Thursday 31 March 2016

Oatmeal Chocolate Cranberry Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies:  Week 39


I know, I know... I'm pretty behind on this one.  I would use the excuse that it's Spring Break BUT... I Haven't really had many plans for this week.

A few weeks ago I posted about making Cranberry Pecan Oatmeal Cookies.  These ones are similar... but if you aren't a huge fan of the orange or the pecan you might prefer the ones from this week.

Anyways, I found this recipe on the back of my bag of Craisin's but if you don't currently have a bag and want to know the recipe you can follow this link.

I changed 2 things with the recipe.

The first being that on the bag it says I could use white chocolate chips OR semi sweet... I went with the semi sweet ones just because I'm not a huge fan of white chocolate.

Oatmeal Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
The second was that I thought the mixture looked too goopy to shape into balls for the cookies (and I've had this issue multiple times already with other recipes so I wasn't about to have it again)... my solution was to add extra flour.  I'm not sure how much more I added but it wasn't a whole lot.


I'm giving these ones an 8/10,  In the future I think what I might do is use the dough recipe from the Cranberry Pecan Oatmeal Cookies and the cranberry and chocolate ingredients from this one.  Those, I believe would be some pretty scrumptious cookies.

Last week I made some Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies that were also pretty scrumptious.

Stay tuned because of the delayed posting of today's cookie recipe I have another one coming in just a couple of days!

Tuesday 22 March 2016

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies:  Week 38


Yes, that's right... there are two forms of chocolate in these cookies (and no that is not a typo when I write chocolate twice).

I've made these before... they come from a recipe I wrote down many moons ago and so I'm not sure where it comes from.  Perhaps you know, if you do feel free to link it in the comments because I certainly did not invent this one!

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.  Stir into butter mixture until well blended.  Mix in chocolate chips.  Drop rounded teaspoon sized balls onto ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 8-10 minutes.

Makes 4 dozen cookies

Enjoy!

These ones are good... you'll enjoy them if you enjoy chocolate.  If you don't enjoy chocolate this much then I would recommend using something other than the chocolate chips..,. peanut butter or mint ones would be delicious too I think!

I'm giving them a 9/10... only because I'm not a huge fan of so much chocolate BUT I can still appreciate that this is a pretty good cookie... so good that I'll be sharing them with my life group tomorrow!

Last week I made some of the most delicious cookies ever... especially if you like bananas.  Check out my Banana Cookies!


Saturday 12 March 2016

Banana Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies: Week 37


Confession:  If I had to pick my favourite fruit it would likely be bananas.  If this banana shortage I keep hearing about is true I'm not going to be happy.  I'll be even less happy if bananas really are going extinct.

This isn't my first time making some banana cookies (you might recall my Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies which by the by I gave a 10/10... a little foreshadowing for you perhaps).

But I digress...

You can find the recipe on Cookies and Cups (and you should definitely ignore the comment that says they are horrible).

I really can't keep this to myself much longer... these cookies were SO GOOD!... I must confess that I often only make half a recipe because I don't want to be loaded down with all these cookies.  These ones I hummed and hawed over whether to half the recipe or not but I had 2 bananas that needed to either get frozen or used up so I made a full recipe... and I definitely do not regret it!

I didn't change a single thing about the recipe.  However, I did notice that in the frosting it calls for salt to be added but then in the instructions it never gets you to add it.  Naturally, I forgot to add it then but I imagine a good time to add it might be after you frost the cookies... just sprinkle a little on top?  

I'm not sure how the baker on Cookies and Cups managed to make hers so uniform... must be something that special cookie scooper does... I didn't have one so I used a teaspoon (because Confession... I always use a teaspoon as my cookie scooper).

Anyways, these are my unfrosted cookies... I tasted one that wasn't frosted and was skeptical if the frosting would improve on their quality... they were already SO GOOD.  So, if you don't want to add the frosting I think that's ok.  It will be like a banana load in cookie form!

unfrosted banana cookies

Here they are frosted!

frosted Banana Cookies

Remember how I said that telling you about the other Banana Cookies I made and how I gave them 10/10 could be some foreshadowing?  Well... it definitely was.  There is no other score I could give these other than a 10/10... unless it was higher than that... like 100/10.  But let's not get too crazy.


Monday 7 March 2016

Nutella White Chocolate Chip Cookies

52 Weeks of Cookies:  Week 36

Sorry for the delay in posting this... would you believe that I actually made these cookies on Friday?  Didn't think so...

I went out and bought some Nutella for some hazelnut-y tasting cookies.  You can find the recipe I used for these cookies here.

The only thing I altered in this recipe was that I let the dough sit in the fridge for a couple of hours before baking them.

The outcome?  They are fine cookies (I'm not a HUGE fan of white chocolate and actually found there to be too many chocolate chips in general in the dough... there were a bunch leftover in the bottom of the bowl after I finished making the cookies).  Anyways, there is a but with that statement and that is this... I can't tell that there is Nutella in them!  It's a real disappointment actually.  Sometimes, if I concentrate really hard on trying to taste the Nutella flavour a little bit comes through... but most of the time... nothing (and I think it might have to do with 1) there being so many chocolate chips and 2) there not being enough Nutella!).



Anywho, I think there is room for improvement on this one... I'll try another Nutella cookie recipe in the future and give this one a 7/10

Last week I made some Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies that were delicious (and no, I can't tell there is zucchini in them!)