Chocolate pretzels

Woo Who Rain! I'm only half kidding! But I made it into kitchen and made some yummy cookies. Aren't they cute? Little chocolate pretzels. This was a fun project for my little helper.  But he couldn't make the pretzel shape, so he made various shapes. The one that was his favorite was the "L" shape.  I wonder why?! ha ha. I paired these with a caramel sauce and they were fantastic. Way better then my complete mess up last week. 

Chocolate Pretzels:

1 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 cup salted butter

2/3 cup sugar

1 egg

sugar crystals

In a medium bowl combine the flour and cocoa powder. In a electric mixer cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg. Then add the flour and cocoa powder mixture. Mix until combined. Form the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for 1 hour or freeze for 30 min. Preheat the oven to 375* Roll the dough into 20 small balls. Roll each ball into a rope. With each rope form a heart shape with the ends overlapping to cross in the center.  Sprinkle the cookies with some crystal sugar.  place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake for 12-15. transfer to a rack and let cool. 

I cheated and used pre-made caramel sauce that I had in my fridge for some ice cream.  But here is a link for some great caramel sauce that I make from time to time. Caramel Sauce from the food network.  I hope you enjoy these fun cookies!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Rollin' Momma http://rollinmomma.blogspot.com/
Chocolate chip cookies are classic! 
They are always easy to whip up and one of my most favorite cookies. For this batch I used whole wheat flour. But using all purpose flour works out great too.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1/4 cup + 2 TBS soft unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 TBS vanilla extract
1 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tso baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
6 oz chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350.
In the bowl of a electic mixer combine the butter and sugars. Beat together till fluffy about 3 min. Add the egg and beat till incorporated.  Scrape the sides and bottom down then add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Just mix till it comes together. Add the chocolate chips and combine. Spoon into rounded tablespoons on parchment lined sheet pans. Smash down into small disks. Bake for 10-13 mins. Rotate the pans half way through the baking process. I got about 25 cookies. They are so so yummy enjoy!

Homemade Tagalongs

Last week I made homemade samoas. Now it's only fitting that I make my 2nd favorite kind of girl scout cookies this week. Tagalongs are the peanut butter patties covered in chocolate with a cookie crunch. This cookie will be less involved then the samoas. Tagalongs use the same shortbread cookie base as the samoas so you could make both cookies in the same day if you wanted to.

Shortbread cookie:

1 cup  unsalted butter, soft
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups  flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
In the bowl of a mixer combine the butter and sugar and beat till light and fluffy- about 3min. In a different bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Once the butter/sugar is ready add the flour in 4 parts making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl between each addition. Once all the flour is in, add the milk and vanilla. Mix till combined (not very long)- At this point the cookie dough is made and needs to be chilled in the fridge for about 1 hour. Once the dough is chilled it will be ready to roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut out. All you need is 1 large round cookie cutter. Bake them at 350 for 10-12 min. turning half way through. I got 3 1/2 dozen cookies. 


Peanut Butter Filling:
8oz peanut butter- creamy
1 cup powdered suagr
1-2 TBS milk
In a large bowl combine the peanut butter and sugar together. This will take some muschle - so if you have a electric mixter just toss it all in there, and beat with a paddle. If the mixer is too dry add a little milk as needed to make it plyable and easy to work with. 

2 cups dark chocolate chips - (or milk if you prefer)

Assembly:
Once the peanut butter filling is made I bet your cookies have cooled. I found the easiest way to get the fillling on the cookie was using a pastry bag (if you don't have one you can use a plastic baggie and cut a smallish hole in the tip) and just pipe a small mound of filling and press down with your fingers. Now melt the chocolate in a double boiler or microwave. The easiest way to dip the cookies would be to dunk in and completely cover and fish out with a fork  and let the excess chocolate drip off. Then set back on the sheet pan coveed with parchment, wax paper or even plastic wrap. After all the cookies are dipped let them dry and enjoy. 

Homemade Samoas

  I always thought of Girl Scout cookies of magical and mysterious cookies that nobody could make. But not anymore, I have cracked the code! Beginning with the hardest cookie to make in my opinion Samoas. In my world there are really only 3 kinds of girl scout cookies- Samoas, Tagalongs, and Thin Mints. I know it's really easy to just buy some cookies from the lovely girls scouts. But what happens when the cookies are all gone?  Now with a little preparation and a little time you too can make your own samoas!
Lets get started this one has a ton of steps-

Shortbread cookie:
1 cup  unsalted butter, soft
1/2 cup sugar
2 cups  flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 TBS milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
In the bowl of a mixer combine the butter and sugar and beat till light and fluffy- about 3min. In a different bowl combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Once the butter/sugar is ready add the flour in 4 parts making sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl between each addition. Once all the flour is in, add the milk and vanilla. Mix till combined (not very long)- At this point the cookie dough is made and needs to be chilled in the fridge for about 1 hour. Once the dough is chilled it will be ready to roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut out. All you need is 1 large round cookie cutter and 1 smaller round cookie cutter. I didn't have a small one - but I did have a small heart- it worked out just fine. Bake them at 350 for 10-12 min. turning half way through. I got 3 1/2 dozen cookies. 

Caramely Coconuty Topping:
3 cups sweetened coconut shredded
15 oz store-bought or Homemade Caramel
3 TBS milk
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate 
If you are making the caramel try out this recipe Homemade Caramels. I did just because I had everything I needed, and I like to make things way harder then they are supposed to be. The only thing I didn't have was the heavy cream (kinda important in caramel) so I made my own heavy cream. Might I add probably not the best idea, but it worked out alright. 
To toast the coconut preheat the oven to 350 and spread it along a cookie sheet, bake for about 10 min turning half way. Coconut burns really easy so watch it.  If you bought caramels then melt them in the microwave or double boiler, add the milk and toasted coconut- if it's too thick add a little more milk.
 How to assemble:
Now that the cookies are baked and cooled, while the caramel coconut filling is still warm pour into a plastic bag and cut a smallish hole, big enough to let the coconut through but not too big that it's hard to control. and now pipe the topping in a circle shape onto the cookie. Once you have done a whole tray go back through and with a spoon flatten the topping out to the edges, it should begin to cool by this time.

The finishing touches:  Melt the dark chocolate in the microwave or double boiler, and dip each cookie in only covering the bottom half of the cookie. With a spoon drizzle the tops of the cookie with chocolate stripes. WOW! now that was a handful ! let the chocolate dry on the cookies and enjoy!

Ranger Cookies

Ranger cookies have been around since the 1950's. I heard of them them a few years back when I was working at a small bakery. They had made them in the past, but had been taken out of the rotation  Anyways I put them out of my head till a few days ago when I was brainstorming for cookie Thursday. Turns out that there is a ton of stuff in ranger cookies including oats, coconut, chocolate and cereal. For the kiddos they are great with a glass of milk, for the adults maybe a cup of coffee would complement them well. These cookies are easy to assemble and this batch makes about 4 dozen medium sized cookies.

Ranger Cookies:

1 cup  butter soft
3/4 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
2  eggs
2 cups Flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup  rolled oats 
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup  chocolate chunks
3 cups  rice cereal - I used rice chex

In a large bowl combine flour, baking soda, baking powder. In the bowl of a electric mixer combine the butter, sugars, vanilla and salt. Beat on medium speed for about 3 min, then add the eggs one at a time. Once everything is incorperated scrape down the sides. Add the flour mix and combine. Then add the oats, coconut, chocolate chunks and rice chex and lightly mix. Preheat the oven to 350 and line baking pans with parchment or lightly spray. Scoop the cookies into mounded tablespoons and lightly flatten. Then bake for 10-14 min till light brown around the edges. Let the cookies cool for a few and enjoy! They are so yummy! 

Pecan Melt Cookies

Mixer Surgery

I was lucky that I made cookies for cookie Thursday before my mixer broke down. It was mixing fine until it wasn't. That is how fast it takes for a gear to break. That turned into another project called- lets try and figure out whats wrong with the mixer... hours later I learned that it was a $5 gear that I needed to replace. I was so happy that I didn't have to get a new mixer. In a way I'm glad that I took the whole thing apart, cause now I know the inner workings of my mixer.
Now on with the yummy pecan chocolate cookies. This original recipe came from Martha Stewart and used walnuts only. But I saw potental in changing the nuts and adding chocolate. I also used half whole wheat flour and half white flour. They still turned out great. If you don't have pecans you could use almonds, hazelnuts or even walnuts. Let's get on with Cookie Thursday!

This dough has no eggs in it so it's safe to eat raw. 

Pecan Melt Cookies:
Adapted from Martha Stewart's- cream cheese walnut cookies
6oz cream cheese (not whipped) at room temp
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
 2 TBS vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips, chopped
1 1/2 cups pecan pieces toasted and chopped fine
1 cup pecan pieces chopped fine

Combine the flours, and salt. Set aside. Cream butter and cream cheese in a electric mixer for 2 min till light and fluffy. Mix in the sugar and the vanilla. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add the flour/salt. Mix to combine don't overmix. Then fold in the toasted pecans (cooled) and chocolate pieces.

Take the dough out of the bowl and divide into 2 logs, rolling in parchment paper or plastic wrap. Freeze till firm about 30 min.  While the dough is chilling preheat the oven to 350. Unwrap 1 log and roll in 1/2 cup of the remaining pecans and repeat with the other log. Cut the log into 1/4 inch thick rounds, and arrange on a cookie sheet with parchment. they don't spread much so they can be fairly close to each other.  Bake the cookies for 15-19 min  until golden around the edge (don't forget to rotate the pan half way through- ALWAYS do this with cookies) This makes about 4 dozen cookies. I only baked 1 log and I am saving the other log for later. Since we have cookies every week I try and not have too many around.