Raisin Shortbread Cookies

What to do with the rest of raisins when you're done with soda bread? Definitely make these.

Raisin Shortbreads from JoyOfBaking.com



There is something wonderful about simply baking flour, butter and sugar which makes shortbread cookies. Think about soft buttery flaky thing in your mouth. That plus warm chewy and sweet raisins. (We couldn't wait for it to cool down before cutting and finishing the whole thing. I only got one low light picture of it before it disappeared. Even people who disliked raisins loved them.)

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Martha Stewart is truly the queen of cookies. I love her. Whenever I need an idea for super indulgent cookies, I go to her site. And I am never disappointed. Last week I needed cookies for a ride up to the Catskill - about 3 hours away from Brooklyn. The driver specifically asked for chocolate and peanut butter. These cookies were perfect.



Except somewhere during the process of halving the recipe, I messed up. For some reasons, I halved everything else except flour and peanut butter. I quartered (used only 1/2 cup of sugar) but that was according to my plan.



The results were these cookies that didn't spread out like the picture on the site. I had to flatten them with a spoon to make them more presentable. But regardless of how they looked, they were crunchy, just sweet enough to pass as cookies, salty and delicious. Every single cookie was consumed within the first half hour of the ride.

Martha Stewart's Cream Filled Chocolate Cookies

I still can't decide whether I like these cookies. They are really extremely sweet. I reduced the amount of sugar in the cookies from 1 1/2 cups to 1 cup and in the filling by half. They were still way too sweet for me. I guess this is why people eat cookies with a glass of milk.



I might try making these cookies again with darker cocoa powder. Maybe they will turn out more bitter to balance out the sweetness. I got a request to make these cookies with organic ingredients and the only organic cocoa powder I could find wasn't so great.



Here's the recipe: Martha Stewart's Cream-Filled Chocolate Cookies. The cookies actually turned out with perfect texture for sandwich cookies. They are not as cakey as other sandwich cookie recipes and not so hard and crunchy as butter cookies. They are crisp at the edges with a bit chewy middle.



The only thing I changed in the recipe (other than reducing the sugar) was substituting vanilla bean for vanilla extract in the filling.

Lemon Blueberry Crumb Bars

Here are my excuses for not posting at all during the past two weeks:

1. Instead of writing up a post, I have been spending a lot of time on chemistry.com looking for dates. So far, there hasn't been any success. This might just be a total waste of time. But I signed up for 3 months (they had a Memorial day sale) so I will have to keep trying.


2. I haven't been baking much. I have a friend from Mexico staying with me. I usually stay up late and bake at night. As a good host, I try not to make noises and make the apartment hotter than it is while my guest is asleep on my couch.

I baked these bars for a Norah Jones concert in Prospect Park which I didn't go because it rained heavily the whole entire day. So I ended up eating them for breakfast all week. What? No cookies for breakfast? But these have lots of fruit! And they are great with coffee!



Original recipe from AllRecipes.com. the only thing I changed was omitting nutmeg, add lemon juice and a few tablespoons of flour to the berries.

Raisin Black Sesame Bars

Hopefully within a few months, I will be on my way to a brand new apartment with slightly more spacious kitchen. Until then, I'm on a mission to use all the dry ingredients I currently have in the cupboard and to not buy any new ones. Starting with a jar of Tahini (from making hummus in 2007....), a bag of raisins and a lot of black sesame seeds.



After hours of browsing, I found Benne Seed Raisin Bars on Epicurious.com According to the site, benne == sesame. I modified the recipe a little by reducing butter to 3/4 cup, sugar to 1/2 cup and using a mixture of all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. The bars came out just sweet enough but not too sweet. They were crunchy with a nice contrasting texture from sprinkled sesame seeds. These could be energy bars in disguise with all the protein and fiber from sesame and raisins.



Ingredients

• 1 1/2 sticks butter at room temperature


• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar


• 1 egg


• 3/4 cup Tahini (ground sesame) or use unsweetened peanut butter


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cup all purpose flour


• 1 cup whole wheat flour


• 1 cup raisins


• 1/2 cup black sesame seeds

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 11x7 inch baking dish. I used 2.2 qt Pyrex dish.


2. With an electric mixer or by hand, beat butter and sugar together until combined. Add an egg. Whisk until well blended. Add Tahini, salt and vanilla extract. Continue beating until smooth.


3. Add all purpose flour and whole wheat flour. Stir until combined. Fold in raisins.


4. Pour the mixture into greased pan. Sprinkle generously with black sesame seeds. Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool in the pan. Cut into bars and store in cookie jar (not airtight - the cookies will lose its crunch in airtight container.)

PS. I'm still alive. Apparently 3-year-old Tahini is not poisonous.

Awesome Chocolate Chip Cookies

Sometimes, simple drop cookies are the most satisfying and comforting. These cookies were baked and packaged as a birthday present all in under one hour. They have intense chocolate flavor (I used bitter sweet chocolate chips plus cocoa powder) with both chewy and crunchy texture.



I started with King Arthur Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies. I had only 2 ounces of shortening so I figured I would compensate the fat by adding 2 ounces of cocoa powder to the mix and reducing a little bit of flour.



I have been making little tiny cookies so much lately that I love love love these giant cookies. I got 28 cookies from the whole batch. It was awesome. You eat one cookie and you're done (or not.)


Giant cookie

Green Tea Shortbread Cookies

The first time I had matcha tea I thought it tasted like dirt. I guess it's one of those acquired taste. And I have acquired it alright. I tried putting the stuff not only in my drinks but also in cake, cookies, ice cream, pudding, and even my oatmeal breakfast. Some turned out great, so not so much. But this is the winner. Matcha + shortbread cookies = so-delicious-you-convince-yourself-it-is-healthy cookies.

The bitterness and subtle flavor of the tea complimented the simplicity of shortbread cookies perfectly. None of the ingredients overpower the other. I use enough tea in this recipe so that cookies taste and smell like tea but are not overly bitter.



The recipe is simple. I just basically add 1 tablespoon of matcha and a teaspoon of vanilla extract to my normal shortbread cookies.

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cup all purpose flour


• 1 tablespoon matcha (I got mine in a Korean supermarket for $9/2 oz.)


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 2 sticks (1 cup) chilled butter


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. With a food processor, pulse flour, matcha, sugar and salt together.


2. Cut butter into cubes and add to the mixture. Add vanilla extract. Pulse until butter is cut into the dough and the mixture is crumbly. Stop the machine just before the dough totally stick together and ride up the bowl.


3. Gather into 2 balls. Flatten and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or more until the dough is hard enough to roll out and cut without sticking. If refrigerate overnight, set the dough at room temperature for about 20 minutes before rolling.


4. If rolling and cutting out cookies seems like too much work, just roll the dough into logs about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap and refrigerate.


5. Adjust oven racks to the upper third and lower third. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.


6. Roll out the dough to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick and cut out with cookie cutter. Or if using the log method, use a sharp knife to cut the dough out into 1/4 inch thick. Arrange in prepared cookie sheets. These cookies don't expand much so just give them maybe 1/2 inch space between each other.


7. Bake for about 25 minutes or until the edges start to brown. Rotate and switch sheet position half way through.


8. Let cool on the baking sheets for a minute then transfer to cooling racks. Let cool completely before storing or serving. The cookies develop more flavor and better texture when they are cold. They stay for about 1 to 2 weeks in cookie jars (not air-tight).

Chocolate Cookies

No snow this weekend. Just rain and rain and rain - which I guess a good thing. It washed away all the gray/yellow/green snow from last weekend. It was too much of a mess to leave the house for ingredients but I needed to bake something to bring to a party. So I searched high and low for cookies made with ingredients I already had.


I made my own snow.

And I found this: Dark chocolate cookies from Gourmet.

I did not like 3/4 measurement in the recipe so I changed the ingredient portion a bit.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all purpose flour


• 1 cup cocoa powder


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 2 sticks butter


• 1 cup sugar


• 3 large eggs


• 2 teaspoons vanilla


• Confectioner sugar for dusting

Didn't sift cocoa powder so got clumps of it in the cookies...

The cookies were delicious. Crisp on the outside, soft and cakey on the inside with nice chocolate flavor. Next time I might have to flatten them before baking so that they don't come out looking like rocks.


Snowy rock cookies.

Salted Lemon Lime Shortbread Cookies

I don't know why I didn't post this recipe before. (Update: It's because these cookies are basically the same as these.) A lot of people came to this site for these mini lemon tarts which used lemon-lime shortbread cookie dough for crust. I was asked a couple of times for the recipe and each time I would just write back with full recipe from my head (I made them so many times I have the recipe memorized both by volume and by weight.)



These cookies are just a tiny bit sweet with a little tang from lemon/lime juice and refreshing citrus scent from both lemon and lime zest. It's also have a kick from extra salt sprinkled on top to balance out all the flavors. They are possibly the most perfect cookies ever. Salt part came as a happy accident. I forgot to add salt in the dough one time so just sprinkled it on top of the cut cookies. It turned out way better than the original. Somehow, the salt brought out more of the citrus and buttery goodness in them.



Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/8 teaspoon salt


• 2 sticks chilled butter


• Zest from 1 lemon and 2 limes


• Juice from the lemon and limes (not more than 1 tablespoon)


• Extra sea salt for sprinkle and extra flour for rolling out the cookies

Directions

1. With a food processor, pulse flour, sugar and salt together.


2. Cut butter into cubes and add to the mixture. Add zest and juice. Pulse until butter is cut into the dough and the mixture is crumbly.


3. Gather into 2 balls. Flatten and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or more until the dough is hard enough to roll out and cut without sticking. I usually do this the night before.


4. If rolling and cutting out cookies seems like too much work, just roll the dough into logs about 1 inch in diameter. Wrap and refrigerate.


5. Adjust oven racks to the upper third and lower third. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.


6. Roll out the dough to about 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick and cut out with cookie cutter. Or if using the log method, use a sharp knife to cut the dough out into 1/4 inch thick. Arrange in prepared cookie sheets. These cookies don't expand much so just give them maybe 1/2 inch space between each other.


7. Sprinkle with extra sea salt.


8. Bake for 25 minutes or until the edges start to brown. Rotate and switch sheet position half way through.


9. Let cool in the baking sheets for a minute then transfer to cooling racks. Let cool completely before storing or serving. The cookies develop more flavor and better texture when they are cold. They stay for about 1 to 2 weeks in cookie jars (not air-tight) but I assure you they definitely won't last that long.

Note: If you want light color and good looking cookies with smooth surface and perfect cut-out shape, bake longer in lower temperature (say 300 degrees for 30 minutes.) But if you don't care about how they look, you just want to eat them, bake them at 350 for 15 to 18 minutes. 325 degrees is the middle ground. You get reasonably good looking cookies in reasonably short baking time. I personally like crisp and dry cookies fast and prefer the higher temperature.

Martha Stewart's Black-bottom Coconut Bars

After all the disastrous gluten-free baking experience, I still needed to bake something to bring to a party. I looked through my del.icio.us and found the perfect candidate: Marthe Stewart's Black-Bottom Coconut Bars. After all, she's the queen of sinful desserts (well, I guess after Paula Deen but I don't want to kill my friends yet.)



I still didn't have all purpose flour and still didn't learn my lesson about substitution and so-called genius moments. I used whole-wheat flour and unsweetened coconut flakes in Martha's recipe. But to my credit, I did increase the amount of sugar even though I knew that Martha liked her sweets really really super sweet.



And it was a success! I love you Martha Stewart. <3 <3 <3



The bottom part wasn't so sweet which perfectly offset the sweet, crunchy and flavorful top part. Plus the whole thing was made from whole wheat flour!

Hmmmm.... Maybe I will try this with gluten-free flour... :P

Kiwi Pie with Lemon-Lime Shortbread Cookie Crust

I think this will also pass as a kiwi tart because the crust is sweet. I rolled out leftover lemon-lime shortbread cookie dough and used it for the crust. But it's baked in a pie dish. I decided that if it looks like a pie it should be called a pie.

A friend of mine threw a fabulous fruit and berries party where they were so plentiful that by the end of the party he had pounds of leftover strawberries, raspberries, bananas and kiwis. He got jam from the berries, and a banana cream pie from the bananas. I made Alton Brown's banana ice cream which is probably the best banana ice cream I ever ate.



So what to do with 3 pounds of kiwis? We used about 6 kiwis for this pie/tart and the rest for Gourmet's kiwi sorbet.

Here's the recipe for the pie. You can also double the crust and bake the rest of the dough as shortbread cookies.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 1/4 teaspoon salt


• 1 stick cold butter


• Zest from half a lemon and 1 lime and about 2 teaspoon of either lemon or lime juice.



• 6 kiwis - peeled and sliced


• 1 package cream cheese


• 2 tablespoons sugar


• 2 tablespoons milk

Directions

1. With a food processor, pulse flour, sugar and salt together. Cut butter into chunks and add to the flour mixture. Add zest and juice. Process until the dough is crumbly but not dough-y. Gather the dough with a plastic wrap. Ball and flatten into a disc. Refrigerate for a few hours or freeze for 30 minutes until the dough is hard enough to roll out.


2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the cookie dough and line a pie dish or a tart pan. Poke a lot of holes with fork. Cover with foil and weigh down with pie weights or dry beans. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool completely.


3. Whip cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of sugar and milk with an electric mixer and wire attachment until fluffy - about 3 minutes.


4. Arrange half the kiwi over the crust. Spread cream cheese over the first layer of kiwi. Then arrange the rest on top. Serve chill.

Double Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

I made these for just the occasion. What occasion? What else other than Valentine's. I have no idea why something heart-shaped or chocolate means Valentine's. I guess because Hallmarks said so. These are my normal chocolate shortbread cookies (no chili) dipped in melted white chocolate.


Cutout cookie dough before baking.

These were quite excellent. But I'm chocolate overload. I still have boxes of chocolate given to me since Christmas. I acquired a bit more on Valentine's. No. It's nothing romantic. I threw a dinner party for my single friends. And I found a package left in my kitchen after everybody left.



Maybe I'm just bitter. But I'll swear off chocolate for a while. I mean for 2 days...

Mexican Chocolate and Pecan Biscotti

What made these Mexican rather than just cinnamon chocolate biscotti? They are made from Mexican Chocolate (it said so on the package) given to me by my Mexican friend. There... double Mexican-ness.



This was my first batch of biscotti. They turned out good. They are great and relatively guilt-free chocolate fix. I almost chipped my tooth biting into one... which was good I guess. Because I learned not to eat too fast.

What more exciting is that I just discovered a new realm of baking. There are infinite possibility with this. So many flavor combination I can try. So many recipes I can experiment!



For this one I used this recipe from DavidLebovitz.com with a few substitutions. Chopped Mexican chocolate for chocolate chips and pecans for almonds.

Mini Lemon Tarts

I made too much dough for these lemon-lime shortbread cookies. Now that the holiday season is over, I don't get that many orders on the site anymore. So I decided to dress it up a little for our New Year's Eve party.



I cut out the cookies with my biggest flower cookie cutter - about 4 inches in diameter and lined them in muffin pans. They went into 350 degrees oven for about 5 minutes. I forgot to fork the dough before baking so they puffed up a little....



For the filling, I dropped a teaspoon of lemon curd which Hannah prepared while I rolled out the cookies. The cookies went back into the oven for about 7 more minutes.



These cookies/tarts came out so pretty I couldn't stop taking their pictures. They are also deliciously creamy/flaky/sweet/tart. Somebody said they are like the spring exploding in your mouth (in a good way.)

Update: Salted lemon-lime shortbread cookie recipe here.

Bhujia Cookies

A friend gave me a bag of Bhujia - Indian deep fried noodle snack. It tastes like spiced potato chips. I didn't want to finish the whole bag by myself because, you know, fried food is not healthy... So I decided to make cookies from it. I saw potato chip cookies on Food Network once so it can't be too outlandish. They basically crushed some chips and added them to cookie dough. I didn't even have to crush Bhujia. It already came in short tiny noodle shape.



I added Bhujia in my shortbread cookie recipe and dropped the dough instead of cutting. The cookies came out super buttery and crunchy with a hint of spices. Interestingly, they taste like peanut butter cookies - but better, much better. I imagine these will be good with other kinds of potato chips as well. Maybe I'll try it with BBQ Lays or Salt and Vinegar Pringles next time. Or will that be gross?



Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter - room temperature


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 1 cup Bhujia (or other crushed potato chips)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Adjust oven racks to the lower third and upper third. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.


2. With an electric mixer, beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy - about 2 - 3 minutes. Add salt and vanilla. Continue beating until well combined.


3. Reduce speed to stir and add flour. When the dough is well mixed, stir in Bhujia.


4. Drop by tablespoon onto prepared baking sheets. Flatten with fork. Bake for 15 minutes. Switch the baking sheet position half way into baking. Cool on cooling racks. Make 40 cookies.

Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

Happy thanksgiving! And here's a recipe that's completely irrelevant to the turkey day. These cookies are probably the best nut cookies I have ever had ever ever. They are delicate, crunchy, buttery and all the good things that cookies should be. Most of all, the dough is prepared in one bowl (food processor bowl.)



Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose flour


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 3/4 cup raw shelled pistachios


• 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled butter

Directions

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt and nuts in a food processor and run for a few minutes until all the nuts are chopped.


2. Cut butter into cubes and add to the mixture. Pulse until butter is cut into the dough and the mixture is crumbly.


3. Gather into 2 balls. Flatten slightly. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.


4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Adjust the oven racks to the lower third and the upper third. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.


5. Roll out the refrigerated dough to 1/4 inch thick on floured surface. (I covered the dough with plastic wrap and ran rolling pin over it to prevent sticking.) Cut out with cookie cutter. I got 55 cookies.


6. Bake for 12 minutes. Switch the cookie sheet position half way. Leave the cookies on the cookie sheets for a minute before transferring to cooling racks. Let cool completely and store in air tight container.

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies

Ha Ha! The 5th consecutive pie post. Congratulations to me although these are actually cookies. I don't know why they call them pies. English is kind of messed up. I looked all over the place to find out why. Even Wiki just says that they are traditionally made from leftover chocolate cake batter - nothing on the name...



I followed this recipe from MarthaStewart.com. Instead of ready-made pumpkin pie spice, I used my own spice mix:

• 2 teaspoons cinnamon


• 1 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1 teaspoon cloves

That's a total of 4 teaspoons of spices. I used have (2 teaspoons) for the cookies and the other half for the frosting. I know, that's 4 times the spice from the recipe, but I like my food spicy.



The cookies came out tender, perfectly spiced and not too sweet - perfect to sandwich with creamy cream cheese frosting. I used my usual cream cheese frosting recipe with added 2 teaspoons of the above spice mix. I didn't think I would need that much. I kept adding spices into the frosting half a teaspoon at a time and ended up using all of it. Cream cheese has its own very strong flavor.



Pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting

• 1 stick butter - room temerature


• 1 cup confectioner sugar


• 1 package 8oz cream cheese


• 2 teaspoon spice mix (see above)

The cookies got a lot of compliments especially how perfectly spiced they were!

Carrot Cake Cookies

I would like to call them mini carrot cake balls in stead of cookies. They didn't expand in the oven. I used a mini ice cream scoop to drop the dough and didn't press them before going into the oven expecting them to expand. But they didn't. So after I sandwiched them they became cute little balls.



The balls were delicious. They were soft and delicate with a hint of spices. Oatmeal added a perfect chewy texture. They got enthusiastic nods from everybody trying them. Thanks, Martha Stewart. I didn't use her cream cheese frosting recipe, though. I thought the cookies came out super sweet. I wanted something a bit tart and creamy to balance it. So for the frosting, I just whipped 12oz. (1 1/2 packages) of cream cheese with only 1/2 cup of confectioner sugar.

Peanut Butter Nutella Sandwich Cookies

Is it possible to have too many good things in a cookie? In this case, it's not possible. Sandwich delicious peanut butter oatmeal cookies together with Nutella, and we get out-of-this-worldly tasty crunchy satisfyingly delicious peanut butter Nutella cookies.



I started with a double batch of this oatmeal peanut butter cookies.



Was too lazy to whip up peanut butter frosting, I open a jar of Nutella and spread generously onto the cookies to form sandwich cookies.



I brought half the cookies to a beach weekend outing and had to rapidly give the rest away so that I wouldn't eat them all. Evil cookies. Dangerous.

Margarita Shortbread Cookies

What happens when you forget to salt your cookie dough? I sprinkled salt on top of my cookies and got delicious salty cookies. The first time this happened I was baking Lemon-Lime cookies with Hannah. The cookies turned out so good that I had to repeat. This time I only used limes and call them margarita cookies.



When they first came out of the oven, I thought they were way too salty and not sweet enough. Then I remembered that Hannah rolled the cookies with confectioner sugar while I rolled mine with flour... So I dusted my cookies with loads of confectioner sugar to make them sweeter. And I got a perfect sweet salty sour and buttery deliciousness.



Ingredients

• 2 sticks butter - room temperature


• 1/2 cup sugar


• Zest from 2 limes plus juice from 1 lime


• 2 1/2 cup all purpose flour


• 1/4 teaspoon salt plus more for sprinkle


• 1/4 cup confectioner sugar for dusting

Directions

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter with 1/2 cup of sugar until light and fuffy - about 3 minutes.


2. Add lime zest and juice. Beat until well combined.


3. Reduce the mixer speed and stir in 2 and 1/2 cups of flour. Form the dough in to ball and refrigerate for 2 hours or freeze for 30 minutes.


4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.


5. Roll out the dough on lightly floured surface to about 1/2 to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out with cookie cutter. Lightly sprinkle sea salt on the cut out cookies. Bake on prepared cookie sheets for 15 minutes.


6. Transfer the cookies onto cooling racks and dust them with confectioner sugar while they are still warm. Let cool completely. Make 50 yo 70 cookies.