Chocolate Chip Cookies

I am sharing the Original Nestle Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe here.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup chocolate mini morsels
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375° F.
Combine flour and baking soda in a bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in the mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto parchment lined cookie sheets.
Bake for 9 to 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes and remove to wire racks to cool completely.  The above recipe yields around 4-5 dozen cookies.

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Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tbsp semolina
2 tbsp chickpea flour
3/4 cup Crisco + 2 tsp water
1/2 cup green colored sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
1 tbsp grated pistachios

DIRECTIONS:
Cream the shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add 1 tsp of vanilla, cardamom powder, nutmeg powder, and the grated pistachios. Mix the flours and baking powder together in a separate bowl and add it to the wet mixture. Knead it to make into sticky dough. Let this refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F and line the cookie sheet with parchment paper. Make small cookies out of the dough and place them around 1 inch apart on the cookie sheet. Bake them for around 15-20 minutes or until the edges turn light brown. (Oven time may vary).

VARIATIONS:
1.You can use unsalted butter instead of shortening. If you use butter, you don't need to add water.
2. I used the green colored sugar to give the cookies a color of pistachios. You can just use plain white sugar and add green food color or omit the color all together.

Shrewsbury Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup Crisco + 2 tsp water
1 egg
1 can sweetened condensed milk (12 oz)
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg powder
3 cups all purpose
1/2  cup semolina

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 F and line the cookie trays with parchment paper. Combine flour, semolina, baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg powder. In a bowl, combine sugar and Crisco and beat till light and fluffy. Add condensed milk, eggs, vanilla, and lemon juice. Beat at medium speed for 1 minute. Add flour mixture and beat on slow speed until combined till you get dough consistency. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour or until it is ready to handle. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness (Keep the dough which you are not using refrigerated). Cut out the cookies with various cookie cutters. Place one inch apart on cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until very lightly browned around the edges. After cooling on the rack, decorate as you wish. I had mine decorated for Christmas. I made around 4 dozen cookies of various shapes from this mixture.

Christmas Pinwheel Cookies

I just thought of giving out a short tutorial on how to make these cookies as it is slightly tricky to get that pinwheel look on the cookies. So I have given step-by-step instructions along with the images to make it more clear. Hope you enjoy doing these as much as I did!! Let's begin...

INGREDIENTS:

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup Crisco shortening + 2 tbsp water
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
Red and green food or icing color

DIRECTIONS:
Step 1:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Line the cookie tray with parchment or wax paper. First beat the shortening, water, and granulated sugar till it becomes light and fluffy. Then add vanilla and baking powder to this. Then gradually start adding the flour, little at a time, and bring the mixture to the consistency of the dough. Knead the dough well (add little more flour if the dough is too sticky).

Step 2:
Once the dough is kneaded well make four equal parts. Out of the four equal parts, two should remain uncolored (white). Take the other two dough balls and add the green and red color to each of it. To color the dough uniformly, break the dough ball into equal parts and add the color to each part and then knead all the parts together to form a single ball.

Step 3:
On a parchment paper sprinkled lightly with flour, place one uncolored cookie dough ball and pat it gently with the palms to form a circle. On top of this place the red dough ball and repeat the action. Once both the dough balls are equal sized, start rolling out the cookie dough until about 1/4 inch thick. Repeat the same process for the green dough ball. Then put the flattened rolled out cookie dough into the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to let it firm up a little bit. This will make it more easy to form the logs out of  it.

Step 4:
After refrigerating it for 30 minutes, start to form a log of the flattened cookie dough from one end. Just start rolling the dough from one end with the parchment paper and then slightly pull the parchment paper off so that it won't get rolled up with the dough. Continue rolling till you reach to the end. Wrap this log in the same parchment paper and let both the logs freeze for at least 1 hour.

Step 5:

After taking them out of the freezer, with a sharp knife trim the edges of the logs and cut out round cookies about 1/4 inch thick. Place them on the lined cookie sheet. Let them bake for around 12-15 minutes on 350F or until the edges are slightly golden brown (time for baking may vary with the oven).

And the final product!!!

Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Cookies

We had been to Disney World, Orlando last week and really had one of the most amazing vacation!! While roaming around in one of the Disney stores in Disney downtown, I happened to see these cookie cutters and immediately grabbed it. I knew the cookies would look "perfect" with these ones as they looked so cute in the package too. The recipe I tried out for the cookies is originally a Wilton Sugar Cookies recipe to which I made some changes and had cut the recipe to half. The cookies came out very good and tasty.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup Crisco shortening + 3 tsp water
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder (optional)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. In a bowl, mix the shortening, water, and sugar and beat it till it becomes fluffy and light. Then add the egg, vanilla essence, and nutmeg powder. To this add flour gradually as required and knead into dough. On a wax paper spread some flour and roll out the dough until about 3/4 inch thick and cut out the shapes you want. Bake at 400 degrees F for 5-7 minutes. If you cannot roll out the dough, refrigerate it for about 15 minutes and then proceed.

I frosted the cookies with the royal icing, the recipe for which will be found in the blog. To get the perfect red for the mickey mouse, you will need to add a good amount of red color to the white royal icing. I used the ready made black buttercream icing for the ears, so they are a little bit uneven on the surface. Using royal icing should be the best way to get it smoother. For the minnie mouse, I used the pink royal icing with the white polka dots. The cookies do look cute, don't they??

Bite-size Checkerboard and Zebra stripes cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoon Hershey's cocoa powder

DIRECTIONS:
Cream butter and sugar till the mixture is fluffy. Add vanilla and mix it again. Gradually add flour, scraping down sides of bowl.
Make it into dough and knead dough well for about 1 to 2 minutes. Divide dough in half. Add the cocoa powder over one of the halves. Knead until cocoa has been fully incorporated.
Place each half of the kneaded dough between two sheets of parchment paper and with a rolling pin, shape dough into two 4-inch squares, about 3/8 inch thick. Using a sharp knife and a ruler, slice each square into 3/4-inch-wide strips (9 of them).

Cover work surface with plastic wrap. Place three strips of dough on plastic, alternating white and chocolate strips. Gently press strips together. Repeat, forming second and third layers, alternating colors to create a checkerboard effect. Wrap assembled log in plastic. Refrigerate for around 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice each log into 1-inch slices; place on baking sheet. Bake until done, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove baking sheet from oven, and let cookies cool.

For the zebra stripes effect, you have to just alternately place the vanilla and chocolate strips over one another and refrigerate the log and then cut into 1-inch slices.

This recipe is adapted from www.marthastewart.com/314590/checkerboard-cookies
I cut down the original recipe into half and made some changes for these bite-sized snacks.

Flower Sugar Cookies

For these cookies I used the "No fail sugar cookies" recipe on the Cake Central; it is one of the best sugar cookies I have ever tried. The ingredient measurements are so perfect that the cookies taste heavenly good. I had to try my new Wilton flower cookie pops pan so I baked the cookies in that pan and hence they are so big in size. They are decorated with royal icing. I had cut down the original recipe to half as the original recipe makes 5 dozen cookies. This dough yielded me around 16 flower cookies of around 3.5-4 inches each.

INGREDIENTS:
3 cups all purpose flour
1 cup granulated white sugar
1 cup unsalted butter
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla essence

DIRECTIONS:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix well. Mix dry ingredients and add a little at a time to butter mixture. Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together. Chill for 1 hour. Roll to desired thickness and cut into desired shapes. Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees F  for 8 to 10 minutes or until just beginning to turn brown around the edges. If you are using the Wilton flower cookie pop pan, just pat the dough in the pan and let it bake for the same time and temperature.

Pinwheel cookies

INGREDIENTS:

6 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cup of all purpose flour
1 tbsp of Hershey's chocolate syrup
1 tsp baking powder

DIRECTIONS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c85-4fe8bek 


TIPS:
Tip #1: I have halved the original recipe and also made some changes according to my needs. It made around 22 cookies with the half measure recipe.

Tip #2: I used chocolate syrup instead of the cocoa powder in the original recipe as I had ran out of it and hence the light brown color in the midst of the cookies. If you use the cocoa powder you will get very nice chocolate color.If your dough is too much sticky when you add the chocolate syrup, add flour to get to the firm consistency of the dough.

Tip #3: My roll was slightly elongated unlike the circular one in the video. That is why my cookies look oval shape than perfect round.

Eggless Almond Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 stick unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
1/2 tsp cardamom powder
20 almonds ground to powder
1 tsp almond extract
3-4 tbsp of milk
Pistachios and Cashews for garnishing

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a cookie tray with parchment paper or aluminium foil.

Mix both the flours, baking powder, nutmeg and cardomom powders, almond powder together in a bowl. In a different bowl, mix the butter and sugar and beat it till it fluffy and light. I usually do this with hand. To this add the flour mixture and the almond extract and start kneading the mixture into a firm dough. If the mixture is too dry, add the milk one tbsp at a time until you reach to a firm consistency dough. You will generally need 3-4 tbsp milk.

Make small round balls with this dough and flatten it out a little bit about 1/2 inch thick. You can prepare around 15-17 cookies from this dough. Place the cookies on non-greased cookie tray. Garnish them with grated pistachio and cashews. Bake in the oven for about 8-10 minutes or until the cookies are lightly brown. Let them cool on the rack for around 15-20 minutes. Store in an airtight container.

SUGGESTIONS:
1. Since I used half all purpose and half whole wheat flour the cookies turned out to be a little chewy rather than crispy. Using only all purpose flour will give more crispy texture to the cookies.
2. If you want the cookies to be more sweet, use regular powdered sugar instead of the confectioner's sugar.

Royal Shortbread Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cups all-purpose flour
1 stick salted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup finely chopped semi sweet chocolate, for dipping

DIRECTIONS:
With a hand mixer on the medium speed, beat the butter until smooth and creamy for about a minute. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract. Then gently stir in the flour mixture and make the dough out of the batter by kneading it gently on a lightly floured surface. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill the dough until firm (at least 1-2 hours).

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the baking sheet with parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough upto a 1/4 inch thick circle.  Cut into the desired shapes using a cookie cutter. I used the heart, oval and the round shapes. For the round shapes, to have a different design, I used a toothpick and pressed it into the dough to create the lines over the cookies. Place the cut cookie shapes on the baking sheet and place in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes. The refrigeration helps the cookies to maintain their shapes even after baking. Bake for 6-8 minutes or until cookies are very lightly browned. Mine were done in about 7 minutes. Let the cookies cool.

For Chocolate Dipping: Place 1/3 cup finely chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place it over a saucepan of simmering water. Once the chocolate has melted, remove it from the heat. Don't overheat. Taking one cookie at a time, dip one end of each cookie in the melted chocolate and place it on a parchment lined baking sheet. The chocolate which I used was the one with almonds so the dipping has a rough edge and not smooth as seen in the photo. Once all the cookies have been dipped in the chocolate, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator until the chocolate has hardened (for 10-15 minutes). I made around 15 cookies with 1.5 inches of cookie cutters.

For the video you can visit http://www.joyofbaking.com/shortbreads/shortbreadcookies.html

Valentine Butter Cookie Pops

These are the cookie pops I made for my son's school friends on this Valentines Day!! He and his friends just loved it and have ordered some more....Got the recipe for the butter cookies from  http://www.joyofbaking.com/ButterCookies.html  and made some changes in the basic recipe. If you are a butter cookie lover, you have got to taste these cookies!!

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon nutmeg powder
Red colored decorating sugar
20 Wilton 8-inch lollipop sticks

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

With a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy in the bowl on a medium speed. Afterwards, beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Gradually add the flour to the creamed mixture and beat just until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. The dough is not very firm; if it is still very loose you can add the flour to make it to the right consistency. Don't make the dough to firm. Put the dough in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for about 1/2 an hour. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and cut out the heart cookies with a cookie cutter ( I used the around 2.5-3 inches cookie cutter). The cookies have to be a bit thicker as the lollipop stick needs to be inserted into it.

Place the cookies on the baking sheet in an opposite direction, spacing about 2 inches apart (Around 6 cookies will fit on a baking sheet). Then slowly insert the lollipop sticks at the base of the cookies and roll them upwards till you reach around 1/2 the cookie. While doing this apply firm pressure by one hand on the cookie area where you are inserting the stick to avoid breaking the cookie. Decorate the cookie with the red decorating sugar by sprinkling it over the cookies in the manner you like. Bake the cookies for about 10-15 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown. The more you bake the more crisp the cookies will come out, but be sure not to burn them!!

Eggless Pumpkin Cookies

I was baking these for a potlluck Thanksgiving lunch..I followed the recipe through this site http://www.egglesscooking.com. I just made some small changes here and there though, like I did not use nuts  as some kids at the party were allergic to it. They came out very nice and kids and adults too enjoyed them a lot!!

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 Cup Shortening
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Pumpkin Puree
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2 Cups All Purpose Flour
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg powder
1 cup nuts/raisins/ chocolate chips (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven at 350F for 15 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add pumpkin and vanilla.

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg powder.Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix well. If you are going to use nuts or raisins, fold them in. 

Drop the dough by tablespoon 2 in. apart onto greased baking sheets.Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes or until lightly browned. Watch closely. The cookies remain soft in texture. Remove to wire racks to cool.

Soft Oatmeal Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup oat bran
1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp nutmeg powder
1 tsp cardamom powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup shortening
4 egg whites
1/4 cup milk
1 cup raisins+chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS:
Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Beat the egg whites till they are frothy. In another bowl, cream the sugar and shortening and add the eggs to it. Then add the milk and mix. Mix all the dry ingredients to this and add the raisins and walnuts. The mixture will be sticky. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Make round cookies of about 1 tbsp mixture and 1/8 inch thickness. Place it on nonstick cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 12 minutes. Makes around 3 dozen cookies

Source of recipe is from http://www.cooks.com/

Valentine Sugar Cookies

This year my son had demanded that he wanted "homemade" valentine cookies for his school friends on the Valentine's Day!! How could I turn down my son's wish?? So here is a simple recipe for the cookies and it tastes simply awesome!! The cookies were a great hit at my son's school..

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tsp nutmeg powder (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift flour and baking powder. Add half of the flour mixture, stir in milk and vanilla, then the remaining flour mixture. Mix only until combined. You can adjust the quantity of the flour according to the consistency of the mixture..Using more flour can make the cookies dry. Wrap mixture in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours or more before rolling out 1/4-inch thick on a lightly floured work surface. Cut into heart shapes with the cookie cutter. Sprinkle with red colored sugar. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly golden on edges of cookies by keeping the cookie at least 2 inches apart. The baking time may vary according to the cookie sizes and different ovens.

Nankhatai

Nankhatai is one of the favorite Indian cookie which almost every age group likes. I was in search of a good recipe for it for years when I finally tried out this one which I happened to see on an Indian TV show..Its really quick and easy recipe without much mess!!!

INGREDIENTS:

2/3 cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup castor sugar

2/3 cup shortening+ 4 tsp water (You can use 2/3 cup unsalted butter without water instead of shortening)

1 tsp cardamom powder

1 tsp baking powder

almond+pistachio powder for decorating

DIRECTIONS:

Take the shortening and mix water into it, then add castor sugar and mix it with hand for about 5-7 mins till the mixture is fluffy and light. Then add all purpose flour gradually to it along with the cardamom powder and baking powder. Make a soft dough out of the mixture. Make small round balls and spread the almond and pistachio powder over it. Bake the cookies at 400 degrees F for about 7-10 mins. (Keep a close watch after about 5 mins as the baking time varies and keeping it for a longer time may burn out the cookies). Enjoy them with tea..

Sugar Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter (melted)

1 egg

2 tbsp baking powder

1/4 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg and vanilla. Add milk and vanilla essence. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients. Roll rounded teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and place onto ungreased cookie sheets about 2 inch apart. Bake 10-12 minutes in the preheated oven until golden. Let stand on cookie sheet two minutes before removing to cool on wire racks.