Tag: Cookies

Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies

Sadie1 Comment

The first time I made this recipe was a baking revelation for me.  It was a few years ago and I was looking for a few unique cookie recipes to try in the Thanksgiving/Christmas time period because we expecting a considerable amount of visitors at my parents house.  I was relatively green in the baking realm at this point and I remember poking around some websites and trying to come up with some good recipes to try. I ended up pulling a few from Martha of course, because she has always been a go-to of mine (with a grain of salt).

This recipe came from Martha, and it caught my eye because it was a make ahead dough and the flavors added a good diversity to the recipes I had already picked to make.  I was intriuged by the addition of cream cheese to the batter.  At this point I only really knew how cream cheese worked in cheesecakes or cream cheese brownies.  I was definitely pleasently surprised.

The cookies, which I reently made for the “coffee break” a few weeks ago, are great with a hot beverage because they are kind of plain and crumbly.  They function similarly to shortbread but the cream cheese gives them a little bit more moisture than typical shortbread. And I love the addition of the walnuts to add some flavor and crunch.  Like I said above, they are a great make ahead dough.  You make the dough days or weeks in advance, and form it into logs.  When you’re ready to bake them you just slice the logs and bake them off. It’s basically the equvilant of when you buy sugar cookie dough logs from the store to slice and bake, except the dough is home made.  So frankly, not only the ingredients, but the method was a revelation for me.Cookie tray

Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies

Yeilds about 50 cookies depending on size (it’s a big batch, feel free to cut it in half), adapted from Martha

Ingredients

  • 4 cups AP flour
  • 1 1/4 tsp coarse salt
  • 2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
  • 6 ounces cream cheese (not whipped), room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 2 Tbs plus 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 1/2 cups walnut halves (1 1/2 cups toasted and coarsely chopped and 1 cup finely chopped)

Method

  1. Combine flour with salt and set aside.
  2. Cream together cream cheese and butter to a uniform whipped consistency with an electric mixer.  Add sugar and mix until combined. Then add vanilla.
  3. Gradually add in flour then fold in the first 1 1/2 cups of chopped walnuts.
  4. Divide the dough into logs that are as thick as the desired diameter of your cookies.  Then wrap them in parchment and plastic and chill overnight.
  5. Preheat the oven to 350.
  6. Roll the chilled logs of dough in the remaining finely chopped walnuts and slice into cookies.slice it up
  7. Bake 18-20 minutes until slightly golden brown.  Allow to cool and enjoy!ta da!

Off Season

Sadie2 Comments

This past December I posted several of my favority Christmas cookie recipes, but I did not actually document every cookie I made. Each year I try to make a mix of traditional family favorites, and new recipes we are less familiar with. One of those new recipes this year came from a good friend of mine.  My friend Elizabeth over at Food-Ramblings brought some of her ricotta cookies over to my house one night to snack on while we watched TV.  After giving them a try, I knew I had a new cookie recipe to try. When Christmas rolled around, my family definitely concurred.  At one point my brother and his girlfriend were rationing the ricotta cookies in the little box of cookies I gave them to bring home.

The great thing about these cookies is that they are a good neutral.  They have a light, fresh taste with a small dollup of easy frosting: perfect!  Last week I was asked to make a few cookies for a “coffee break” event at my school and I thought these would be a perfect addition to the cookie tray.  Since they are more plain in flavor, they work really well as a compliment to coffee and tea, but they are also tasty enough to stand on their own. Needless to say, these were a big hit at the coffee break! It’s proof that they work twelve months a year!cookie tray

Ricotta Cookies

Yeilds about 80 cookies depending on size (halve the recipe for a more managable amount), from Food Ramblings

Ingredients

Cookies

  • 1 cup butter, melted
  • 1 1/2 cups part-skim ricotta cheese (basically a whole small container)
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 4 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder

Frosting

  • 2 Tbs butter, melted
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 2 Tbs milk (I actually used almond milk and it worked great)
  • 1 Tbs vanilla
  • food coloring (I have made these in pink and green)

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 375.
  2. Use an electric mixer to cream together the butter, ricotta, and sugar.  Once that mixture is uniform, light, and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time.  Then add the vanilla.
  3. In a separate bowl combine the flour and baking powder.  Slowly add the flour and baking powder mixture to the wet mixture.  Mix until combined but try no to over mix.
  4. Portion the cookie dough out with a small ice cream scoop or teaspoon.  These cookies are (in my experience) made pretty small, and they do puff up a little when they bake.  Place the small balls of cookie dough on a parchement lined cookie sheet and bake about 12 minutes until they are just looking set and ever so slightly golden brown.right out of the oven
  5. While the cookies are cooling, whip together the frosting ingredients.  Make sure the cookies are completely cool before you frost them. Otherwise, they frosting will just slide right off.delicious

 

Do you have any Christmas cookies that you like to make year round?

Cookie Tray

Sadie5 Comments

So I volunteered to make some cookie trays for a “coffee talk” at school. After some self inflicted hemming and hawing on my part, I put together a list of five different cookies to include on the trays. I thought since it’s for a coffee and tea break, I should include simple cookies that pair well with a hot beverage.  The event was late morning so it needed to be things that weren’t too sugary, but past the breakfast pastry stage.  This immediately brings me to shortbread or similarly dry cookies like biscotti.  I’ve already made the standard shortbread several times for things at school so I thought I would add some variation.

With those considerations in mind, I decided to make Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies, Ricotta Cookies, and Double Chocolate Walnut biscotti (to add some chocolate to the mix).  Then since it was near purim, I felt compelled to make Hamentashen.  And to roundout the tray I added some small brownie squares.

Voila!cookies!yum

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be posting the recipes for the Cream Cheese Walnut Cookies, Ricotta Cookies, and Double Chocolate Walnut Biscotti.  Get Excited!