Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

On New Year's Eve, I wanted to make a small batch of cookies to take to a party. I started with a basic chocolate chip cookie recipe that said it made 30 cookies. Because I didn't really want leftovers, I cut the recipe in half. I figured if I did a half recipe with a small cookie scooper, I'd still get a decent number of cookies but not the 30 large cookies that the original recipe said I'd get.

So I made the necessary changes to the recipe and then started scooping the cookies with my small cookie scooper. Sixty-four cookies later, I was done! That's right. Sixty-four cookies. So much for not having leftovers.
  

Chocolate Chip Pecan Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1-1/4 cups oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup pecan chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, oats, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

In a large mixer bowl, beat butter until creamy. Beat in both sugars. Then beat in egg and vanilla. Add as much flour mixture as possible. You made need to use a wooden spoon to finish the combining.

Stir in the chocolate and pecan chips.


With a small cookie scooper, drop onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes until edges are light brown. Cool one minute before removing to cooling rack.

Yields: about 60 small cookies

Rugelach

This will surprise some of my friends, but I had never heard of rugelach until they made some a couple years ago. I did a little history search on it and found out it's a Jewish pastry. So when did my friends and I make some rugelach? For Christmas, of course. When else do you make Jewish pastries? :)

 Rugelach 

Ingredients:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup butter, softened
2-1/4 cups flour
1 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon, divided
1/4 cup Solo brand raspberry cake & pastry filling

Beat cream cheese and butter on medium speed. Gradually add flour. Divide dough into four portions. Pat into 1-inch thick circle with flour hands and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line baking sheets with foil or parchment paper.  

Mix walnuts, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. On lightly floured surface, roll dough into 11-inch circle. Dough should be very thin by now. Spread each circle with a tablespoon of raspberry filling. Sprinkle with 1/4 of nut mixture. Using a pizza wheel, cut circle in 16 wedges. Roll up each wedge, starting from wide end. 

Place point side down on prepared cookie sheet. Sprinkle with extra cinnamon and sugar. 

Bake 25 minutes until lightly browned. Remove to wire rack for cooling.   

Fruit-Filled Almond Shortbread Cookies

A friend saw another friend post a picture of these on Facebook, so off I went in search of a recipe online. There are several similar ones.

My friends and I decided to follow this recipe on food.com, but we used cherry cake and pastry filling as well as lemon curd instead of the prescribed raspberry jam. 

A couple weeks later, I made these cookies again. This time I used seedless black raspberry jam. All three variations were yummy.

Fruit-Filled Almond Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 cups flour
1/2 cup fruit filling*
1 cup powdered sugar
3 teaspoons water
1/2 teaspoon almond extract     
 *you can use Solo brand cake & pastry filling, lemon curd, or seedless jelly or jam

In a mixer bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Mix in the almond extract. Gradually add flour until dough forms a ball.

Cover and refrigerate for about an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Roll into small balls. We discovered small (less than 1-inch) balls worked better than bigger ones. Place onto ungreased cookie sheet. With the front knuckle of your forefinger, make an indentation in the cookie. 

Fill this indentation with a small amount of fruit filling. (I found it easiest to use a pastry bag fitted with a large round opening to fit the jam into the indentation.)

Bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes. Remove and place on wire rack for cooling.

When the cookies are cool, combine the last three ingredients to make a glaze. Drizzle glaze over cookies in a zig-zag fashion.

Chocolate-Cherry Bonbons

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. A good number of cookies have been baked in the last two weeks, so I should have some good blog content for the next month or so. 

I'll start off my Christmas cookie wrap-up with a cookie I made in early December. It's a variation of Rachel Ray's Chocolate-Orange Bonbons. Since I had no candied orange peel around, I used dried cherries instead. Yummy! 

Chocolate-Cherry Bonbons 

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 egg 
1 teaspoon vanilla 
1 egg white 
1/2 cup cocoa powder 
1-1/4 cups flour 
1 teaspoon baking powder 
1/2 cup chopped dried cherries 
1/3 cup white chocolate chips 
1/4 cup powdered sugar 
4 ounces semisweet chocolate 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

In mixer, cream sugar, butter, and salt until well blended. Add egg, vanilla, and egg white. Beat for one minute. 

Add cocoa powder and blend at medium speed. Add flour and baking powder. Blend until thoroughly combined. Stir in half of chopped dried cherries (save other half for topping) and white chocolate chips. 

Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Shape dough into balls and roll in powdered sugar. Place on prepared pans. Bake one pan at a time. If you have a second pan ready, place it in the refrigerator until first pan is finished in oven. Bake 15 minutes. Cool two minutes before removing to wire rack. 

Melt semisweet chocolate in microwave-safe bowl, stirring occasionally until chocolate is smooth. Top cookies with melted chocolate and chopped dried cherries. Let set (about 1 hour) before storing.

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

I know that it's rather late in the season for pumpkin, but here's one more recipe. Maybe you can save it for next year. :)

The original recipe came from the Kraft web site. I adapted it slightly so that it would fit in a regular pie plate instead of a springform pan.

(P.S. Don't my friends have very elegant dinnerware? You can tell this classy photo wasn't taken at my house!)
 

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake

Ingredients:
1-1/3 cup finely crushed ginger snap cookies
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 can pumpkin
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix ginger snap crumbs, chopped pecans, and melted butter. Press into bottom and up sides of pie plate.

In large mixer bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar. Mix in pumpkin, spice, and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time. Mix on low speed until blended. Pour into crust.

Bake 35-40 minutes. If cheesecake starts to crack, take it out right away. Cool. Refrigerate about 3-4 hours before serving.

Cookies of Christmas Past

I don't have a new recipe for this week yet, so I thought I'd post links to some of my favorite Christmas cookie recipes from past Christmases. Imagine you're Ebenezer Scrooge, and you've just been visited by . . .

Cookies of Christmas Past!

First up is Melting Snowman Oreo Balls.

Next is a recipe I've made several times in different variations: Candy Cane Snowballs.


The slightly difficult but definitely yummy Egg Nog Cups.


If you're Italian, you might enjoy some Cucidati.



Want something easy and simple? How about some Holiday Rice Krispie Treats?

And who could forget Mom's famous rum balls!

Stay tuned to see what I'm baking up this year!

Caramel Pumpkin Mousse Tart with Pecan Crumble

A few weeks ago, I posted an entry asking people to vote for what I should make for a special Thanksgiving dinner party with friends. After some fiercely close voting, the winner was . . . 

Caramel Pumpkin Mousse Tart 

with Pecan Crumble

 
I will not post the recipe here since you can easily find it on the Kraft website, and I didn't make any changes to it. Instead, here's a quick pictorial description of what I did. 

Step #1--Crush Nilla wafers. This is also called "Having fun with a rolling pin." 

Step #2--Press the crushed wafers and melted butter into the tart pan, and in a pie plate mix together the ingredients for the pecan crumble (basically: pecans, more crushed wafers, brown sugar, butter, pumpkin pie spice). Bake. 

Step #3--Beat pumpkin, cream cheese, more pumpkin pie spice, vanilla pudding and milk. Pour into tart pan and top with Cool Whip. Refrigerate. 

Step #4--Plate it. Before you serve it, top it with pecan crumble and drizzle with caramel sauce.

Yummy!