and sugar.

10 weeks of Christmas Cookies

It’s definitely time to start my 10 weeks of Christmas cookies.  I just saw this idea a couple days ago and loved it because that same day I had picked out my Christmas box cookies.  

Last year I started this project and ended up giving away 12 boxes to the people that we wouldn’t see on Christmas.  They were given great reviews so I knew I had to expand this year.  I also needed to put more forethought into it, I ended up doing a lot in the last two days.  So this year I will start early, testing begins now and I”d like to have the last of the Christmas boxes sent away by the 19th of December.  

This week: Chai spice biscotti.  My own and absolute favorite biscotti I’ve ever had.  More crisp like a cookie and very flavorful.  Enjoy.

Chai Biscotti

This recipe makes only 15 or so biscotti.  It’s enough for our household of 2 but not enough to give away.  You can easily double and triple the recipe, but if you do, make sure to split the dough into halves or thirds respectively before shaping and baking.

If you take out the chai and spices you have a completely blank canvas.  Try adding 1/2 a cup of cocoa powder, chocolate chips and pecans or pistachios and candied ginger or espresso powder and walnuts with dark chocolate drizzled on top.  I use this recipe many different ways.

1 c + 2 T flour

1 t baking soda

1/2 t cinnamon

1/2 t salt

1/4 t allspice

1/4 t ginger

tea from 2 chai tea bags (at least 2 t)

3 T butter

1/2 c sugar

1 egg

2 oz white chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Place silpat on baking sheet.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, allspice, ginger and chai tea in a bowl and mix to incorporate.

In another bowl cream butter and sugar on medium speed until creamy.  Add egg and mix well. 

With mixer on low add flour mix slowly. 

On silpat shape into log 12 inches long and 2 inches wide.  Bake for 35 minutes.  Cool for 5. 

Transfer to a cutting board and cut into individual biscotti 3/4 inch wide.  Place biscotti on baking sheet cut side.  Bake for an additional 8-10 minutes.  Cool on rack and drizzle with white chocolate.