I've never attempted a pumpkin cookie before, even though autumn is my favorite season, and nothing screams "Fall" more loudly than pumpkin-flavored goodies. Most of the time, I content myself with pumpkin pie, but I knew from the beginning that I'd definitely want to include pumpkin cookies in the cookie buffet at the shower. I found a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe on the FoodNetwork online courtesy of George Duran. I tweaked the recipe a significant amount, changing the amount of sugar, spice, and pumpkin.
I also decided to omit the chocolate chips in favor of butterscotch chips. At first, it sounds a little strange, I know. I chose to do this mainly because I already had chocolate chip cookies for the buffet, but in retrospect, I loved how they turned out with the butterscotch chips. Honestly, even though I am a little curious how they'd be with chocolate, they were so good with the butterscotch that I wouldn't want to make them any other way.
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/2 C sugar
1 C packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1-16oz can of pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
3 C AP flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice (or ground cloves depending on your tastebuds)
Half of a 12oz bag of butterscotch chips
1 C chopped pecans
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1. Preheat oven to 350F 2. Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy 3. Beat in eggs one at a time, then beat on vanilla and pumpkin puree 4. In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. 5. Add to the batter in 3 batches, mixing until just combined 6. Mix in the chips and nuts 7. Drop onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with a #60 scoop 8. Bake for about 14 minutes, until cookies are slightly browned around the edges 9. Cool on sheet for 2 minutes, then remove to rack to cool completely
Yield: about 8 dozen
These cookies have a texture very similar to pumpkin bread. They are soft and moist, and totally a must for any fan of pumpkin. I love the butterscotch chips here, but reviews online also seemed to like the chocolate chips, so I don't think you can go wrong either way. One thought I had was to add the cinnamon swirl chips instead of butterscotch or chocolate, but I think I'll stick with butterscotch because I have a feeling that cinnamon chips would be overwhelming.
Chocolate chip cookies. Where would a cookie buffet be without them? Believe it or not, this was a new recipe. I normally make the good ol' standby Tollhouse recipe, which is yummy to be sure. But I didn't want to make the same old thing for the shower. I've been wanting to branch out and experiment with chocolate chip cookies that use both butter and shortening for a while now, and this was the perfect opportunity. A little gumshoe detective work turned up this recipe from the lady herself, Paula Deen. It uses both butter and shortening, and three kinds of chocolate.
That's right. And nuts. Well, at least it did by the time I was done tweaking the recipe.
The stars of today's blog:
2 sticks of butter, softened
1/2 C vegetable shortening
1 C sugar
1 1/2 C packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 3/4 C AP flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1-12oz package semisweet chocolate chips
1 C milk chocolate chips
4-5oz (about half of an 11.5oz bag) bittersweet chocolate chips
1 C chopped walnuts (or other nut of your choice)
Three kinds of chocolate! Nuff said.
Preheat the oven to 375F
Beat butter and shortening until creamy. Add both sugars and cream until fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla, beating well
Combine dry ingredients in a small bowl and blend. Slowely add to butter mixture and beat until just combined
Stir in chips and nuts.
Drop onto parchment-lined cookie sheets with a #60 scoop for 11.5-12 minutes until lightly browned
Cool for 2 minutes on cookie sheet, then remove to rack to cool completely
Yield: 5 1/2 dozen
And ta da! Enough scrumptious chocolate chip cookies to fill multiple tins!
In all seriousness, these cookies are fabulous. I like them even better than Tollhouse, for bot texture and taste. Paula's original recipe calls for almond brickle chips and chopped bittersweet bars, which I'm sure would taste good, but I'll stick with walnuts and the ease of using bittersweet chips. The only other major adjustment I made was in the ratio of white to brown sugar, I bumped up the white sugar just a tad, reducing the brown sugar to compensate. This didn't affect the moisture of the cookies, but it did prevent them from being too sweet, which was the only complaint I read in reviews of the original recipe.
I decided to include a gluten-free selection in my shower’s cookie buffet, for one of my best friends and bridesmaids, Rachel, whose dietary needs necessitate gluten-free living. Now, I wasn’t sure how to go about making gluten-free cookies, but luckily my main man, Alton Brown, came to the rescue with this gluten-free chocolate chip cookie recipe. I can not say enough good things about Alton Brown in general, or this recipe in particular. Believe it or not, these cookies taste pretty much like any other chocolate chip cookie, no mean feat considering that there is not a smidgen of wheat anywhere in sight.
Alton’s secret, so I am told, is through his choice of alternate flours and their proportions. His recipe calls for a combination of brown rice four, tapioca flour, corn starch, and xanthan gum, which comes as close to recapitulating the taste and texture of wheat flour as you can get…without actually using wheat flour.
And now for a brief scientific interlude (feel free to skip to the next paragraph if the science of baking doesn’t interest you)…According to Alton, a lot of volume in wheat flour is starch, which isn’t hard to replace with the starch from another type of flour, but getting the texture right calls for a mixture. Brown rice flour provides the bulk of the starch, and taste, as it blends well with brown sugar. Unfortunately it is slightly gritty, which is where the smoother corn starch comes in. Tapioca flour contributes to the rise and texture because the starch in tapioca flour gelatinizes at a lower temperature than the starches in either rice flour or corn starch. The binding action of gluten is filled by the xanthan gum (interesting little story on the discovery and background of xanthan gum here, as a microbiologist, I couldn’t resist). Xanthan gum is a polysaccharide that can be used to stabilize emulsions, adding both volume and structure to baked goods.
I thought these ingredients would be hard to find, but they were at my local Wegman’s. Now that I know what to look for, I also notice that my local Shop Rite is increasingly carrying gluten-free flours in multiple varieties, so these components shouldn’t be too difficult to get a hold of. All of the flours I used were Bob’s Red Mill, and look something like this:
Those little red circles with the check marks at the bottom by the UPC code means that they are certified “gluten-free.” They also have gluten-free baking blends, which are supposed to be able to substitute for flour in any baking recipe, but for this particular recipe at least, I’d stick to what Alton says. The special flours aren’t terribly expensive, but they aren’t cheap either, as a fair warning. These cookies are definitely more expensive to make than ordinary chocolate chippers, but it is worth it to make special treats for people you care about! There really is nothing like homemade baked goods.
The Chewy Gluten-Free from Alton Brown, Food Network (“Sub Standards” S11E4)
8 oz butter
11 oz brown rice flour, approx. 2 cups
1 1/4 oz cornstarch, approx. 1/4 cup
1/2 oz tapioca flour, approx. 2 T
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 oz sugar, approx. 1/4 cup
10 oz light brown sugar, approx. 1 1/4 cups
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
2 T whole milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
12 oz semisweet chocolate chips
1 C bittersweet chocolate chips (optional)
1C nuts (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Once melted, pour into the bowl of a stand mixer.
In a medium bowl, sift together the rice flour, cornstarch, tapioca flour, xanthan gum, salt and baking soda. Set aside.
Add both of the sugars to the bowl with the butter and using the paddle attachment, cream together on medium speed for 1 minute. Add the whole egg, egg yolk, milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.
Chill the dough in the refrigerator until firm, approximately 1 hour. Shape the dough into 1 ½-inch balls (using a #40 cookie scoop) and place on greased or parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them a couple inches apart. Bake for 14 ½ minutes.
Remove from the oven and cool the cookies on the pans for 2 minutes. Move the cookies to a wire rack and cool completely. Store cooked cookies in an airtight container. Makes about 3 ½ dozen cookies.
The only real difference between assembling this dough and a typical chocolate chip cookie dough is that you melt the butter before creaming it with the sugar. This is usually a cookie-making no-no, because melted butter makes cookies spread too much, and brown too fast. And I found it unusual because this particular batter has to be refrigerated to prevent excess spreading already (which isn’t unheard of, but not something I normally do for a simple chocolate chip cookie). Melting the butter sounds a bit like courting disaster, and Alton gives no explanation (I re-watched the segment of the episode just to make sure I didn’t miss it), but it works perfectly. Maybe it has something to do with the xanthan gum or the other flour components. It bothers me a little to not know why something works, but gluten-free baking is an art form, so I just go with it.
I adjusted the oven temp and cooking time based on reviews, as well as the vanilla amount, but you can view Alton’s original recipe via the link above. I also added in bittersweet chips to give the cookies a little more depth of flavor. Next time, I will add a cup of walnuts as well, and potentially milk chocolate chips (I have a triple chocolate chip cookie coming up as the next recipe, in fact).
Don't these look great?!
If someone has other dietary needs in addition to gluten-free, such as a casein intolerance necessitating dairy-free (which occurs in about 50% of people with Celiac’s so I’ve read), coconut or rice milk can be substituted in for the milk in the batter, and dairy-free chocolate chips can also be used. I’ve never tried it, but I’ve read that there are several butter substitutes that hold up decently well to baking cookies (which has more of a butter requirement than something like cakes), including Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, Smart Balance Light or Spectrum Organic Shortening. Coconut oil (which is solid at room temperature) can also substitute for butter in cookies, but beware of the increased saturated fat content if you go that route. There is a nice blog with additional info on butter substitutions here.
As a side note, if you are planning on making this recipe for someone because they have a gluten allergy, particularly a severe one, it really is best if you use equipment that is dedicated to being gluten-free all the time.
Cake balls. Have you heard about these things? Up until a year ago, I hadn't. And then I spied this post on (where else?) Bakerella's site. And folks, these things are easy. Ridiculously easy. And they taste good. Ridiculously good. So good that people have trouble believing that they are so easy, in fact. But I promise, they are.
Aren't these pretty in their fall colors?
I had already made these a few times before, so making them for the shower was a no-brainer. Are you ready for how easy this is? Okay, here we go. But you've been warned.
Bake a cake from a mix. Any cake. For the shower, I baked a spice cake, but it literally can be any cake you want. I baked it in a 9x13" pan for the convenience, but you can use any pan if you really want to. But I highly recommend a 9x13", and I think you'll see why splitting the batter and fooling with 2 cake pans is unnecessary once you read step number 2...
Once the cake cools (same day, next day, a week later, doesn't matter, just store the cake, preferably in the freezer if you are going to wait longer than a day or two), take a tub of icing, any flavor you think pairs well with the cake you made, and mash the cake together with the icing until well combined. For my spice cake, I used cream cheese frosting.
Form into balls. I find that a #60 scoop gives balls that are a nice medium size. Then chill until firm, roughly 15-30 minutes.
Dip in your choice of chocolate or candy coating wafers. Drizzle a garnish if you so desire.
This may look like a lot of work, but it goes quickly
Because my shower was fall-themed, I used the Wilton colored candy wafers in red, yellow, and orange. I always use candy wafers when dipping, because then I don't have to worry about melting fussy chocolate. I either use the vanilla candy coating in white or colors, or the dark chocolate flavored coating. I'm not a fan of the milk chocolate flavored coating, so I normally avoid it. To thin out the coating for dipping, I normally mix in about 2 cap-fulls of crisco oil per bag of wafers.
I'm not the best dipper. Obviously. But I've found that drizzling on a contrasting color normally camouflages an imperfections in the dipping because eyes focus on the stripes and not the background. To fit my theme, I used dark chocolate candy coating for the drizzle. The easiest way to accomplish this is to melt the wafers, put them in a small ziplock bag, and snip a tiny bit off of the corner, maybe 1/8". Then you can apply the drizzle with a side-to-side motion of the hand.
The great thing about these balls (other than the fact that they are a huge hit wherever they are brought) is that they are so versatile. There are so many possible flavor combinations, and so many possible decorating combinations. The possibilities may not be literally endless, but they are pretty impressive nonetheless. One batch also yields about 5 dozen cake balls, which makes them a perfect bring-along item, especially for holidays where you have multiple destinations. I highly recommend Bakerella's site for some absolutely incredible decorating ideas and inspiration.
As far as flavor combinations go, anything that works as a cake will work great for cake balls. The balls I made for my shower were spice cake and cream cheese frosting. I've also made:
Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in vanilla wafers
Red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in vanilla wafers
German chocolate cake with caramel pecan frosting dipped in chocolate wafers
Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting dipped in chocolate wafers
Lemon cake with vanilla frosting dipped in vanilla wafers
White cake with white frosting dipped in chocolate wafers
Yellow cake with chocolate frosting dipped in chocolate wafers
You can also get creative with some additional mix-ins. This past Christmas, I made white cake with vanilla frosting and a package of shredded coconut, dipped in chocolate. They were amazing. I've gotten raves and recipe requests for all the above flavors, but my faves so far are the carrot and coconut cakes. Next on my list of flavors to try is a devil's food cake with homemade peanut butter frosting. Making homemade frosting slightly defeats the purpose of this easy-to-assemble recipe, but I think the taste will be well worth it. In the spring, I'd also like to experiment with banana cake (although I can't decide whether I should use chocolate, caramel, coconut pecan, or cream cheese frosting). Like I said, a lot of possibilities. And they can't go wrong. I mean, let's face it: they're cake. And icing. Even on their worst day, they'd be worth eating (so says the girl on a diet while she simultaneously cringes at that philosophy).
I totally dropped the ball on taking pictures of these while baking. Even though I make them all the time, this is the only picture I seem to have:
White chocolate macadamia nut cookies are one of those cookies that I make pretty often. It was the very first recipe I considered "mine" because I just threw it together one day, and it worked great.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 C flour
2 sticks of butter, softened
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt
2 eggs
11 oz bag of white chocolate chips
6.5 oz container of lightly salted macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add eggs one at a time, and mix until well combined
Add the vanilla and mix
Add the flour, baking soda and salt, and mix until just combined
Add the chips and nuts, and combine on low until just combined
Scoop with a #60 scoop onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and bake for 9-11 minutes until edges start to turn golden brown.
Cool on sheet 2 minutes, and then transfer to racks.
Because I had included Greek cookies in my cookie buffet, I figured it was only fair to include some Polish ones too -- the only problem was that I didn't know of any! A little research online, and I found what seemed to be the perfect cookie choice: pierniczki, a Polish ginger-honey cookie. These are traditional Christmas cookies. They are also traditionally rolled out and cut into shapes with a cookie cutter, but I decided to bypass that and convert the recipe into a drop cookie dough. In order to do that, I adapted the flour to fat ratio of one of Paula Deen's ginger cookie recipes, and tweaked it into a pierniczki dough that could be dropped by a cookie scoop. Here is what I ended up with: Ingredients:
1 1/2 C solid shortening
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C honey
4 C flour
4 tsp baking soda
2-3 tsp cinnamon (depending on how you like your cinnamon)
3-4 tsp ginger (depending on how you like your ginger)
1 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F
Cream the shortening and sugar until well combined
Add the eggs and honey, and beat until completely incorporated
Sift together the flour, baking soda, spices and salt
Add to the mixture in 2 batches, mixing each time until just combined.
Scoop dough with a #40 scoop onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet, 2" apart
Bake about 10 minutes. Cool on sheet for 3 minutes, and move to wire racks.
When I finally decided to do the cookie buffet for my bridal shower, I knew that I had to include some Greek cookies to honor my heritage. My favorite Greek cookie of all time, finikia, is a honey-dipped spice cookie perfect for autumn, but believe it or not, I've never gotten around to making them before. I usually just make the rounds of local Greek festivals to get my fill. So, because I didn't feel like debuting yet another new recipe (I already had 2 other new cookie recipes planned), I decided to stick with what I know.
In my house, we make two kinds of Greek cookies, mostly around the holidays: koulourakia and kourambiedes. I forgot to take pictures while baking, so I included some generic pics of each cookie as examples. The pictures of the cookies in the basket are from my shower.
Koulourakia Koulourakia are Greek butter cookies, typically made around Easter time. They often have an egg glaze, and sesame seeds sprinkled on top. The dough is normally rolled into ropes, and then twisted into circles, spirals, or simple hairpin twists:
My recipe for koulourakia comes from my Aunt Sondra. Although it also calls for twisting the dough, I opted to make them as drop cookies using a cookie scoop because, well, it was just easier! My mom typically does the same thing, so I knew they would still taste great, even if they weren't in the traditional shape. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
1 3/4 C butter
1/4 C solid shortening
4 tsp vanilla
1 C sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
4 1/2 C flour
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375F
Cream the butter, sugar and shortening together on medium for 5 minutes (trust me)
Add eggs one at a time, reserving one yolk to brush cookie tops with
Add vanilla
Combine baking soda, baking powder and flour in a separate bowl
Add half of flour mixture to the butter mixture, and mix until just combined, then add the second half of the flour mixture
Using a #40 scoop, scoop out dough and drop onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet 1" apart
Lightly brush tops with reserved yolk and a tsp or two of milk
Bake about 12 minutes, until golden brown
And you get about 8 dozen of these:
Kourambiedes Kourambiedes (also spelled kourambiethes, kourabiedes, etc etc) are Greek almond cookies normally made aroun Christmas time. They are close relatives of Kahk and Mexican Wedding Cookies. The traditional shape is a crescent, but they are often formed into balls as well.
Again, I opted for balls, because drop cookies are always easier to make than a hand-formed cookie, especially when you have a lot of cookies to make! This recipe comes from my Aunt Ellen.
Ingredients:
1 lb unsalted (sweet) butter
1/4 C confectioner's sugar
6 oz almonds, corsely chopped
4 C flour
2 yolks
2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 jigger of whiskey
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 325F
Cream the butter and sugar on medium for 10 minutes
After the first 5 minutes of creaming, add the vanilla, yolks, whiskey, baking soda and powder, and continue to beat for 5 minutes
Add the flour in 2 batches and mix until just combined
Using a #40 scoop, scoop the dough onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet 1 1/2" apart
Bake for about 30-35 minutes, until bottoms start to brown
Cool completely, and then roll in powdered sugar. Also, add powdered sugar to whatever container they will be stored in.
Although we store them in a cookie tin filled with powdered sugar, we tend to put them individually into cupcake cups when serving, and I know a lot of other people do the same. It is just neater.
And when you are done:
Yummy Greek cookies, ready for the taking at the cookie buffet!
